Prime Minister Gordon Brown has plunged into another crisis after his Labour Party's most senior official resigned over illegal donations worth 400,000 pounds.
LONDON: Just days after a fiasco over lost computer discs containing details of millions of Britons, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has plunged into another crisis after his Labour Party's most senior official resigned over illegal donations worth 400,000 pounds.
General Secretary Peter Watt quit on Monday after admitting that he knew a wealthy businessman who gave Labour Party 400,000 pounds through his associates. Subsequently, the tycoon managed to secure planning permission for a commercial park, which had earlier been refused.
"I was aware of arrangements whereby David Abrahams gave gifts to business associates and a solicitor who were permissible donors and who in turn passed them on to the Labour Party and I believed at the time my reporting obligations had been appropriately complied with."
"I take full responsibility for the Labour Party's reporting obligations. Consistent with my own and the party's commitment to the highest standards in public life, it is with great sadness I have decided to resign with immediate effect," Watt said in a written statement.
The blow to Brown came on a day when he saw an opinion poll giving the Opposition Tories a 13-point lead over Labour, their biggest since the Thatcher era.
The survey conducted by ComRes for 'The Independent' newspaper, has put the Tories on 40 per cent (down one point on last month), Labour on 27 per cent (down six points), the Liberal Democrats on 18 per cent (up two) and other parties 14 per cent (up four).
"If repeated at the next election, the figures would give David Cameron an overall majority of 64 seats," the daily said in a report published on Tuesday.
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