Police quiz PM over honours again

baps · #1 (**permalink**) 01-02-2007, 03:34 PM

Prime Minister Tony Blair has been interviewed for a second time by police investigating allegations of the sale of honours.
Scotland Yard said the Prime Minister was questioned in 10 Downing Street last Friday "to clarify points emerging from the ongoing investigation".
Police declined to say why they had placed a news blackout on the interview, which came a week after the January 19 arrest of Mr Blair's close aide Ruth Turner and days before his fundraiser Lord Levy was arrested on Tuesday this week.
Mr Blair was questioned as a witness, not a suspect, and was not placed under caution for the interview, which lasted less than one hour. He was accompanied by a Downing Street note-taker, but did not have a lawyer with him, said his official spokesman.
In a statement, the Metropolitan Police said that Mr Blair "co-operated fully" with detectives.
Mr Blair became the first sitting Prime Minister to be questioned as part of a criminal investigation when he spoke to detectives for two hours on December 14, in what was then thought to be the climax of an inquiry launched in March last year.
But subsequent weeks have seen the police team, headed by Assistant Commissioner John Yates, broaden their inquiries beyond cash-for-honours allegations to look into the possibility of a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.
David Cameron later said that Tony Blair is a "short term Prime Minister" whose authority is draining away. The Conservative leader said that the news of Mr Blair's police interview "only confirmed" that he should go "and go soon".
He said: "I look along the front bench and I see the Health Secretary and I wonder is she thinking about the current crisis facing our health service or is she wondering if she will have a job in four months time. I think about our Defence Secretary, who should be concerned with the current problems facing our troops in Iraq, but is he wondering whether he will have a job when Gordon Brown takes office.
"The fact is that we have got long-term challenges and we need a long-term Prime Minister not a short-term Prime Minister to deal with those challenges."