February 19, 2002	Tuesday	Zilhaj 6, 1422

LONDON, Feb 18: The British press on Monday raised questions about the honesty of Prime Minister Tony Blair who has failed to shrug off allegations of sleaze in connection with government aid to an Indian tycoon.

“The opposition is right to call for an inquiry so that clarity can be achieved, even if we know that Mr Blair’s motives in this, as in the Ecclestone affair and in the continuing car-boot sale of knighthoods and peerages, is more an eagerness to please than outright corruption,” wrote the centre-left The Independent in an editorial.

“How is that such a man has become involved with so many cash-for-favours cases?” asked the right-wing Daily Telegraph.

“Mr Blair is not, in the normal sens of the word, corrupt,” it went on. “His fault, rather, lies in the belief that the end justifies the means.

“If a wealthy man wishes to support the Project (of the ruling Labour Party) financially, he is to be trusted and favoured.”

Britain’s opposition on Sunday had demanded an independent inquiry into exactly how much Blair’s government helped Indian tycoon Lakshmi Mittal secure the purchase of a Romanian steel firm.

The government confirmed it had helped secure a 70 million pound “soft” loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) to enable Mittal to buy Romania’s huge newly-privatized steel firm, Sidex.

The row centres on a letter Blair sent last year to the Romanian government backing Sidex’s sale to Mittal, who is Indian but lives in Britain.

Several weeks earlier, Mittal had donated 125,000 pounds to Labour coffers — something Blair’s spokesman insists he was unaware of.

In 1997, after Formula One chief Bernie Ecclestone had donated one million pounds to Labour party coffers, the government began arguing that Formula One should be exempt from an imminent ban on lucrative tobacco advertising. In the resulting furore, Ecclestone’s donation was returned.—AFP