BRITAIN’S Conservative Party yesterday established their strongest opinion-poll lead since the height of Margaret Thatcher’s reign 20 years ago, as embattled British Prime Minister Gordon Brown faced a police probe into a funding scandal in his Labour Party.

POLITICAL fundraising has always been a murky business, carried out by the very smoothest party apparatchiks on the fringes where business and politics collude.

The Labour party in the UK was today resisting demands to repay more than £600,000 (€836,182) in “secret” donations made by a wealthy party backer through a series of middlemen.