Short attacks Labour for accepting £100,000 donation from Desmond

Clare Short condemned Labour leaders last night for accepting a £100,000 donation from Richard Desmond, the newspaper and soft-porn publisher.

The Secretary of State for International Development, a veteran campaigner against Page Three girls, reopened the controversy over the gift in comments on BBC1's Question Time. Asked if the party was right to take the donation, she said: "No, I hate porn."

She said a new committee, headed by Charles Clarke, the Labour chairman, set up to vet donations had "been established because of the embarrassment of that affair". When it was put to her that the committee had been planned before news of the donation emerged, she said: "You have to say that, don't you?"

Ms Short also criticised the decision that hand-outs of more than £5,000 would be scrutinised but that donations would not be rejected on moral grounds. She said: "Every human being should sit in moral judgement on absolutely everything they do."

Party leaders had hoped the establishment of the committee would draw a line under the Desmond affair.

Tony Blair looked uncomfortable last week as the BBC's Jeremy Paxman read out a list of publications produced by Mr Desmond's Northern & Shell company, including Horny Housewives and Mega Boobs.

Asked if he knew what they were like, the Prime Minister said: "No, I don't. But I do know that if someone is fit and proper to own one of the major newspaper groups in the country, there's no reason why we shouldn't accept donations from them."