News In Focus
28 November 2007
McCluskey to advise on Labour donations
The former Solicitor General for Scotland and supreme court judge Lord McCluskey is to advise Labour on the changes it needs to make in handling donations.
At Prime Minister Gordon Brown's request, Lord McCluskey will team up with Lord Harries, the ex-Bishop of Oxford, to prepare a report on how the donation process can be cleaned up.
The move follows the revelation that the Labour Party had received donations of more than £650,000 from businessman David Abrahams, who used intermediaries to pass on the money, some of whom were not aware that their names were being used.
The Electoral Commission is consulting the Crown Prosecution Service on whether the law may have been broken.
The events of the past few days led to the resignation of the Labour Party's general secretary Peter Watt.
Lord McCluskey was admitted to the Faculty of Advocates in 1955 and became a QC in 1967. He was Solicitor General for Scotland under the Callaghan government of 1976-1979, and a Court of Session and High Court judge from 1984 until he retired in 2000.