Justin Bieber date stolen by the Tories

The Tories slipped ten grand into party coffers recently, proceeds from auctioning backstage passes to meet Justin Bieber.

Trouble is, Universal records, who donated the prize, thought they were giving the tickets to charity:

In a statement, the Canadian star's label Universal UK said it thought it was donating to the government-backed GREAT campaign "to help spread the word globally about the UK's culture, heritage and creativity".

It added: "As part of that support we have donated tickets and Meet & Greet passes."

The Tories claim otherwise:

In response, a Conservative party spokesman said: "The Black and White Party is a Conservative party fundraising event.

"The tickets and access to Justin Bieber were donated to that event.

"Universal were aware that the money would go towards Conservative party campaigning."

So, the choice we have is do we believe a record label or the Tory party?

In this case, given the care that Universal have taken to create a frictionless, valueless, empty bucket with Justin Bieber's face on it, it seems more likely that they didn't intend to imply he was endorsing a political party.

Which puts the Tories in something of a tight spot. If they had snaffled prizes that were intended to promote the UK and used them to line their own pockets, that's bad.

If they then lied about it, why, that would be disgraceful.

Let's hope for Central Office's sake it's Universal who are lying, eh?