Department III

There are so many wonderful New Labour moments in this:

Des Smith, who resigned from the council of the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust (SSAT) in January after telling an undercover reporter that Downing Street would recommend donors "for an OBE, a CBE or a knighthood", was released on bail after a day of questioning by officers from Scotland Yard's specialist crime directive.

He certainly did, the silly sod, though apparently not to the "fake sheik". Anyway, just to add to the delicious pre-emptive Schadenfreude:

Lord Levy, the Labour party fundraiser who is Mr Blair's tennis partner, is president of the SSAT. Lord Adonis, the junior education minister, wooed potential sponsors when he worked in the Downing Street policy unit as the prime minister's education adviser.

Adonis, profiled in disappointingly crawling fashion here (what were Red Pepper thinking?), is the working-class hero behind the entire Academy scheme. Some more cynical folk out there may well have been wondering why those made very rich by emphatically not dispensing largesse should suddenly blow fat wads of cash transforming failing schools into centres of excellence, ho ho. They might idly glance at Adonis' own democratic credentials. Tsk.