GORDON Brown suffered a personal attack from David Cameron yesterday when the Prime Minister suggested his predecessor had pocketed money by giving speeches to banks.
During Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Cameron – touching upon the issue of lobbyists in light of the Liam Fox controversy – responded to Labour’s Russell Brown, who asked if the PM would provide a list of those who had been misled by Adam Werritty, the self-styled advisor to the former defence secretary.
Mr Cameron told MPs: “It comes slightly ill from a party to lecture us on lobbying when we now know the former defence secretary is working for a helicopter company, the former home secretary is working for a security firm, Lord Mandelson, well he’s at Lazards, and even the former leader, the former prime minister, in the last few months he’s got £120,000 for speeches to Credit Suisse, Visa and Citibank. He told us he’d put the money into the banks, we didn’t know he’d get it out so quickly.”
According to the Register of MPs’ Interests, Mr Brown since the last General Election has given a number of speeches from New York to New Delhi and Saudi Arabia to Singapore, raising almost £600,000, all of which has gone to his office dealing with good causes such as education in Africa and spreading broadband to poorer countries.
Last night, a spokeswoman for Mr Brown told The Herald: “This allegation is completely false. Not a single penny from speeches made by Mr Brown goes to him personally. ”
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