Labour has been accused of a “cash for jobs scandal” after a party donor landed a top Treasury job.
Ian Corfield, who gave the party £20,000, has been appointed the department’s director of investments by chancellor Rachel Reeves.
On LBC this morning, paymaster general Nick Thomas-Symonds was forced to deny that the appointment was “a bit fishy”.
Presenter Nick Ferrari told him: “Rachel Reeves has been urged to come clean over how a wealthy Labour donor landed a plum six-figure salary job in the Treasury.
“I speak of Ian Corfield, made director of investments, someone who’s made donations to the Labour Party totalling £20,000. This is a cash for jobs scandal, isn’t it?”
Thomas-Symonds said: “It isn’t, because there’s no suggestion anywhere that any rules have been broken in respect of this.”
But Ferrari replied: “How does it look? How does it smell to you, Mr Thomas-Symonds? You and I have been talking to each other for years. How do you think it looks to an outsider? How does it smell? A bit fishy?”
Thomas-Symonds said: “No I don’t accept that. It looks to me as if the chancellor is making sure that she has the very best people around her in terms of making decisions, which she is entitled to do within the rules, which is precisely what she’s done.”
Ferrari then pointed out that the civil service commission, which oversees Whitehall appointments, had not been told that Corfield was a Labour donor before approving him.
The presenter said: “A bloke gives 20 grand to a political party - Conservatives, Lib Dems, in this case Labour - and blow me down he gets a six-figure plum job in the Treasury. You must admit that looks bad.”
The minister replied: “I don’t accept that. It’s the chancellor bringing the expertise around her that she thinks that she needs.”