[A-List] UK state: Geoffrey Robinson

["Michael Keaney" <michael.keaney@xxxxxx>]

Here's the Guardian's take on this, co-authored by political editor Michael
White, the credulous urinal who sensationalises the pathetic fantasies of
Joe Haines -- another, much closer, Maxwell confidant.

See http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2002w40/msg00019.htm
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/a-list/2002w40/msg00022.htm

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Geoffrey Robinson on breath test charge

Nick Hopkins and Michael White
Thursday December 19, 2002
The Guardian

The former treasury minister, Geoffrey Robinson, has been charged with
refusing to take a breath test and with driving a Jaguar without insurance,
West Midlands police confirmed last night.

The Labour MP for Coventry North West, who was forced out of Gordon Brown's
ministerial team over his £373,000 home loan to Peter Mandelson in 1998, was
arrested early on Saturday evening on the A454 in Walsall.

In a statement the police also said "a substance was also seized" but
declined to elaborate. The substance has been sent to police laboratories
for forensic analysis.

Mr Robinson was also charged with driving not in accordance with his
licence, though this may simply be procedural if he did not have his licence
when stopped.

The case was adjourned until January 3 at Walsall magistrates court
yesterday. The 64-year-old MP and high-profile businessman was granted
unconditional bail. He did not appear in court.

The police said: "Mr Robinson was stopped for driving erratically. He failed
to provide a specimen for analysis and he was arrested. A substance was also
seized. In accordance with the Criminal Evidence Act procedures Mr
Robinson's home address has been searched. Nothing of note was found."

The incident is the latest to dog the veteran MP who first came to
prominence as the managing director of Jaguar Cars in Coventry before
winning a byelection in 1976.

But his links with the late Robert Maxwell ensured con tinuing attention
from the media and parliamentary investigations, which culminated in him
being suspended from the Commons for three weeks in 2001 after it was found
that he misled MPs about a £200,000 payment.

Mr Robinson was punished for failing to give full and ac curate answers over
the payment for his brief tenure as non-executive chairman of Hollis
industries, a Maxwell firm. It was alleged that he failed to disclose the
apparent payment in the register of members' interests.

As a friend and ally of Gordon Brown, Mr Robinson, who bought the New
Statesman as a vehicle for New Labour modernisation, helped to finance the
chancellor's office in opposition and was rewarded with the post of
paymaster general in 1997. But it was discovered that the man advising the
chancellor on tax and savings policy had an offshore Channel Island trust.

And when the Guardian disclosed details of his loan to Mr Mandelson, by now
trade and industry secretary, both men were forced from office.