Blair questioned
- 14 Dec 06, 01:59 PM
We only know two facts at this stage - but they are significant ones.
The prime minister has been interviewed by police, but it was not under caution. That is a key point - because if the police had any suspicion that Tony Blair might in the end have charges brought against him, they would be under a legal obligation to caution him (i.e. to read out the traditional caution that anything that he said might be used in evidence against him).
I'm told by police sources that the threshold for cautioning is very low indeed - in other words, you err on the side of a caution. If you have the slightest suspicion that further down the line you might wish to bring charges, you caution. Because if you don't, you might find that anything that was heard at this stage could be inadmissible in a court case.
What this means is that the police must currently have no reason to believe that charges will be brought against the prime minister himself. It tells us nothing - either way - as to whether charges may be brought against someone else close to him.
Needless to say, however, today's events are extraordinary. Not since the Lloyd George affair - in which there was, of course, the open selling of honours - have we had anything like this. It's an embarrassment to Tony Blair - he, of course, promised to make politics whiter-than-white when he first came to office in 1997.
Facing this sort of investigation has caused him quite some frustration - he's felt unable to answer the critics, to answer some of the suggestions that were being brought forward. And until the police finally submit a file to the CPS, and the CPS makes a decision on whether to bring charges - against the PM or against anybody else - he will not be able to reply.
But the truth is that politics has come to a stage under his premiership in which a serving PM is being questioned about the abuse of rules over fundraising, and the granting of honours. Even if it ends up - as it may well yet - that there are no charges brought, this is a low day for Tony Blair, who wished and promised to change the face and the nature of politics in Britain.
Whatever happens, the rules governing party funding and honours will surely be transformed by the lessons of this episode. No one will be clearer about the need for that than the prime minister himself.
UPDATE 1542 GMT: It's been pointed out to me that Tony Blair did not promise to be "whiter than white". The promise was, for sake of accuracy, to be "purer than pure". And to be "a government that seeks to restore trust in politics in this country". I stand corrected.
PS. While I am at it, can I thank the Labour Party press office for their well-timed e-Christmas card listing the party's achievements!
