In 2003 Abrahams the central character of Donorgate, previously known as David Martin, got his lawyer to set up covenants to give money directly to Labour via money mules, who had been selected to transfer money to Labour as if the money were theirs.
In 2003, you probably recall that Labour were at the pinnacle of their power. It was the time that Campbell published dodgy dossiers, when Kelly was murdered and the media covered it up, as did the Hutton enquiry.
IDS was hardly able to lay a scratch on Blair despite his obvious tendency to bypass uncomfortable truths, and was later assassinated in October of 2003 by a media assault, no doubt encouraged, if not actually coordinated by Alastair Campbell. Gilligan and the BBC tried to get the truth out about Iraq but were sent packing. Labour were untouchable at that time, and to all intents and purposes were above the law.
There were no bloggers to start asking inconvenient questions or rally opinion. There was a compliant media carrying Alastair Campbell's narratives, unable or too under the thumb to set about creating any alternative explanations as to what was going on.
Property prices continued to soar. Interest rates stayed low. The consumer economy boomed.
In such an atmosphere Labour Party officials would have felt it was quite safe to pass laws and immediately set up systems to circumvent them, legally, or illegally - who cared? Who as going to challenge anything they did? That's how it was then. The good times rolled. Until Britain got bogged down in Iraq, Blair and Labour were untouchable. Truth was not required, or seen as a necessary part of the equation.
Hubris as we know from Greek tragedies, is always followed by nemesis. Arrogance (hubris) causes a person's own self destruction (nemesis). Mrs Thatcher, for example, was accused of possessing an element of hubris prior to her downfall - when she began talking with the Royal 'we'.
Gordon Brown is now being called a tragic character, but let's get this right. He's a Greek tragic creation, being cast down by his own arrogance, following on from Blair whose arrogance has already caused his nemesis, not the Shakespearian tragic figure as Powell predicted he would become.
As in all good tragedies, Brown is unable to see why his nemesis is occurring, where the forces of his destruction are coming from. They are coming from himself, as the audience/public are starting to see quite clearly.
Brown in his final act of hubris has promised change. This follows on from all his previous ones as Chancellor, for example claiming to be prudent and in favour of low tax, while secretly and stealthily removing peoples' wealth and opportunities. He recently promised an end to spin, a reestablishment of standards and to democratic accountability.
He has no intention of carrying out any of these latest promises, any more than he did his earlier ones about the economy when he was Chancellor. The Fates were kind to him for ten years allowing the economy to prosper despite his interventions, not because of them. In such circumstances his arrogance has become complete, and total, so that he believes lying is what he must do to succeed, making his nemesis inevitable.
To witness a fully functioning Greek tragedy in the modern age is rare. Normally such human folly gets cut down to size well before it brings its protagonist into a state of semi-madness. In the age of instant media, and communications, people can usually see a problem and stop it before it gets out of hand. Gordon Brown, though is the ultimate measure of how communication and morality had become perverted with Labour possessing so much unchallenged power in 2003.
They feared their enemies so little that they wasted their energies on fighting an internal war for supremacy within the government. Iraq was just a sideshow to the real battle of egos between Blair and Brown. The whole country was left adrift while these two demi-Gods slugged it out, jostling for immortality - the prize they both coveted.
Only now with the internet is a kind of truth starting to come out every day in the blogs, which government power cannot edit or control. But Brown's tragic fall is already in process. It is far too late to help him now. Brown wouldn't recognise the truth even if it jumped out and bit him. The truth is his enemy. He will fight it with every ounce of strength in his body, before collapsing exhausted and crashing from an unequal contest, the coming nemesis now inevitable.
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