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“Senior Conservatives are plotting an audacious “cash-for-seats” offer to Nick Clegg, where the Liberal Democrat leader would back a Conservative-friendly Commons boundary review in exchange for millions in state funding for his party…senior Tory figures have told the Financial Times that they believe the cash-strapped Lib Dems would be susceptible to the offer. “They are basically out of money,” one minister said. Another minister confirmed that the idea of buying off the Lib Dems with public money was being actively pursued: “There is a plot,” the minister said.”
Call it “cash-for-seats”. Call it whatever you like. But the honest name for this, were it to happen, would be a bribe…*
* – the 2010 Bribery Act describes Bribery thus – when a person offers, gives or promises to give a “financial or other advantage” to another individual in exchange for “improperly” performing a “relevant function or activity”.
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