I looked in vain on Normblog for some comment on Jowellgate, so I'll fill the gap.
This from Tessa Jowell's statement:
"I first became aware in August 2004 that my husband had received in September 2000 a sum of money which he thought he had reasonable grounds to believe was a gift."
A gift? She's talking about £350,000 here. It's the "reasonable grounds" that I like.
But then again, it depends whether you think it was a large sum or not, and perhaps, for someone as astute in business as the Culture Secretary's husband, its not a lot of money at all. It's obviously incredibly irresponsible of me to juxtapose the Culture Secretary's personal financial affairs with the dealings of part of her remit, the Arts Council, but I'm reminded that the Peterloo Poets, loses its regularly funded organisation status come the end of March. It received £55,000 in 2005-6. I doubt that anyone ever referred to that money as a gift.
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