Tessa Jowell - size does matter

Tessa Jowell (right), the UK's culture secretary, and the minister in charge of our successful Olympic bid, has been having a little local difficulty. Italian prosecutors are examining claims that a £344,000 payment was made to her husband, an international lawyer, in return for helpful testimony in a corruption probe into Italian premier and media magnate Silvio Berlusconi in 1997. Ms Jowell was drawn into the affair after it emerged that she had co-signed a £408,000 loan taken out against the value of their house, which was paid off just weeks later, apparently using the Italian money.

Looks like my article in April 2005 about the loss of her CD collection, titled Size does matter, was remarkably prescient.

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Comments

Pliable said…
It is interesting to read today that some of the money that Jowell's husband received passed through a company owned by high-profile Formula One boss Flavio Briatore.

The first in a long line of financial scandals to hit Tony Blair as Prime Minister was the £1 million 'donation' received by the Labour Party in 2000 from Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone after it was proposed that Formula One be exempted from a ban on all sports sponsorship by tobacco companies - see this link.

Not much has changed in six years ...
5:46 pm
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