Tony's Watergate

News of the arrest of Tony Blair's head of fundraising in the Labour Party, Lord Levy has raised the question of just how far up the tree the buck is going to stop in the "cash for honours" scandal, shock, horror, and whether or not Teflon Tony is facing his own personal Watergate. BBC link here.

The bottom line is that all political parties in the UK need to raise their own cash to fund their popularity campaigns, Labour are said to have spent £10 million just on billboard advertising at the last general election, which is strange as I can't recall seeing any of their adverts, so that was money well spent then.

The allegations centred on the chief fundraiser Lord Levy are that certain prominent business people were promised a medal or a title in the six monthly honours list if they donated substantial sums of cash to the Labour party, if its not illegal its dodgy and its one of the reasons why people regard the twice yearly announcements of medals and awards as a farce and a bit of a laugh.

Several members of the Labour party have been questioned by police, some under caution, some like Ruth Turner under arrest and snatched from her house in the early hours of the morning as if she was a real criminal instead of some high class street corner knock-off dvd seller, flogging off knighthoods for hard cash, allegedly.

Lord Levy is the highest one up the tree to be firstly questioned under caution and then arrested for requestioning, this time on the more serious allegation that he was involved in a cover-up and that a secret email system within the Labour party had had messages deleted from the record - conspiring to pervert the cause of justice is a far mroe serious offence than blagging money for promises and if true then its hard to see how Tony Blair will not have to carry the can in the same way that Nixon did for the 1972 Watergate scandal, where the cover-up became a bigger story than the actual misdemenour.

Could we yet see Tony Blair staring into a TV screen, slightly dishevelled, slightly unshaven, promising "My fellow Britains, I had no prior knowledge of the ..." ???