Posted on 11/09/2006 12:47:32 AM PST by bruinbirdman
Tony Blair is determined to keep the door to No 10 closed to detectives in an attempt to limit the embarrassment of being the first serving prime minister in 70 years to be interviewed in a political corruption inquiry.
Scotland Yard has not made contact with Mr Blair, who has told his officials to ensure that the interview, possibly under caution, should take place in the seclusion of Chequers or at his office in the Commons.
The Prime Minister and his advisers are mortified by the prospect of officers crossing the Downing Street threshold in the glare of television cameras that would broadcast the images around the world.
One Whitehall source said last night: "They are in a state of near meltdown over this. It is the only issue that Blair's advisers can focus on. It is dominating everything else. They just don't know how this will play out. The last thing they want is the police coming in for a cosy chat. They are not going to let it happen."
The Daily Telegraph disclosed yesterday that Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, and other leading Cabinet ministers were to be questioned over what they knew about the £14 million of secret loans that financed last year's election campaign.
It emerged that a large number of Cabinet ministers, including Mr Brown, had been approached by police to tell what they knew about the loans and the peerage nominations for four millionaire supporters that were blocked by the Lords Appointments Commission. Ruth Kelly, the Communities Secretary, was one of the first targeted by officers because when she was Education Secretary before the election she had responsibility for Mr Blair's flagship City Academy programme.
Des Smith, an adviser to the body charged with raising sponsorship for the academies, was the first person to be arrested in the inquiry.
Two of the businessmen whose peerage nominations were blocked, in addition to their secret loans, also pledged more than £4 million for the academies.
Alan Milburn, who was brought back into Cabinet in 2004 to mastermind election preparations, confirmed that he had been interviewed. He said: "Following a request from police, I have been interviewed as a witness. The police stressed I was not a suspect and the interview did not take place under caution."
David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, who was schools minister at the time of the election, received a letter from police a few days ago. "He does not expect to be called in for questioning," said a spokesman.
Mr Brown, whose officials said he would co-operate with the police, has maintained that he never knew about the loans that financed the campaign, which he masterminded after Mr Milburn was sidelined. But Mr Brown has close links to two of the businessmen who made them.
He appointed Sir Christopher Evans, the bioscience entrepreneur, to head the UK Stem Cell task force around the time he made a secret £1 million loan to Labour. Mr Brown allocated £100 million to stem cell research as a result of the task force's proposals.
Sir Christopher was the third person to be arrested in the police investigation.
Weeks after Rod Aldridge, the head of Capita, made a £1 million loan to Labour, Mr Brown made him chairman of V, the government charity youth volunteering service.
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the temperature at 10 Downing all of a sudden seems to be rising,, must be global warming.
This looks pretty serious -- what do you think?
"'Allo, Vicar-Sergeant!"
"Ah, Detective-Parson, ma'am."
This won't bring Blair down; he's already on his way out. It's just yet another corruption enquiry in a massively corrupt government that got into office due to the UK's being tired of the Tory party's corruption.
In some ways Tony Blair has been fantastic for the UK; in other ways he's been a disaster...but either way his time is up and it's high time he left office and let Gordon Brown in so he can lose to David Cameron in the next general election.
Didn't David Lloyd-George's downfall also come with a Peerage or honours scandal?
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