He is the man with two names, who is said to be aged 53 but is really 63 and once boasted a wife who was not his wife and a son who was not his son.

It is perhaps small surprise, then, that when David Abrahams decided to donate more than £380,000 to the Labour Party he went about it in a less than transparent manner.

The multimillionaire property developer and would-be friend of Labour’s great and good is described by those who know him as eccentric, reclusive and something of a fantasist. A highly successful businessman and generous donor to charities, he hoped to follow in his parents’ footsteps by becoming a Labour politician, but failed miserably even at local and national level.

There were sighs from Labour insiders across north-east England in June when he appeared on the front row of the party faithful for Tony Blair’s valedictory speech to his Sedgefield constituency.

One Labour insider said: “People roll their eyes when you mention his name,” one said, while another described him as “a bit of a Labour groupie”. Whatever the misgivings, the party seems to have had no reservations about taking his money.

Mr Abrahams, a single man who has homes in north London and Newcastle-upon-Tyne, grew up in the north-east where his father, Bennie, was a prominent figure in Labour circles.

“A larger than life character with a name that could open doors,” said one former colleague of Bennie Abrahams, who joined the council in the late 1950s and decades later became the city’s Lord Mayor.

Mr Abrahams’s mother, Marion, was also a Labour councillor and some who know him suggest that her son has spent his whole life trying unsuccessfully to emerge from his father’s shadow.

His first venture into Labour politics came in the 1970s, when he represented an inner-city Newcastle ward on the now-defunct Tyne and Wear Metropolitan County Council.

“It was the safest Labour seat on the council. Or at least it was, until he managed to lose it four years later,” said a former party colleague.

Undeterred, byIn 1991 Mr Abrahams had set his sights on representing Labour in Parliament. He arrived for the selection meeting, a former member of the constituency Labour party recalls, for the North Yorkshire seat of Richmond accompanied by a “a blonde-haired lady and a young boy” who were introduced as his wife and son. Mr Abrahams, who claimed to be 41, duly won the nomination. and personally approved a press release which stated that he lived with his wife and son in Newcastle.

All was fine and dandy until a woman called Anthea Bailey approached a regional newspaper to reveal that she and her 11-year-old son had posed as Mr Abrahams’s family “to boost his image” in the selection contest. The former marketing executive explained that she had met him when she was unemployed and looking for somewhere to live.

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