Blair Aide Arrested in Honors Probe

By Mary Jordan
Washington Post
Jan. 21, 2007

LONDON, Jan. 19 -- Police on Friday arrested an aide to Prime Minister Tony Blair as part of a continuing criminal investigation into whether his Labor Party traded seats in the House of Lords and other government honors for cash.

Ruth Turner, Blair's director of government relations, was arrested at her home in connection with alleged offenses under a 1925 law that prohibits the selling of government honors and titles and "also on suspicion of perverting the course of justice," a police statement said. Turner was interviewed in a London police station and released on bail, police said.

"I absolutely refute any allegations of wrongdoing of any nature whatsoever," she said in a statement.

Turner is the fourth person arrested in the investigation concerning seats in the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament. So far no one has been charged.

Turner's arrest brings the investigation closer to Blair and suggests police believe there has been an attempt to cover up information. Blair issued a statement saying that Turner had "the highest integrity" and that he "continued to have complete confidence" in her.

Last month, when Scotland Yard detectives spoke with him, Blair became the first sitting prime minister to be questioned in a criminal inquiry. But he was not interviewed "under caution," a British legal term that is applied to people who are viewed as suspects. He was therefore being treated as a witness.

Under British law, political parties must disclose the source of donations, but they do not have to declare the source of loans. The Labor Party has said it received $27 million in loans and therefore did not have to disclose the identities of the lenders. Investigations have found that some of those who gave the party loans were recommended for seats in the House of Lords.

Blair has denied that seats in the legislature and other honors were for sale.

Police have also interviewed members of the opposition Conservative Party, including former leader Michael Howard.

"It's pretty serious," said Tony Travers, a government specialist at the London School of Economics. "All three of the major political parties are desperate for money," he said, and the police are looking at whether rich people were tapped for cash "in the expectation that they would be put into the House of Lords, our equivalent of the Senate."

Travers said it was notable that Conservative Party leaders are not criticizing Labor in the scandal, or vice versa. This is a sign, he said, that they all may be caught up in it.

"This remains a cross-party investigation," Scotland Yard said in a statement issued Friday.

But because Blair is in office and once promised voters to be "purer than pure" on issues of ethics, he is taking the brunt of the scandal and it has further eroded his standing, which is already suffering from his support of the deeply unpopular war in Iraq. He has said he will step down as prime minister this year.

The others arrested to date are Michael Levy, a friend of Blair's and special envoy to the Middle East; Christopher Evans, an entrepreneur and major party donor; and Des Smith, a government adviser.