Is it nearly high noon for the Loan Ranger of Number 10?
Tony Blair can relax: the police are closing their investigation into him. I refer to the North Wales constabulary which has decided to wind up its inquiry into the allegation that the Prime Minister was guilty of uttering a racist remark by swearing about the ‘fucking Welsh.’ That police investigation was always treated as a joke. And so was another much more serious inquiry about which Mr Blair cannot be relaxed. Until the sensational developments of the past few days, the cash-for-coronets affair had been treated by the political class with some levity. The furore over party funding was self-evidently damaging to the government in general and to Tony Blair especially. But few were the politicians, whether they were Labour, Tory or Lib Dem, who thought that there was any real prospect of the chilly hand of the law feeling anyone’s sweaty collar. Westminster expected that investigation to end not with the bang of a cell door, but with a sigh from the police saying they couldn’t find e
