Neo-Labour: The Net Closes In

Guardian

A strong tremor will have run through Downing Street yesterday afternoon, one that will have reached under the skin of the prime minister himself. For the arrest yesterday of Lord Levy in the cash-for-peerages affair saw a line crossed, one that has not been crossed before.

Until now, New Labour's political scandals have remained just that - political. Peter Mandelson's run-ins over his home loan or the Hindujas' passports may have cost him his job - twice - but they stayed within the sphere of politics. The same was true over Stephen Byer's untruths over Railtrack or Cherie's apartments in Bristol. Battle was conducted in the Commons, on the front pages and the TV studios - not in an unnamed police station. Once the very word "arrest" is uttered, a scandal enters an entirely new, and much graver, category.

That had already happened with the arrest of the Dagenham head teacher, Des Smith, over his role in raising funds for city academies. But he was an unknown. Levy is different. He is Labour's chief fundraiser. He has a role in government, as the prime minister's personal envoy to the Middle East, with a desk at the Foreign Office. Above all, he is a personal confidant of Tony Blair's; a friend before Downing Street; famously, his tennis partner. Read more