Pandora

Party guest

THE lavish White House dinner for Tony Blair last February has become a major scene in Bill Clinton's latest campaign cash and Chinese satellite controversy. One of the guests, Bernard Schwartz, is the 72-year-old New Yorker who heads Loral Space & Communications and who was the largest single donor to Clinton's '96 campaign, giving more than $600,00.

At the Blair dinner, he told the New York Times, he was anxiously searching for one of Clinton's top aides to get a last-minute waiver to allow one of Loral's satellites to be launched by the Chinese. In addition to supplying the Chinese with satellites (a business which required controversial direct White House intervention), Loral now has a deal to provide China with a cellular telephone service worth a potential $250m. In the end, Schwartz didn't meet the man he wanted at the Blair dinner, but White House approval came a few days later.

Now Pandora is intrigued to learn of Schwartz's UK business links in past years. These have included a contract to build a new computerised air-traffic control system at Swanwick and a bid for the pounds 2bn contract to replace the RAF's 25 Nimrod maritime patrol aircraft. He sold off the bulk of Loral's defence business in 1996 for $9bn to Lockheed Martin in order to concentrate on his satellite business (Loral recently bought the global Orion satellite system). A life-long Democrat, Schwartz gave half of the $36m bonus he earned from the Lockheed sale to his employees.

Pandora has learned that, a year before Blair's Washington dinner, Bernard Schwartz was a guest at Harold Evans's New York fundraiser for the US branch of the Labour Party, where Gordon Brown and Glenda Jackson were featured attractions. Since those efforts were aimed at raising funds strictly from British citizens living abroad, there is absolutely no suggestion that Schwartz has ever reached into his deep pockets to give anything to the Labour Party.

But what are Loral Space & Communications current business interests in Britain, if any? Pandora is keen to know more about generous Bernie Schwartz and any possible British friends and relations he may have.

Victory party

THE BOOK party for Elizabeth Wurtzel's novel Bitch at the Pharmacy last Thursday was as delirious as one might have expected. Ruby Wax entered and made a beeline straight for the guest of honour, whom she quickly upstaged as the event's focal point in Damian Hirst's trendy restaurant where the fake pills on the walls are often rivalled for inauthenticity only by the air-kisses of the clients.

Way out on the Pharmacy's fringes, Will Self was having difficulty determining which circular symbol (with cross or arrow?) on the lavatory doors denoted "masculine" and which "feminine". After one false start, Self proclaimed, "This proves that feminism has triumphed." On-looking feminists were not entirely convinced.

Eager beaver

WHO was the hardest working backbencher in the Commons last year. The award must go to Norman Baker, Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, who tabled 859 written questions between May '97 and March '98. As the Liberal Democrat News points out, that's an average of more than six per parliamentary day.

Magnum Jack

AT THE HEIGHT of last week's tropical London heat wave, Jack Straw came striding into a Brixton newsagent in search of cooling refreshment. But even when it comes to ice cream, the Home Secretary is no softie. His choice? Two heat-busting, force-bearing Magnums.