F1 donation row back to bug government

Allegations against British Prime Minister Tony Blair of a dontation cover-up come on top of the fuel crisis

In this story: 'Joke' allegations Poll plunge RELATED STORIES, SITES

LONDON, England (Reuters) -- A row over a political donation from Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone to the British Government in 1997 has come back to haunt Prime Minister Tony Blair and his party following renewed allegations over the payment.

The opposition Conservative Party has urged the government to give a detailed answer to claims Blair and Chancellor Gordon Brown lied in 1997 during questioning over the £1 million ($1.4 million) donation from the boss of Formula One motor racing, Bernie Ecclestone.

The allegation in a new book comes as the government is contemplating its worst poll ratings for years.

The donation was made as Britain was urging that European Union plans to ban sports sponsorship by tobacco companies be deferred in the case of motor racing.

In a book by Andrew Rawnsley, political commentator for the Observer newspaper, the author alleges Brown misled a BBC interviewer in 1997 when he denied knowledge of the donation from Ecclestone.

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Blair was misleading, according to Rawnsley, by telling the BBC that the government had been in touch with Commons authorities for advice on the donation before any journalist was interested in the story -- when this was not true.

Downing Street and the Treasury denied the allegations, published as excerpts from the new book in the Daily Mail newspaper on Tuesday.

"We're certainly denying it," a spokesman for Blair said.

A Brown spokesman said: "These allegations are reheated from the time and there is absolutely nothing new."

But opposition Conservative leader William Hague said the government should give specific answers to the allegations, noting the book claimed that Brown and Blair were "engaged in a deliberate cover-up about a million pound donation to the Labour party" and had "knowingly misled the public and parliament."

"No more serious allegation has been made about a sitting prime minister in modern times," Hague said. "It is vital that they respond today."

One former official was scathing about the new book.

"These books are a joke and this one is a particular joke," Charlie Whelan, who was Brown's spokesman at the time of what became known as the Ecclestone affair, told the BBC.

But the BBC said Whelan would not address the substance of the allegations about Brown.

The Tories wrote to the Committee for Standards in Public Life, the parliamentary watchdog, asking for an investigation but a spokesman for the committee said it did not probe individual cases.

Blair suffered the first serious mishap of his government in the autumn of 1997 when it was disclosed that Ecclestone had made the donation before the election held in May that year.

Although the entire sum was later returned, the timing of the donation continued to arouse suspicion and media interest.

Chancellor Gordon Brown was said be infuriated by donation scandal

The Rawnsley book claimed that Brown, who had denied during a 1997 BBC radio interview any knowledge of the Ecclestone donation, went back to his office and raged at his staff, saying, "I lied. I lied. If this gets out, I'll be destroyed."

The book also claims that Blair was so distressed about the affair that he declared at one point, "This is the end. They'll get me for this."

But Margaret Beckett, Labour's leader in the House of Commons, said she thought the row was a diversion from the fuel tax issue that has gripped Britain in the past 10 days.

"I strongly suspect it's an attempt on the part of those who are focusing on this again to stop people from talking about the real underlying issues about fuel tax," she told BBC.

The Liberal Democrats, the third force in British politics, said on Tuesday that a spate of polls leaving the ruling Labour Party trailing for the first time in eight years could signal a seismic political shift.

LibDems campaign manager Lord Razzall said last week's fuel protests over sky-high taxes could prove to be Labour's equivalent of Black Wednesday, the day in 1992 when the pound plunged out of Europe's exchange rate mechanism.

The ruling Conservatives never recovered and were hammered in the 1997 election.

"We won't know if it is a real sea change for a week or two, until the dust settles," Razzall told reporters. "But something strange is going on."

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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