Blair departure marred by probe

Analysis
By Nick Assinder
Political correspondent, BBC News website

The British prime minister has been questioned by police investigating the so-called cash-for-peerages affair.

Blair has been questioned by police

That is such an extraordinary statement in its own right it hardly needs stressing just how serious it is for the government and the Labour party.

It may have long been expected - and there were even those who believed Mr Blair would be interviewed under caution, as a suspect.

That worst scenario may have been avoided, but Mr Blair will be hugely embarrassed by the timing of the interview which came immediately before he left London to fly to an EU summit in Brussels.

Pictures of the prime minister being swept out of Downing Street in his official car for the airport after being interviewed by police are not what he wanted on the front pages at any time.

Any press conference he now holds in Brussels, or later this month when he travels to the Middle East, is bound to feature journalists' questions over this affair.

He will undoubtedly refuse to be drawn further into the police investigation, but that will not stop the speculation.

No change

And there have already been eyebrows raised over the timing of the event which not only happened just before the prime minister left the country, but on the day the Stevens report into the death of Princess Diana was published.

It is believed Mr Blair will have known for some time when he and the police had agreed on a date for their conversation.

When this inquiry was first sparked by the SNP, few expected it to get very far.

But Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates has pursued it vigorously and signalled the seriousness of his inquiry when he revealed in a letter dated 13 November, that "significant and valuable material" had been gathered.

The fact it has been taken so seriously by the police has already seen the government facing allegations it is just as sleazy, or worse, as the Tories were in their darkest days under John Major.

Levy was arrested in peerages probe

It was those allegations and revelations, gleefully pursued by the Labour opposition, that contributed to the last government's demise.

And the fact this inquiry has now gone to the top of the government - with ministers and now the prime minister interviewed - is, at the very best, hugely embarrassing for Tony Blair as he nears his retirement.

At worst, if any wrongdoing is found, it could both hasten and mar that end.

Nothing wrong

Mr Blair's planned departure has already been marked by in-fighting and a failed coup and he has been forced to announce he will be gone by next summer. But, despite all that, there are still demands for him to go now.

And any hope he may have entertained that he could control the timing and manner of his departure has long evaporated.

Now, in his last months, he has been drawn into this unprecedented police inquiry.

It must be stressed that everyone involved in the affair has insisted they have done nothing wrong. And the other parties are also being investigated, with former Tory leader Michael Howard already interviewed as a witness by police.

In the dark

But the fact that senior Labour figures were kept in the dark about election fundraising by the prime minister's close friend Lord Levy, who has been arrested and questioned by police, has already led to bitter divisions in the party.

And voters already have a poor opinion of politics and politicians which is not going to be improved by this affair.

The "mud sticks" factor also cannot be ignored.

However, if it is found offences have been committed the consequences for the government would be devastating and it would be impossible for the prime minister to insulate himself from those consequences.

If that was the outcome, and if Tony Blair was still in Downing Street at the time, he would be expected to take the blame - and that would almost certainly mean resignation.