100% HONEST
We did everything right says donor row Johnson
Furious Health Secretary Alan Johnson insisted yesterday he was "100 per cent honest" as he became the latest minister caught in a donations row.
Penniless student Waseem Siddiqui was used as a front to give £3,334 to Mr Johnson's campaign for the Labour deputy leadership last year - a breach of election law.
The money came from Mr Siddiqui's brother-in-law Ahmed Yar Mohammed, treasurer of Croydon Central Labour party, our sister paper the Sunday Mirror revealed.
But Mr Johnson said everything was "above board" and there was "absolutely no impropriety ... we did what the law asked us to do. We checked that he is on the electoral roll, we checked that he is registered to vote in this country."
He added: "I'm as surprised as anybody but we followed the procedures absolutely."
Businessman Mr Mohammed denied deliberately hiding the donation. He said: "As I was travelling at the time I asked my brother-in-law to write a cheque.
"I did this in good faith and at no point was it my intention to disguise my donation ... there has been some misunderstanding so I am writing to the Electoral Commission to clarify the circumstances."
There was also anger that the donation, made in June, did not appear on the Electoral Commission website until December. All donations must be declared within 60 days.
But Mr Johnson said: "We submitted his donation to the Electoral Commission.
"We noticed it was not appearing on the website, with three other contributions, so we met the Commission. They advised us to resubmit them all, which we did."
The Commission said they were checking their records to see what had happened.