Is it bad form to promote your own stories? I’ve no idea. But I revealed in this morning’s FT that Labour managed 18 months ago to agree an interest holiday with the seven remaining millionaires which lent it a small fortune in 2005 – but that it will have to resume interest payments in July.
At an interest rate of 6.5 per cent that means a total of £3m to be paid in the next five-year Parliament – followed by the repayment of £9m capital in September 2015. Here’s the full story.
In the words of Bob Marshall-Andrews, the Labour backbencher: “It may have been munificent of them to drop the interest ahead of the election but it was a problem deferred rather than a problem solved.”
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey