Blair Aide Arrested - Questioned by Police
20th July, 2007
ALL OVER NOW
And no-one is to be charged. What a waste of time and money. All that personal and political grief. I expect a police inquiry to follow.
16th July, 2007
CASH-FOR-HONOURS
Some time soon it’s going to end - please! If it ends with someone being charged - Lord Levy, say - as is being suggested - it’ll hardly be “the end” for those in the spotlight, including the former PM. Lord Levy may well be charged with attempting ‘to pervert the course of justice’, a charge with more serious consequences than that of selling titles.
It seems that Levy’s solicitors have informed the CPS that should he be charged he will call Tony Blair as a defence witness. Read more here
I can’t make up my mind as to what Mr Blair thinks about this. On the one hand he is already infamous as the first PM to have been interviewed by police in a criminal case - three times even. Does he now want to be the first to appear in court against the prosecution? The Crown versus Levy?
On the other hand, the mud that sticks might be finally washed off if he takes the stand and clears Lord Levy, others and himself from suspicion. The kick in the teeth the SNP and Plaid Cymru would get for this might be reward enough, morally as well as politically. And the potential impact on politics should not be under-stated given that both nationalist parties presently hold power in Scotland and Wales.
Still, it’s a risky business, and the former PM would be under oath. And given much of the feral press’s inability to believe anything that Mr Blair says, evidenced by their widespread lack of acceptance of Butler or Hutton, would they still be tempted to continue to fight the battle afterwards even if it were lost through the courts?
The other unknown is that Tony Blair’s close aide Ruth Turner, who is working for him now post Downing Street in his interfaith foundation, may also have to take the stand as a prosecution witness. She is expected to escape charges herself, but would her evidence conflict with that of Mr Blair or any others who may be called?
A source close to the Crown Prosecution Service said: “The prosecutors are working on the assumption that she will be a hostile witness but her evidence will be vital.”
So the CPS want Ruth Turner as a witness, but not necessarily Mr Blair. And Levy’s side want Tony Blair as a witness, but not necessarily Ms Turner.
Whose nerve is the stronger?
15th March, 2007
Apart from the injunction two weeks ago concerning the BBC, Lord Levy and Ms Turner, nothing much has been happening and no-one has yet been clapped in irons.
Oh, but today Inspector, Slowly- But-Surely said that there is no time limit on his inquiry. Wish I had a job like that!
Keep abreast of happenings (or not) at the “Police - The State We’re In” page.
22nd February, 2007Questioned For A Third Time
Ruth Turner, answering her bail, has been questioned for a third time by Police.No comment.
19th January, 2007DRAGGED FROM HER BEDRuth Turner, Tony Blair’s head of government relations at Number 10, was awoken just after 6:00 am this morning by four burly police officers! Safety in numbers, eh? I suppose they had to make sure they could handle this great big Irish lass in case she landed a rugby tackle on them! I suppose we can be grateful they weren’t armed. Or were they? I don’t know. Do you?BEYOND BELIEF
It’s getting beyond belief. 
Whether this is the last throes of a dying inquiry, determined to show that it’s still determined, or a tightening of the noose around the PM’s neck, I have no idea.
Whatever, it’s no surprise that Mr Blair looks a little stressed now and again.
Do the Police under Yates of the Yard, really believe they serve the country well by this kind of operation?
It was humiliating enough questioning the Prime Minister himself on 14th December, though not under arrest nor under caution.
It was embarrassing enough that in April 2006, the highly respected head teacher Des Smith, associated with government flagship city academies was the first to be arrested and questioned under the 1925 Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act.
It was looking worse in July last year when Lord Levy, Labour’s Chief Fundraiser was arrested and questioned under caution.
Then on top of that Sir Christopher Evans, one of Europe’s top biotechnology entrepreneurs and a Labour donor and peer for several years, was “extremely shocked and dismayed” to be arrested in September 2006.
But now THIS?
Perverting the course of justice in the arrest and questioning of Ruth Turner seems to be the line that the police are now pursuing. So, in the absence of evidence on cash/loans for peerages is there the spectre of another charge looming? In that case it could be many months before the CPS takes the papers from Yates of the Yard, and makes its decision about whether to press charges, and on whom.
Meanwhile, after several hours questioning, Ms Turner was released without charge. Since she has been questioned before and freely offered any further help to the police at any time, why the melodramatic arrest?
And some close to the PM have finally snapped in their long-held and patient silence towards the Police Inquiry. “Theatrical” was the word earlier used about Lord Levy’s arrest, but this dawn raid by four officers on a young, highly respected employee is prima-donna theatrics!
If the police think that the reaction, largely sympathetic to the lady in question, has backfired against them, well, Police - police yourselves.
And if there is a fear of a cover-up and so a change of direction in possible charges, well, proof of that will still need to be found.
AND WHAT NEXT FOR THE POLICE TACTICS?
Are they now planning to snatch the PM off the plane after his next diplomatic trip and drag him in leg irons to Paddington Green? Or will they wait until he is about to speak to a group of schoolchildren in an inner city, to make sure they all get the message, before cuffing him and handing him an Asbo?
Seriously now. Hopefully this will not be Blair’s Watergate, the “cover-up” being the smoking gun. Not over something as trivial as this, surely?
WHY “TRIVIAL”?
The reason I use the word “trivial” is not to downplay the importance of selling peerages. Though this could easily be downplayed as, folks, it has always been done! Since time immemorial wealthy people have bought seats in the House of Lords.
Well, well, strike me pink and ermine! Isn’t that news to all of us?
In the day of the “great” Liberal Prime Minister Lloyd George, he used to advertise seats in the Lords for sale to the highest bidders! Yes, indeedy. And then he pocketed the money himself. Straight into his back pocket, no doubt to keep his lady friends in the manner to which they wished to become accustomed.
Yet HE never suffered the indignity of being questioned by the police.
Maundy Gregory sold honours for Lloyd George at prices between £310,000 at today’s prices for a peerage and £1.24 million for a baronetcy. Gregory was one of many to work in this way for PM Lloyd George. In 1933 Gregory was convicted under the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act 1925 of selling honours, fined £50 and jailed for two months.
Up to now Gregory remains the only person to have been tried and convicted under this statute. Hopefully it’ll stay that way.
Click here for a quick rundown of Questions and Answers over Cash/Loans for Peerages.
Click here for Cash-For-Honours time-line.
**********
Simon Jenkins says, “What this police inquiry is doing is forcing 
the British establishment, from the prime minister and lord chancellor down, to commit mass perjury.”
Click here for Simon Jenkins’ (yes, SIMON JENKINS’) views! All right, anyone who has read Jenkins recently knows that he is a heavy critic of this government and PM and perhaps his view has changed since he first wrote this article in The Guardian. But here’s a taster, anyway:
“What this police inquiry is doing is forcing the British establishment, from the prime minister and lord chancellor down, to commit mass perjury. Everyone with honours to distribute has sold them, since the dark ages. Everyone in the know is familiar with the nods, winks, euphemisms, lists, calculations, bank accounts - and with the aching, yearning, pleading for preferment on which the whole edifice is built. When Michael Foot drew up his first list of Labour peers back in 1980 his chief whip dismissed them on the grounds that “they have no money”.
And, continuing …
“A Commons committee has been forced to cut a pathetic figure, asking permission of Scotland Yard as to whom it can interview and when. Why this should prejudice a police inquiry is unclear. Lord Levy and others can always “plead the fifth” if they so choose. The committee cannot even force peers, whose creation is the subject of their inquiry, to appear before it. Though lobby journalists dutifully call select committees “influential” or “powerful”, this is misleading. They are impotent bystanders of government. (They never laid a finger on Blair over Iraq.)”
Well, surprise, surprise I agree with Simon Jenkins in his above analysis of the Police Inquiry. As the author of This House is God’s Gift to Dictatorship , with which I particularly disagreed, I AM surprised. This “Dictatorship” article started a turf war between Jenkins and fellow-scribbler Philip Cowley - The War of Jenkins’ Arse.
My comments are at the end of both of these articles.
**********
Matthew Parris says, “Downing Street has spoiled it for everyone”!
Matthew Parris’s article in the Times Online in November 2006, casts a somewhat skewed word of congratulations in his interpretation of “Blair’s legacy” following the peerages business.
“Few of us leave the legacies we intend, and one of Tony Blair’s may be this: by impatience, overconfidence and carelessness of the proprieties, Downing Street has kicked apart an ancient, elaborate and flimsy rat’s nest of Establishment corruption in the award of honours. It has broken the code, failed to understand the very British way we do these things. It has spoilt it for everyone.
This was probably not the reform Mr Blair intended nor the honour he wanted, but honour of a kind there ought to be in history for those who push things so far that they snap. However unwittingly, they introduce a kind of candour into politics. That is what Mr Blair and his friends have done.
It is to David Lloyd George and his rascally agent, Maundy Gregory, that we owe the Sale of Honours Act 1925. On Lloyd George’s behalf Gregory sold honours in so brazen and systematic a manner that the world was no longer able to look the other way. Odious though Gregory was, there was frankness in his approach”.
So, the Shop Rule Applies?
You broke it - it’s yours!
I’m sure that legacy should be some compensation for the Prime Minister as he sits in his cell, wondering how come his breaking of a nasty, centuries old political habit, has landed him alone amongst prime ministers, right in it!
P.S. Update Saturday 20th JanuaryAnd now the Police Federation is complaining that some senior Labour figures are none too happy about the dawn raid. A police spokesman said in regard to the politicians’ complaints,“What sort of undue pressure are they trying to bring?”To that, those under suspicion might well reply, “Ditto”.It seems that the reason for the dawn raid had something to do with searching Ms Turner’s home. Right. I expect that’s normal, and of course we DON’T expect other than normal treatment of anyone under any inquiry. The only small problem here is this.
If you or I were under investigation no-one, apart from the immediate neighbours, would know that the police had been at our door. For people in the public eye, and particularly at the top of government, it’s different. The press are on the ball, looking for every turn to excite the public. Being so “different” in its level of interest and possible repercussions, how can the police and those being investigated deal with the open nature of their every move, when each nuance provides more sticking mud for those looking for it? It’s a difficult one to handle. The spokesman of the Police Federation said today that MPs and the government should “concentrate on running the country”. Well, it would be nice if they could, but with this hanging over them, it can’t be that easy.
P.P.S. Update Sunday 21st January, 2007 - Downing Street Computers HackedAccording to The Telegraph, it now seems that Downing Street’s computers have been “hacked” in order to find information which the Police suspected had not been shown to them. This seems outrageous to me! I’m no legal expert but what exactly is going on here? You and I, who may have written to Downing Street for one reason or another, and many of us have, have now had our e-mails intercepted by Scotland Yard!? And all so that some Inspector can get a prime minister’s scalp! Well! What other sensible reason could there be? The Police are not always so scrupulous in investigating their own, as today’s news on the Northern Ireland shootings in association with the secret services in the 1990’s shows us.In this country we usually trust the Police implicitly, and rightly so. But it might just raise a few hackles if, when all of this business blows over, or worse still, it doesn’t, the end result is that the trust in the Police is diminished.I’m not a parliamentarian or a government employee, or in the pocket or pay of any party or government so presumably I am free to voice an opinion here. If Downing Street, a very important part of our government, is not sure whether or not its computers have been hacked there are ways of finding out; they should do so. I also hope that Number 10’s legal people are scrutinising the legality of this Scotland Yard action, if it happened, very carefully. Serious questions. Serious answers needed.Click here to read the most-up-to-date information on the PM.Click here to read the Political Parties, Elections & Referendums Act 2000
January 22, 2007 at 11:52 am
Hang on, I think you are totally missing the point…yes there are two opposing views
1) Blair & Co. are not guilty as have done nothing different from any other administration
2) Blair & Co. are as guilty as hell and Insp. Yates will hopefully nail them
In 1) you have to believe that the direct correllation between labour donors and lordships is usual in politics (no it is not) and all Labours financial dealings have been totally proper (no they haven’t - in which case why did they give £1M back to Bernie Ecclestone?)
In 2) you have to believe that basically Blair is a spiv who whilst not personally corrupt certainly believes that the end justifies the means, so what if he gives out a few peerages, the “loans” enable NuLab to continue in its “project”. This is what I believe
Remember that it’s not the offence that damages governments but the cover-up (see Watergate).
Perhaps you don’t think Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice a serious offence and share the view of Puttnam, Blunkett (a politician with credibility!! Not) and Jowell (the one of the dodgy and tax avoiding multiple mortgages) to think the police are prima-donnas and it’s grandstanding to arrest someone of Ruth Turners importance for a crime she’s clearly innocent of.
Well, if that is the case you seem to believe that Labour is above the law and are in for a big shock.
January 22, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Hello there,
To answer your points:
“1) Blair & Co. are not guilty as have done nothing different from any other administration
In 1) you have to believe that the direct correllation between labour donors and lordships is usual in politics (no it is not) and all Labours financial dealings have been totally proper (no they haven’t - in which case why did they give £1M back to Bernie Ecclestone?)”
I believe that the direct correlation between donors and lordships in ALL political parties is as clear as day and always has been. I don’t think it’s a good thing, but it’s nothing new. So how many other PMs and governments are going to be squeezed into the dock with Blair & co?
As to the question of Ecclestone, yes I concede that you have a point there, but they DID return the money when they realised how it was being interpreted. Not good enough for you, though it might be argued, if every case in history was looked at in detail, better than MOST administrations have done in the past.
I have never said that “all their financial dealings have been totally proper”. I, nor you, am not party to that kind of insider information. I should imagine that they use the rules to their best advantage as we all do in life.
I just don’t pass judgement on anyone until they are tried and found guilty. You obviously know better than I and can judge at THIS stage.
Your second point:
“2) Blair & Co. are as guilty as hell and Insp. Yates will hopefully nail them.
In 2) you have to believe that basically Blair is a spiv who whilst not personally corrupt certainly believes that the end justifies the means, so what if he gives out a few peerages, the “loans” enable NuLab to continue in its “project”. This is what I believe.”
A spiv - “Its first known use in print was in 1934: “Spiv, petty crook who will turn his hand to anything so long as it does not involve honest work”.
Blair? I don’t think so. Haven’t seen a PM work so hard, even now, under such personal stress.
The “loans”, “donations” whatever you call them are THE NORM! This money helps ANY and EVERY party continue their projects.
Admit it - you just don’t like New Labour’s project.
As to the cover-up, yes I agree here. I don’t know if you have seen Simon Jenkins’ article from May last year, but for once he was on the government’s side.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1776455,00.html
As for being “above the law”, well, they might be hoist on their own petard if their own recent law, brought in to promote transparency, is used against them. They are obviously NOT above the law. Well, no more than the Police themselves.
I just don’t think this inquiry should have been started in the first place, and for that I blame the ScotNats for instigating it as well as the Police for taking it on. Obviously neither of them have anything better to do than try to bring down a government/PM whose main sin is to have upset some of us.
How petty.
January 23, 2007 at 2:37 pm
I don’t think having the inquiry is unreasonable.
Some rich people give to charities and many also to political parties, that much is not at all new. These people have been lending money to political parties, which seems intended to be an evasion of the publicity which ensues from large donations.
That has made the public, and especially the crazies who suffer from Chronic anti-Blair/authority Hyperbolic Invective addiction.
The police seem to have acted in a bullying way to Blair’s aide, perhaps calculatedly to provoke the kind of establishment reaction which occurred. Seems likely they aren’t getting anywhere. When there are no prosecutions the politicians will be to blame - the Attorney General is it? Blair’s cronies they will say.
It can be taken as read that the police, on the whole, want a change of government. The idea that politicians are fair game is almost universal now.
January 23, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Oh my, Tony - you think in a convoluted way ;0)
Thought it was only politicians who were so inclined!
I don’t know if the Police are really up to something - trying to manipulate public opinion against the government - who, as you suggest are everyone’s fall guys. The police have had their hand strengthened by this government, so they should think twice about this if this is the case.
It just feels to me that Yates of the Yard wants to show off his much-heralded policing acumen and go down in history as the man who got Tony Blair. I could be wrong, of course.
Whatever, Blair will get the blame, either prosecuted or not. I expect we’ll need to wait a few years for his memoirs to disover his take on it all.
I still don’t see this lot as any worse than any previous government, in fact for personal weaknesses and “scandals” over ten years, they seem better than the last Tory government.
January 23, 2007 at 4:37 pm
Hi
Thanks for your kind reply. I am sorry you think my points petty, so please allow me the opportunity to respond.
I am perfectly prepared to admit I don’t like NuLabs project, so here goes “I don’t like NuLabs project”. Although I would ask you what is NuLabs project?
Is it to get elected, if so they have been highly successful and should be sadly for me, commended.
Is it to reform our society on the back of their vast majorities, to build a more fair and egalitarian society? If so, they what a let-down, our society is less fair and wealth is less evenly distributed than under the Thatcher or (awful) Major governments.
Is it to reform our public services, to give us an NHS that meets the needs of our people, a criminal justice system that protects the weak and the innocent and punishes the guilty and the criminal. What a joke! In the NHS we have spent epic sums of money yet have a service that is barely acceptable (sadly I can speak from bitter family experience) or a justice system that hands out fixed penalty notices to muggers and street robbers in London?
Is it to protect the poorest members of our society? We end up with half cocked working family credits…..
I digress…..
We are talking about political corruption, let me quote you some Labour examples to see if you will concede any points.
It is a fact that for investment in transport if you are in a Labour held constituency you are far more likely to get additional funding. In the NHS if you are in a labour constituency you are again far more likely not to have your services cut (the source is the Tories so you’ll probably dispute this)…Cuts! After all we have spent on the NHS. The mind boggles!
For me Labour got into power partially (or maybe mostly) because of the petty-corruption of the Major government. In power Labour have indulged in industrial scale sleaze and cronyism (look at the numbers of people excusing themselves from oversight of “Loans” for Lordships investigations because of links to either Tony Blair or the Labour Party! Or the board of the Lottery Commission, not many Tories there! Don’t get me started on the BBC and it’s labour ranks).
With regard to “Loans” for Lordships. Contrary to your assertions, Blair and the Labour Party may have broken four separate laws (ironically two of which Labour introduced).
1. Accepting party finance in return for promises of enoblement is illegal under the 1925 Act Prevention of Abuses (Honours).
2. Failing to declare the loans to parliament is illegal under PPERA 2000…based on the evidence in the media.
3. Failing to declare, er, 14M in loans in the party accounts is false accounting and in breach of the companies act and PPERA 2000 (I believe)
4. And the biggie…hiding or concealing evidence, lying to the police and being obstructive, wearing out the blades on the No.10 shredder. Conspiracy to Pervert the Course of Justice…Your outrage about her being pulled from her bed at 0630 is misplaced. This is a very very serious allegation, with very harsh penalties as it goes to the heart of our criminal justice system.
Finally, do you think Tony could go onto TV tonight and claim to be a “Pretty Straight Kind of Guy”?
January 23, 2007 at 6:24 pm
I think I am following Michael White re the way the aide was treated, other more senior suspects have had appointments made for their interrogations he said.
Life is like that, these police are on this case, and no other I suppose. I am afraid people are that manipulative and self seeking.
These are loans for peerages accusations, and that is a good deal less serious than the at times routine corruption in previous governments. Cash for questions was the most obvious.
At least one lawyer MP even demanded payment in shares in a small company for drafting a bill which only an MP could introduce in Mrs Thatcher’s day, and that was quite legal as I understand it! Scandalous though.
January 23, 2007 at 8:33 pm
Tony.
Are you referring to this Michael White article?
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/michael_white/2007/01/post_949.html
Well, who knows? Certainly if you believe that they are all manipulative and capable of purposely dropping a young woman in it if it keeps the law off their backs, maybe so. Or it could just be that, as Blair’s “gatekeeper”, her home computer would be the one to investigate if the police wanted to do so.
I don’t want to spend the coming days and weeks trying to work out motive and purpose, not even those of the police. By nature I tend to take people on trust. It makes for a more contented life.
Although I have not been too happy with Ms Turner’s treatment, I can accept that it was better for the police to knock THAT door than Number 10’s. In any case, presumably they wanted to check her home computer, since they may already have hacked into those at Downing Street.
I’m still not convinced that pursuing this line of inquiry was necessary at all. Unless we find bodies in TB’s garden, or something equally criminal, I don’t think I’m going to be convinced that it was a good idea. But, as I say to the See-I-Effers, let’s not judge until it’s over.
Btw, you’ll notice I didn’t publish your earlier post, Tony. As you will understand, I really don’t agree with your analysis of how bad everything is in the country, nor the constituency reasons why, and I’m not going to post that kind of opinion here.
I DO appreciate your postings, though, as you are a thoughtful contributor. But these pages could be full of the vitriol and venom of the great unsatisfied elements of the British public if I published everything I received criticising their policies etc.
This blog is specifically to Support Tony Blair. There are hundreds of places for those ultra-critical to have their say. Hope you don’t mind.
My family have had recent NHS experience which I cannot praise highly enough. But as for the NHS, so for Blair - the nays have it!
January 24, 2007 at 1:00 am
Good morning,
Wow! Right on the ball, aren’t we? I believe this interview was last week before Ruth Turner’s? Or is it the old one on 2nd October 2006 as in the article below? (They are referring to Ms Turner’s earlier interview here, obviously.)
What are you so excited about? He and the leader of the Scottish Parlaiment, Jack McConnell, were both interviewed last week.
…………………………………………………………..
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,200-2384632,00.html
“John McTernan, the Prime Minster’s director of political operations and one of his closest aides, has also been interviewed under caution by Scotland Yard. Mr McTernan, who was interviewed on the same day as Ms Turner, is thought to have been involved in the preparation of names to be nominated for peerages.”
…………………………………………………………..
Another interviewee at that time, who didn’t get a lot of publicity is Robert Edmiston:
“A TORY multimillionaire businessman, whose peerage nomination was blocked by the House of Lords watchdog, has been questioned under caution by the police as part of the honours-for-sale investigation that has engulfed the Labour Party.
The Times has learnt that Robert Edmiston, who converted a £2 million loan into a donation this year to help to avert a potential funding crisis, is one of a number of rich Tory donors who have been questioned by the police in the cash-for-peerages inquiry.
He was questioned by detectives about the secret loan deal that he struck with the Conservative Party which had the effect of circumventing the law that requires all donations of £5,000 or more to be made public.
The revelation that Mr Edmiston, one of the most influential financial backers of the Tory party, has been interviewed by detectives explains why the Conservatives, who gathered in Bournemouth yesterday for David Cameron’s first conference as leader, have been reluctant to intervene in Downing Street’s difficulties.”
Er…yes.
So, what are your odds? And reasons for the 28th?
And when exactly was the interview to which you refer? Last week?
You’re having SUCH fun. I’ll bet you can hardly sleep, with the excitement of it all ;0)
January 25, 2007 at 6:35 pm
You are right, I am quite enjoying it.
I will very happliy concede that the Tories have also been up to no good with party financing, hence their rather weak response to the Labour scandal. If they have broken the law they should be punished (as well). However a couple of points about this.
The Tories are not the government and have no powers of patronage in the same way the the Labour Government has, in addition there are a couple of cases for the Tories that you could raise, wheras in Labours case it’s a pretty long list.
Each of the Tories cases are individuals with long histories of involvment with the party. In Labours case and the reason for some of the suspicion is that some of the “donors” have very little or no history of involvement with Labour. Chia Patel effectively stated in interview that Labour had broken a promise to him. Basically let’s put it in black & white. The suspicion is that Labour have offered peerages to rich men who have no links to the labour party in return for “loans”. Loans do not have to be declared so they can be kept secret. Labour then aimed/intended never to repay the loans but convert them into donations at some point in the future. I will again concede that Labour copied the “loans” trick from the Tories.
My final point is the reason for my and others anger at NuLab over this. In 1997 as I said before they got into power on the back of attacking the Tories for their petty-corruption and promising to clean up politics and be whiter that white (I think whether Blair actually said this is disputed). In office I contend they have actually been far more corrupt than the Tories.
To cap it all we had the ghastly spectacle of John Prescotts apalling behaviour contrasted with his attacks on the Tories for sexual infidelities in 1996.
Reasons for the 28th - it’s a good point to start as I really do think Tony is toast over this one. Odds - I’ve sold 28th to two traders at 1.4 i.e. they will make a margin of 40% on their stake if they win.