Housing Scandal Rocks Britain’s Tories
Britain’s ruling Conservative Party was rocked Thursday by an independent inquiry that found leaders of an area council in the capital guilty of a $47-million homes-for-votes racket.
District Auditor John Magill, who audits the accounts of local authorities, said Westminster Council in central London had deliberately cleared tenants from council apartments in marginal voting districts and then sold them off at low prices to people more likely to vote Conservative.
“The intention . . . was to seek to manipulate the composition of the electorate to gain an unfair advantage for the Conservative Party,” the report said.
It ordered former council leader and supermarket heiress Lady Shirley Porter, one current council member, a former member and three officials to be surcharged. This means they must--to the best of their financial abilities--repay the estimated losses to the council caused by selling homes at low prices.
Porter said she will appeal.
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