UK News 20-09-2000 Call For Resignation of "Liar" Brown who: Gordon Brown what: Denies lying over donation from F1 chief where: LONDON when: Yesterday snippet: "Chancellor Gordon Brown was last night battling to shore-up his reputation," reports Patrick O`Flynn in The Express, "after being accused of lying over a £1million donation to the Labour Party from Formula 1 boss Bernie Ecclestone." "The gift," says The Mirror, "was made before a decision to exempt Mr Ecclestone`s Formula 1 organisation from a ban on tobacco advertising." Servants of the People, a new book by the political commentator Andrew Rawnsley, says that the Chancellor lied in a Radio 4 interview in which he claimed he knew nothing about the donation. According to the book, Tony Blair had told Mr Brown about it three days before. "I lied. I lied," Mr Brown is said to have raged at Treasury staff. "My credibility will be in shreds. I lied. If this gets out, I`ll be destroyed." "The Prime Minister said that any minister who lied would have to go. It appears that the Chancellor of the Exchequer has lied over a matter of very important public policy," said Michael Portillo, the shadow chancellor, yesterday. "The Chancellor must resign or the Prime Minister must sack him." "The allegations made in Andrew Rawnsley`s book are completely untrue and based on unsubstantiated gossip," replied a spokesman for the chancellor yesterday. "Mr Brown categorically denies having lied," Elsewhere, on "one of the roughest days in the political career of Labour`s leading intellect," says The Guardian, "Mr Brown also faced accusations from petrol protesters that he was provoking civil disobedience by ruling out concessions on fuel duties." [... more]

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