If Gordon Brown's woes were not legion enough.
Just after the fallout to the local elections in England and the result of the London mayoral race as well as being around the time of the vote on the plans for 42 days' detention for terror suspects, Lord Levy, Tony Blair's former chief fundraiser who was at the heart of the "cash for honours" controversy, will publish his autobiography.
A Question of Honour: Inside New Labour and the True Story of the Cash for Peerages Scandal was due to be published in the autumn. But it is thought the memoirs of Cherie Blair and John Prescott might crowd out the market.
So, publisher Simon & Schuster has brought forward the publication to May 12. Last night Westminster sources suggested that the ex-Prime Minister's former envoy to the Middle East has secured a lucrative serialisation deal with a Sunday newspaper, which could publish damaging extracts the weekend before the May 1 polls and/or the weekend after the dust has settled on the results. The Herald attempted to get a comment from Lord Levy but there was no response.
The publishers are billing it as the first insider's account of the "cash for peerages" scandal that rocked the Labour Government last year. It will be Lord Levy's behind-the-scenes account of the police probe into the denied allegations that peerages were offered in return for loans, that is unlikely to be helpful to the embattled premier. No-one was charged in connection with Scotland Yard's 16-month investigation, which cost the taxpayer £1.4m.
The publisher's blurb says it is "an explosive story from one of our era's most fascinating individuals". Lord Levy is said to have declined to show the manuscript to the Cabinet Office committee that vets the memoirs of ministers.
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