If you live in Britain . . .

[Beep Beep!]

. . . can somebody explain, in American English so a Yank can understand, exactly why Tony Blair is in trouble and what is "cash for honours"? Thank you!!

[Bill?]

"cash for honours"?
it sounds like a fancy way of saying he got busted for prostitution...
:-?

[Foolish Mortal]

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=41345

Cash-for-honours probe Tony Blair refuses to quit.

LONDON: British Prime Minister Tony Blair refused on Friday to resign over an intensifying “cash-for-honours” police probe despite fears within his Labour Party about its “corrosive” political fallout.

Blair, who has pledged to stand down before September but not before July, told the BBC he intends to continue with his policy reform agenda until handing over to his successor in the party.

However, the main opposition Conservative Party has called for him to quit and top Labour figures are openly worrying about the probe’s damaging impact now that Blair has been questioned by police for a second time as a witness.

The probe launched in March 2005 is trying to establish if the Labour Party and other parties illegally offered people seats in parliament’s unelected upper chamber, the House of Lords, in return for financial assistance.

Blair said he understood how the probe was “distracting and somewhat obsessive for the media” but added: “It isn’t for me.”

When pressed by the BBC about whether he should stand down to end the political damage, Blair replied: “I don’t think that’s the right way to do it.

“I think it would be particularly wrong to do it before the inquiry has even run its course and come to any conclusion.

You’ll have to put up with me for a little bit longer,” the prime minister said.



So 'Cash for Honors' means people in Blair's party have been accused of taking bribes in return for positions in the upper house of parliament.

[JimboX]

So 'Cash for Honors' means people in Blair's party have been accused of taking bribes in return for positions in the upper house of parliament.

Yawn....I like Bill?'s answer better

[Beep Beep!]

"Unelected Upper Chamber" - What do those people do, and why is it worth paying a bribe to get in?

[The-Last-Man]

I think it's to do with members of the labour party taking backhanders in return for titles, Lordship, Sir etc etc.

Or I may be totally wrong. Who knows.

[Ben]

He probably charged more for the extra U!

[The-Last-Man]

He probably charged more for the extra U!

http://www.pierce.ctc.edu/bbenedet/fall04/Documents/tumbleweed/tumbleweed/tumbleweed3.jpg

[Katamari]

"Unelected Upper Chamber" - What do those people do, and why is it worth paying a bribe to get in?

House of lords: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords

[tom daylight]

The lords effectively have a veto power over any law, although some of them become ministers (most notably in recent times, we had an education secretary who was a lord "sharing" the job with someone Blair didn't want there).

To be honest the scandal is pretty much just the manifestation of a far bigger problem (http://www.labour-watch.com/sleaze.htm) in the Blair government - the fact that they do all in their power to obfuscate the truth about anything and everything. They consistently put the survival of their party ahead of the best interests of the country. And this being the party that got elected largely on the grounds that the previous government had become associated with sleaze (although in that case, it was really the independent actions of minor, back-bench MPs; in the past ten years we've seen junior ministers, senior ministers and indeed the PM himself act even sleazier than they did!) makes me wonder why it's only becoming a big media story now.