Oh dear !!!

For a so-called recluse, David Abrahams - the businessman at the centre of the latest Labour Party donations row - wasn't very difficult to get hold of.

Getting answers from him to my questions was harder.

A Sky News colleague kindly gave me Mr Abrahams' mobile phone number. I rang it and he answered with a nonchalent air, almost, of: "What's all the fuss about?"

The fuss, of course, is about Labour apparently not being straightforward about large donations from business tycoons once again, shortly after the 16-month cash-for-honours investigation by Scotland Yard.

After the Mail on Sunday's disclosure about the donations of almost £400,000 made on Mr Abrahams' behalf by a builder, Raymond Ruddick, who lives modestly in a former council house on Tyneside, and Janet Kidd, a secretary who lives in a Gateshead suburb, comes a new twist.

It emerges that Ruddick and Kidd are listed as directors or company secretaries alongside David Abrahams of a series of companies.

My attention was drawn to a planning application by a company called Durham Green Developments, of whom the named directors are Ruddick and Kidd (but not Abrahams), to build a 540-acre business park near the A1M in County Durham.

It seems they withdrew the application in 2003 when Durham City Council told them they would face an "Article 14" block by the Highways Agency, unless they could provide assurances that the development would not cause traffic chaos on the A1M.

Last year they re-submitted the application, having provided more detailed information about the traffic implications and it was given the go-ahead by the Liberal Democrat-controlled council.

Jan Hillary of the city council told me the council's understanding was that Durham Green Developments actually belongs to Mr Abrahams.

So it seems that it's not just in donations to the Labour Party that Ruddick and Kidd act on his behalf.

Could there be any connection between the donation to Labour, the lifting of the threat of an "Article 14" order by the Highways Agency and the fact the Douglas Alexander, Gordon Brown's loyal ally and Labour's general election co-ordinator, was Transport Secretary at the time?

Emphatically not, insist both the Department for Transport officials and close aides of Wee Dougie, who is currently in Tanzania, now that he is International Development Secretary

http://adamboulton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/11/my-company-is-i.html