LONDON: The general secretary of Britain’s ruling Labour party announced his resignation on Monday over a secret party funding revelation, in the latest blow to Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
Peter Watt admitted that he had failed to properly report a donation of nearly 400,000 pounds by a wealthy but secretive businessman, reported by newspapers over the weekend.
“Once I discovered this error, I immediately notified the officers of the (Labour party) national executive committee,” he said in a statement. “I take full responsibility for the Labour Party’s reporting obligations.”
Businessman David Abrahams made the donations via a number of his business colleagues and staff, by giving them sums of money which they then deposited in Labour’s coffers, press reports indicated. The ruling party is known to be financially stretched, in particular because it recently spent money preparing for a much-tipped general election campaign, called off at the last minute by Mr Brown.
Brown, who succeeded Tony Blair in May, has suffered a series of setbacks recently, starting with the on-off elections followed by the Northern Rock banking crisis, and the loss of sensitive data on 25 million Britons last week.
Blair’s last year in office was clouded by the so-called cash-for-honour row over party funding, which focussed on allegations that wealthy donors paid for peerages and other honours. Prosecutors eventually rejected the charges.—AFP
