[22
MAR 01] GEOFFREY ROBINSON MP NEWS
MP Faces Fresh Probe As Book Pulled
Coventry
people will not be able to buy a book in the city detailing
allegations about local MP Geoffrey Robinson’s finances.
Both
WH Smith and Waterstones have said they will not stock The Paymaster
by tom Bower when it is published next month.
Some
of the details in the book have been serialised in the Daily Mail, and
Trade Secretary Stephen Byers has threatened to sue the paper.
But
the parliamentary standards commissioner Elizabeth Filkin is to
re-open an investigation into the Coventry North West MP.
It
is alleged that Mr Robinson asked for a £200,000 payments from Robert
Maxwell. A previous public investigation has cleared him of this, but
the book claims that evidence of the payment was found and suppressed
by the DTI.
Robinson,
who does not live in Coventry, was forced to resign from the
Government as Paymaster General in December 1998 following details of
a loan to Peter Mandelson.
Bower’s
book is due for publication on 2 April by Simon & Schuster. Both
the WH Smith and Waterstones chain have decided not to stock it until
the legal uncertainties are resolved.
Coventry’s
other full-price bookshop, Paperback Exchange, is not planning to
stock it, but can order it for customers.
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