Cash for Peerages, Has the Sunday Times got something?

The Sunday Times has this article, with the headline "Blair aides ‘plotted’ to foil police". It seems that the attempt to foil the police was not the latest leak (See here and here), on which Fraser Nelson has some interesting insight in this article in the Spectator, but the overall nature of Number 10's staff cooperation with the police inquiry.

Fraser speculates in his article that maybe staff at Number 10 are turning on themselves.

The Sunday Times is somewhat more forthright.

Firstly it alleges that Lord Levy tried to get other staff to lie over his involvement in recommending people for honours. As I have made clear in a previous article here, Lord Levy recommending someone for an honour is not legally an issue, and he need not have been worried about the police knowing that. Unless, which I will come to later.

The allegation that Lord levy tried to get people to lie to the police is a very serious one. I do hope the Sunday Times have good evidence to back up their claim. I know that Lord Levy's lawyers at Bindman partners read this blog, I suspect they will take the Sunday Times somewhat more seriously.

In short, if there is not a writ for libel issued against the Sunday Times by say, Tuesday of next week, things are looking bad for Lord Levy. Of course if they just spout the Abu Hamza defence again we will all draw our own conclusions.

The other key point raised is the potential for charges under the 1925 Honours, Prevention of abuses act against Lord Levy and Sir Christopher Evans.

I must stress that this is a remarkably easy crime to avoid. In order to make out the offence there needs to be evidence of a bargain being struck (Well we do have that P or K note).

I do not know how much of the article is speculation. What is clear is that the Sunday Times can't go around boldly asserting that Lord Levy asked people to lie to the police on his behalf without some evidence, otherwise they will get sued.

Oh, and at the bottom of the article there is a bit on how government wants to merge all the watchdogs that have given it such pain into one big one. No doubt this will cause some concern. On the upside the new body will be entirely responsible to parliament, not to the Prime minister.

You can read more on the cash for peerages saga here.

Hat tip to Witan on politicalbetting.com for the link to the Sunday Times article.

Update 10:20

The Independent on Sunday has this article which says that Lord Levy feels let down and may "turn on Labour". That would be one of the canaries singing and could deepen the crisis. I have always suspected that if the police had enough to charge someone then that someone would suddenly become very cooperative. I wait with baited breath!

It also has this little nugget at the end of the piece:

A senior figure close to the probe said the issue of whether both main political parties broke the law by hiding donations as "loans" was still "live".

Well we have not heard much about offences under the 2000 Political Parties, Elections and Referendum act recently but I certainly think it could be fertile ground for the police investigation.

Hat tip to Dez on politicalbetting.com for pointing it out.