Badgegate: resignations expected
Rush to blame Blair amid Blue Peter 'badges for peerages' row
London, 27 Mar 2006 | 'A knife to the national psyche' - the verdict of The Times as the political row of the year: the illicit sale, on a popular internet auction website, of coveted Blue Peter badges.
But Notables can today reveal a more scandalous side to the trade in the badges, for rising out of the ashes loans-for-peerages row which has engulfed the Labour Party in recent days, comes the latest threat to the Blair premiership: badges-for-peerages.
The Times' editorial only hints at a possible connection, suggesting that the scoundrels who buy undeserved Blue Peter badges 'will doubtless develop into the kind of amoral individual who believes that he can buy his way into the House of Lords.'
But the truth is a far more startling indictment of modern, sleaze-ridden Britain. Reports say that peerage hopefuls have been procuring Blue Peter badges on the internet for the children of Cabinet ministers.
The highest-ranking minister to have admitted recieving secret badges is Charles Clarke, who denies having played any role in propelling the anonymous donors towards House of Lords appointments.
John Prescott, already embroiled in a planning permission crisis of his own, telephone the BBC early this morning to demand an interview on the Badgegate allegations.
Mr Prescott was on typically robust form as he defended the government's record of Blue Peter badge donations. He told the Radio 4 Today programme: "I have not, never, and will not, accept Blue Peter badges now or today, or at any time in the future, in an illegal or improper manner. I have to say that those badges which were or have been recieved my myself or my department have been recieved in the proper manner. And I've no doubt Tony has done the same."
It is not yet known whether the Prime Minister, currently in hiding in Australia until the loans-for-peerages scandal ferrago dies down, was aware of any of the badge transactions. Westminster gossip, however, suggests that his son Leo was seen wearing one at a recent Downing Street teddybears' picnic.
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