Scotland Yard will broaden its "loans for peerages" investigation to cover the Conservative party as well as Labour, the Guardian has learned.
The Metropolitan police team, led by the deputy assistant commissioner John Yates, has already requested documents and e-mails from Downing Street, the Cabinet Office and the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
But the range of the inquiry means that the Conservative party's loan arrangements will also have to be investigated. Tory sources admitted on Tuesday that the total amount raised by the party last year in loans was £24 million (US$42 million), and it is understood the party's high command has privately asked the contributors to go public.
Scotland Yard has refused to say which figs the detectives intend to interview as the inquiry unfolds, but it will not rule out speaking to Prime Minister Tony Blair. Westminster sources believe they will almost certainly speak to Lord Levy, the prime minister's chief fundraiser, and key players, such as the Labour Party Chairman Ian McCartney.
The members of parliament (MPs) who made the initial complaint about Labour and loans met Yates and his team of six at Scotland Yard yesterday to discuss the inquiry and to hand over a dossier fleshing out concerns.
After the meeting the Scottish Nationalist MP Angus MacNeil said: "The police are interested in crime. They are not interested in which party committed it ... After meeting people at Scotland Yard I would say anyone who has been involved in the selling of peerages should be shaking in their shoes."
MacNeil said he had been told the Tories would also be investigated.
A letter from Scotland Yard to the Public Administration Committee, which is also investigating Labour's loans, revealed that the Metropolitan Police had not ruled out pursuing charges of corruption.
"Whilst it may be too early for us to widen our investigation into the arena of corruption, I certainly have not ruled this out," wrote Yates. "I have indicated to you that many of the individuals that you wished to hear evidence from may be the very people that could be central to our criminal inquiry, either as witnesses or suspects."
Yates has urged the committee to stall its inquiry.
"My concerns were that your scrutiny could be viewed as an abuse of process in terms of fairness in any future potential criminal trial," the letter explains.
"I have consulted closely with senior lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service about this matter," he wrote. They share my concerns and are happy for them to be articulated in this letter."
The Labour chairman of the committee, Tony Wright, insisted yesterday that his inquiry would continue regardless.
"There is no question that we shall proceed with the inquiry," he said. "In fact we shall widen it and call more people and we are prepared to summon people if they decline to attend in future."
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
DEADLOCK: Putin has vowed to continue fighting unless Ukraine cedes more land, while talks have been paused with no immediate results expected, the Kremlin said Russia on Friday said that peace talks with Kyiv were on “pause” as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that Russian President Vladimir Putin still wanted to capture the whole of Ukraine. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said that he was running out of patience with Putin, and the NATO alliance said it would bolster its eastern front after Russian drones were shot down in Polish airspace this week. The latest blow to faltering diplomacy came as Russia’s army staged major military drills with its key ally Belarus. Despite Trump forcing the warring sides to hold direct talks and hosting Putin in Alaska, there
North Korea has executed people for watching or distributing foreign television shows, including popular South Korean dramas, as part of an intensifying crackdown on personal freedoms, a UN human rights report said on Friday. Surveillance has grown more pervasive since 2014 with the help of new technologies, while punishments have become harsher — including the introduction of the death penalty for offences such as sharing foreign TV dramas, the report said. The curbs make North Korea the most restrictive country in the world, said the 14-page UN report, which was based on interviews with more than 300 witnesses and victims who had
RSS