LONDON, 16 December 2006 — British Prime Minister Tony Blair came under renewed attack yesterday for the timing of his two-hour questioning by Scotland Yard over the “cash-for-honors” allegations clouding his Labour Party administration. The investigation however straddles the three main British political parties — Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrats, and has reopened the debate about funding of political parties in the UK.

Blair on Thursday became the first serving British prime minister to have been questioned as part of a criminal inquiry into the sale of state honors such as knighthoods and peerages for political funding — whether donations or soft loans. The prime minister of the day and the opposition party leaders traditionally nominate people to be considered by the Honors Committee.

Scotland Yard has already interviewed all the senior Cabinet ministers of the Blair administration and the leaders of the main opposition parties since it launched the inquiry in March after the Scottish National Party made an official complaint to the police about the so-called “cash-for-honors” saga.

An embarrassed Blair refused to comment on Thursday about the questioning, but yesterday at the summit of the European Union leaders in Brussels, he declared that “this is a complaint that was made by the Scottish National Party against me personally. And so it is not the slightest bit surprising or wrong that the police should come and want to talk to me. The fact is that the particular issues concerned were not about honors given by me as prime minister for people for public service: On the contrary, they were given by me, nominated by me as party leader for party service in the way that other party leaders are entitled to do.”

Scotland Yard senior detectives are investigating whether there has been any breach of the 1925 Honors (Prevention of Abuse) Act which outlaws the sale of honors, and whether there was any breach of the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000 which requires donations and noncommercial loans to parties to be publicly declared.

Yesterday morning Labour MP Tony Wright, chairman of the House of Commons Select Committee on Party Funding, called for the investigation to be dropped and for the country to move on.

He stressed that the investigation had highlighted the issue of party political funding and the process of giving honors to British citizens. Wright also expressed doubts whether the police would have enough evidence to sustain a viable prosecution at the end of the investigations.

Labour’s detractors, however, have accused the Blair spin doctors of stage managing the questioning — “burying the bad news” — on a day when Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner, published his long-awaited and wide-ranging inquiry into the death of Diana, Princess of Wales and just hours before Blair left Britain for Brussels, and immediately afterward on a tour of Turkey and the Middle East to discuss Turkish potential membership of the EU and the revival of the Middle East peace process.

This is also at a time when the media have been dominated by the tragic events in Ipswich in Suffolk where police are hunting a serial killer who has already claimed the lives of five women.

Conservative frontbencher Chris Grayling said: “Five years after Labour launched the concept of burying bad news, Blair’s spin doctors are back to their old tricks.”

Blair’s official spokesman retorted: “Categorically, that was not the case at all. Categorically, there was no linkage with other events.”