First the secret donations, now the business park

What has Mr Abrahams dropped Gordon Brown in this time, asks our Westminster insider

Gordon Brown called his monthly press conference for this morning to show he was back in charge. But that was before Labour Party general secretary Peter Watt resigned and another wheel dropped off the Brown wagon.

The media are enjoying a feeding frenzy, and more questions are going to be asked about the donations made by publicity-shy businessman David Abrahams. Watt's resignation last night will do nothing to answer them.

It has now emerged that the two people Abrahams used to give nearly £400,000 to Labour on his behalf and thereby conceal his identity - his secretary Janet Kidd, who lives with her husband in a semi on the outskirts of Gateshead, and Ray Ruddick, who drives a battered transit van and lives in a former council house - are the sole directors of a company which has won planning permission

for a multi-million-pound business park.

Despite their modest means, the pair are listed as the directors of Durham Green Developments. The Northern Echo reported on October 19, 2006, that they had won planning permission to build a business park on more than 220 hectares of land beside the A1 near Durham after the Highways Agency lifted a previous objection. Durham City Council have made no attempt to conceal their belief that Abrahams - or David Martin as he is also known - is behind the development.

However, the council is run by the Lib Dems so a Labour donation would have no effect in securing planning permission. But questions were being asked last night about Douglas Alexander who was Minister for Transport when the Highways Agency - part of his then department - removed its objection.

There's no evidence Alexander knew about the application. But the Brown government is looking dangerously accident-prone. Labour MPs are wondering what they can do to stop it smelling like a government in decay.