PM to hand back £600,000

Gordon Brown this afternoon denied any personal knowledge of secret donations to the Labour Party as he pledged to pay back around £600,000.

He and Labour's deputy leader and chairman Harriet Harman were today dragged into the heart of the scandal.

The Prime Minister declared that hundreds of thousands of pounds donated secretly to Labour was "completely unacceptable" and that it would be repaid.

And Mr Brown admitted that a person working for North East property developer and Labour supporter David Abrahams had offered a donation to his campaign for the Labour leadership.

He said it had been rejected by members of his campaign team because they did not accept money from people not known to them.

An ashen-faced premier was forced to explain to reporters at a Downing Street press conference that, as well as making huge cash gifts to Labour, Mr Abrahams had tried to give money to Miss Harman's and Environment Secretary Hilary Benn's campaigns for the deputy leadership.

He repeated time and again that he had no knowledge of the secret donations to Labour until Saturday night when he was told of media inquiries while at the Commonwealth conference in Uganda.

The Labour leader also stressed that Miss Harman had not known of the donation to her campaign from Mr Abrahams's secretary, Janet Kidd, which had been accepted.

And he said Mr Benn's campaign had rejected a cheque for £5,000 from Miss Kidd, but later accepted one directly from Mr Abrahams.

Of the £600,000 donations given to Labour through intermediaries, Mr Brown told the press conference: "I know nothing of these donations. I was never consulted about this practice that had grown up.