Oh what a tangled web we weave...........

The cash for honours scandal is tightening its grip on an ever more discredited British government which has seen Lord Michael Levy , the Government's chief fund raiser, arrested and interviewed under caution, likewise Ruth Turner the Head of Government Relations. Ms Turner was subject to the humiliation of a dawn raid on her home and was forced to dress in front of a policewoman. Tony Blair has been interviewed as a 'witness' - but has become the first serving Prime Minister to be interviewed in connection with a criminal investigation which has now been going on for over a year.







The basic question is whether the Blair government offered the promise of peerages in exchange for sizable donations to the Labour Party, a criminal offence under the 1925 Act. It now seems to have spiraled from that to investigations into perverting the course of justice.

The BBC was thwarted last Friday in its attempts to broadcast some breaking news on the issue as the Attorney General took out an injunction to stop the programme being aired. However since the Guardian newspaper successfully appealed against a similar injunction, the BBC is now free to air its story...and a squalid story it seems to be.

It transpires that an e mail was sent from Ruth Turner to Jonathan Powell, the Prime Minister's Press Secretary saying she was 'uncomfortable' with a request made to her by Lord Levy concerning a statement she had made to police. One suggestion coming from this cryptic exchange is that Levy tried to get Ms Turner to change her statement. He denies this and says there have been 'distortions and misunderstandings' but there is growing evidence that Levy could well be charged by the police in connection with this matter.

All this leaves a giant egg on the face of Tony Blair - and so it should. Almost from the start of his Premiership and the hidden donations from Bernie Ecclestone, the Formula One car chief, Labour's financial dealings have been mired in sleaze. The question being asked tonight about the 'cash for honours' issue is did the Prime Minister know? I believe he damn well should have known....and if he didn't it was because he didn't WANT to know, provided the money for his political party continued to roll in. His 'See no evil, hear no evil' approach to this issue has led him down a tawdry path of being a suspect - or at least an involved witness - in a criminal investigation.

Blair must wonder what is coming out of the woodwork next because an angry Lord Levy feels he is the government fall-guy and I don't think he will go quietly. He is a high profile figure in Blair's scheme of things too, being a major contributor to Jewish causes and the central figure in The Labour Friends of Israel. He has been described by The Jerusalem Post as the most significant figure in British Jewry. The Jewish fraternity in the UK is furious at his treatment and there are even mutterings of an anti-semitic undertone to the way Levy appears to have been hung out to dry.

Whether this is true I have no idea but without doubt the fall-out from this affair must be a nightmare for the Prime Minister and deservedly so. He has given the green light, overtly or otherwise for the Labour Party to acquire funds by whatever means were possible and he employed Levy, former pop star manager and owner of Magnet records, for just that purpose. Blair has clearly not set rules in place and boundaries which should not be broken, or if he has then he has neglected their enforcement and I fear that he and his government are soon to reap what they have sown.