Blair's schadenfreude

Blairite without a cause Andrew Rawnsley says that Blair and friends are enjoying seeing Brown in the mire over secret donations, especially after Brown allegedly threatened Blair over cash for honours.

Of course none of this - dating back 4 years - has anything to do with Blair.

An unattributed denial

Patrick Wintour shows what great contacts he still has with former members of the old regime. Reporting John Yates' claims that No 10 failed to co-operate with his cash for honours enquiry, Wintour tells us:

A senior No 10 political official at the time rebutted Mr Yates' comments last night saying: "This claim is preposterous. Throughout Number 10 civil servants, special advisers and Labour party staff cooperated at every stage of this inquiry. There are no grounds for Yates to make this statement."

That clears that up then. Wintour offers us an anonymous denial with no proof.

Covered in glory on honours

The Times has the only new information on the cash for honours story. It claims that eight people who loaned Labour large amounts of money were initially put forward for peerages - to some extent reported before - and that a diary entry from one lender recorded an agreement to nominate him. Meanwhile, the Observer quite shamelessly gives the Blairites' side of the story.

The most interesting piece comes from Blairite apologist John Rentoul in the Independent. After a few digs at Blair's opponents, Rentoul concludes that Blair brought it on himself:

First he took secret loans to pay for his last hurrah on the hustings. Then he took the even more extraordinary risk of trying to nominate four of the lenders to the peerage while trying to keep their loans secret.

Is Rentoul repositioning himself?

Elsewhere, the Independent suggests that Blair may be about to put some or all of the donors forward for peerages in his resignation honours.

Some Justice

A young woman who killed another woman while texting at 65-70 mph has been jailed for four years the Telegraph reports. Initially she denied it but of course the police can check the phone records.

After the Cash for Honours cover up, it's tempting to say that if you do something bad and try to cover it up, the truth does sometimes catch up with you but four years (i.e two years) for killing someone (and then lying about it) is just a little bit soft as BRAKE have pointed out.

The Daily Mail also carries the story, including a quote from Brake. Just for once the driver is not the victim.