Andrew Pierce, of The Times, says that the cash-for-honours scandal now seems to be getting uncomfortably close to No 10

"They will be in meltdown in Downing Street this afternoon. Lord Levy is personally identified with the Prime Minister. He bankrolled him while he was in opposition. Tony Blair made him a peer, appointed him his Middle East envoy. He is his tennis partner.

"Mr Blair and the then general secretary of the Labour Party were the only ones apart from Lord Levy who knew about the secret loans, and Lord Levy is at the apex of all of it.

"I am surprised that the arrest has come so soon, but the story that The Times ran on Saturday - saying that an unnamed Labour Party person told Sir Gulam Noon to withdraw the references to his Labour loan from the paperwork going to the House of Lords' commission on the appointment of peers - may have meant that the police had to act.

"If the allegation is true, it was a deliberate attempt to subvert the election law that Labour itself brought in as recently as 2000 in order to stamp out corruption.

"This will send a shiver down the spines of every Labour donor, and every Labour MP. And it has brought the whiff of corruption to the door of No 10."

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