Date published: 2006/03/15
The BBC says:
Labour's treasurer has revealed that he and other elected officials did not know the party had secretly borrowed millions of pounds last year.
Jack Dromey said he will investigate the issue with the party's general secretary and report next Tuesday.
His comments follow a furore over three men recommended for peerages after lending Labour money. Unlike donations, loans do not have to be declared.
Mr Dromey said Downing Street had not respected the party "sufficiently".
He is calling on the Electoral Commission to investigate the issue of political parties taking out loans from non-commercial sources.
Mr Dromey, who is also deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers' Union, says there is not a secret "slush fund".
He does not believe anything illegal has been done and says the loans will show up in Labour's accounts.
But he complained that neither he nor Labour's elected chairman knew about the loans.
He only found out when details of the money emerged in the newspapers and wants to find out who obtained them for the Labour Party.
"It cannot be right that the elected officers were kept in the dark," he told BBC News.
Wow, this is a potentially explosive statement. Blair now has to answer serious allegations of sleaze, to be piled on top of all the other things he is messing up on right now.
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