Sleazebuster queries Labour funding

Geoffrey Robinson bankrolled Labour in opposition

Labour has come under fresh attack over apparent inconsistencies in the party's statements on who funded Tony Blair's office in the run-up to the 1997 election.

Former paymaster general Geoffrey Robinson has insisted he helped fund the Labour leader's office with donations believed to be around £250,000.

But Labour has strenuously denied the claim, insisting Mr Robinson's cash went to general party funds, some of which were then passed on to the "blind trust" which financed the opposition leader's office.

But Liberal Democrat peer Lord Goodhart, a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, said that Labour's recent explanations did not tally with evidence given to the committee by party general secretary Margaret McDonagh in 1998.

Margaret McDonagh: conflicting version

Back then, during the committee's inquiry into political party funding, she unequivocally declared that "the leader's office has never been funded by the Labour Party in its history".

'Plain inconsistency'

Lord Goodhart told the BBC that what was "certainly unfortunate, to say the least, is that there is what seems to be a plain inconsistency between what Margaret McDonagh told us in the Neill Committee and what, according to the latest statement, appears to be the case".

Conservative Party vice-chairman Tim Collins said the different stories undermined Labour's claims to be free of sleaze.

"It simply isn't good enough. Far from being purer than pure, they have actually proven to be dirtier than dirty," he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

The question of who bankrolled Mr Blair's office in opposition resurfaced with the serialisation in the Daily Mail newspaper this week of Mr Robinson's memoirs.

On Tuesday the ex-minister said he had made a contribution to Tony Blair's office "as far as I remember, through the Labour Party".

Speaking on Thursday Lord Sawyer, who was Labour's general secretary in 1996, sought to explain the circumstances in which Mr Blair's office might have drawn on general party funds.

"If .. the leader of the Labour Party does Labour Party work, out on the road or campaigning, as purely party work, then the party would be expected to pay for that," he said.

Mr Blair's entry in the Register of Members' Interests for 1996 includes the comment: "The office of the leader of the opposition received support, in addition to public funds, from the Labour Party."

A Labour spokesman said that Ms McDonagh had accidentally misinformed the committee.

"Obviously the Labour Party is contributing money to the Labour leader's office. That is why it was listed in the register of members' interests."