LONDON, July 13: The top fundraiser of British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labour Party spent Thursday being questioned by police in a loans-for-Lordships scandal, and newspapers said police could have questions for Blair himself.
A long-simmering party finance scandal boiled over onto the front pages this week when police arrested Labour fundraiser Lord Michael Levy, 62, who is also Blair’s sometime tennis partner and personal envoy to the Middle East.
Levy has been bailed without charge, but the scandal has hurt Blair and added to calls that he stand down amid a series of sex, sleaze and incompetence allegations that have surrounded several members of his cabinet over the past few months.
Police are investigating allegations that Labour promised lordships — state honours which come with life-long seats in the House of Lords — in return for secret loans.
Levy returned to a police station on Thursday to answer more questions, and a spokesman for him called his arrest an ‘entirely theatrical’ stunt that whipped up a ‘media circus’. “Lord Levy has always been ready and willing to co-operate and to meet the police at any time of their choosing,” the spokesman said in a statement.
“This underlines that the arrest was unnecessary, disproportionate and, as has been described by others, entirely theatrical. The only result has been a media circus which has distracted from the issues under consideration.”—Reuters
