I've said we'll give it back !!!!!! What more can I say !!!!!!

Just when the dark and ominous cloud over the financing of Britain's political parties — Labour's especially — started to clear, a freak storm has burst without warning from another direction. Many potential donors were sent scurrying for cover by the cash-for-honours inquiry. Even when prosecutors decided this year not to press charges, wealthy benefactors were wary.

Now the row over David Abrahams's secret gifts of almost £400,000 to Labour, channelled through intermediaries to shield his identity, threatens to bring fresh disrepute on the funding of politics.

The case is deeply puzzling. The very purpose of the law introduced by Labour in 2000 was to end secrecy in political donations. The issue has been at the heart of fierce political controversies, both in the 1990s when the Conservatives' finances were under the microscope, and much more recent in the year-long police investigation into allegations that Labour offered peerages in return for political donations.

Mr Abrahams protested this morning that he did “did not have the rule book in front of me” when he began making donations to Labour via intermediaries in 2003.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article2947437.ece