Ecclestone explains pounds 1m gift

BERNIE Ecclestone gave a pounds 1m donation to the Labour Party because he admired Tony Blair and welcomed his pledge to peg the top rate of income tax - not because any deal had been done on tobacco sponsorship, the Formula One boss said last night.

In a letter to the Neill committee on political funding, released yesterday, Mr Ecclestone said he actually stood to gain from a ban on tobacco sponsorship. Lord Neill ordered Labour to pay back the money amid claims that Mr Ecclestone might have given it because he hoped it would influence a Labour government to soften its plans to ban tobacco sponsorship.

Mr Ecclestone wrote: "Since I share the TV income with teams and my costs would have increased only modestly even with a huge take-up in demand, I personally would have gained substantially from an immediate ban on tobacco sponsorship. If I was concerned with my own self-interest, I should have encouraged the British government to ban tobacco sponsorship on the shortest possible time-scale ...

"I would like to emphasise that prior to my donation, Tony Blair, then Leader of the Opposition, was encountering some opposition within the Labour movement for his decision to retain a top rate of personal income tax at 40 per cent ... I strongly welcomed Mr Blair's stand on this issue which was clearly unpopular with some of his party. I made my donation because I was impressed with Mr Blair's leadership of the Labour Party and I wanted to reinforce his independence in a party substantially dependent on finance from trade unions."