Could Blair arrest cause a constitutional crisis for Queen Elizabeth?

London police have been investigating whether Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, has been offering peerages and other honours in return for cash and loans to the Labour party.

Many insiders believe that such offers have been made but the problem the police have is finding a paper trail that would be sufficient to convict Blair or other party officials in an English courtroom.

If Blair is arrested the police would presumably release him after questioning on police bail and then he would be able to go to Buckingham Palace to offer his resignation to Queen Elizabeth. Indeed, police may tip him off so that he could resign before an arrest.

However, if Blair is forced to resign Queen Elizabeth would then find it difficult to decide who to appoint as his successor as prime minister.

The current deputy prime minister is the blustery and elderly John Prescott, widely thought to have little grasp on policy. Few Labour MPs or British citizens would support having Prescott as prime minister.

Blair has said that he would resign as prime minister at the end of the current parliament, a period which could extend until 2010. More recently he has changed his mind and said he would step down by this summer.

It is expected that the dour Scottish finance minister, Gordon Brown, would be his successor but as yet no elections for the next leader of the Labour Party have taken place and there would be no constitutional reason for Queen Elizabeth to appoint Brown after a shock Blair resignation.

Queen Elizabeth could decide to speak to senior politicians before appointing a Blair successor but whatever she did would be controversial.

Police investigations have been getting ever closer to Blair in recent days. Ruth Turner, a senior Blair aide, was arrested in a 6am police visit to her house a week ago. Turner was questioned and then released on police bail. Police have also arrested and interrogated other senior Labour figures during their investigations and have questioned many others. Blair himself has also been questioned by detectives although he was not arrested and not officially cautioned (advised of his rights).

Today's Sunday Times reports that Blair's most senior aide has been interviewed by police under caution about a meeting he is believed to have attended to discuss honours with the prime minister and his chief fundraiser.

Jonathan Powell, Blair’s chief of staff, was questioned as a suspect shortly before Ruth Turner was arrested by police.

The Sunday Times reports that detectives are focusing their attention on a meeting thought to have been attended by Blair, Powell and Lord Levy, Blair’s chief fundraiser, in the summer of 2005.

The meeting discussed the prime minister’s forthcoming list of nominees for the House of Lords, and those present discussed how to reward Labour’s financial backers. No minutes are thought to have been taken.

In a key development, police are understood to have recovered e-mails sent between two other Downing Street aides — Ruth Turner and John McTernan — discussing the meeting and actions taken as a result of it.

“Turner and McTernan are the ones the focus is on, as they have written these e-mails,” said one source with knowledge of the inquiry.

Other newspaper reports today say that McTernan has been dumped as the Labour candidate at by-election in a safe Labour seat in Glasgow.

It is not clear whether the e-mails were disclosed to the police or deleted and then found by police when they hacked into computer hard disks or obtained e-mail records from Downing Street's ISP.

Downing Street insists that all documents have been disclosed voluntarily, although other reports have suggested that key e-mails were deleted.

Downing Street has also denied allegations that a secret computer network existed within No 10 to which the police did not have access.

It is understood that John Yates, in charge of the police enquiry, authorised officers to use all lawful and legitimate means to discover whether information was being withheld.

Police used computer experts to obtain confidential or deleted material from Downing Street computers and are also believed to have approached Number 10's internet suppliers to gain access to government e-mail records.

Scotland Yard became suspicious that potentially vital information was being withheld after it twice asked Downing Street for all e-mails, letters and other material relating to the system of awarding peerages.

There is speculation now that there could also be charges relating to cover-ups of evidence by officials who may have destroyed or withheld evidence.

Today's Sunday Telegraph reports that detectives have discovered a significant hand-written note from Tony Blair in the the cash-for-honours investigation.

Police officers now believe that Downing Street intended to give "working peerages" to party lenders. Those in line included Sir Christopher Evans, a multi-millionaire businessman, who is the only lender arrested as part of the 10-month inquiry.

As the net draws ever closer to Tony Blair he may decide to launch a search for his successor to reduce the impact of any eventual arrest. But the chances are increasing that police will have sufficient evidence to arrest and charge him and that he will eventually be brought to trial in an English court.

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