New Labour will have to repay about £3m in interest on its loans after the forthcoming General Election. Most of the money is owed to millionaires who bankrolled the
Government’s last election campaign in 2005. The Party will then have to repay a further £9m of outstanding loans to these businessmen by 2015 – a problem in parallel with the UK’s national debt.

The Party attracted a bad press four years ago after secretly borrowing £14m from a dozen donors without making the arrangements public. Police enquiries followed, although the Crown Prosecution Service decided that no one would face charges.

The scale of these debts renders the Party increasingly dependent on contributions from Unite. The New Labour prospective MP selection process is becoming increasingly fraught, with eight former Unite officials bidding to become candidates in addition to the 156 cuckoos already sitting in the Commons.