Forget Carrie – it could be curtains for Baroness Jay

MARGARET JAY was quick to ensure we all knew she had nothing to do with the Cash for Curtains row last week – but wasn’t so forthcoming about the fact that she is already facing a separate investigation.

As soon as it emerged Baroness Jay had been asked to join a trust to fund Carrie Antoinette’s gold wallpaper habit, t he Labour peer appeared on Newsnight to tell us that nothing untoward had happened. However, I can reveal that the peer is currently under investigation by Parliament’s watchdog for a breach of ‘personal honour’.

Sounds potentially serious for Jim Callaghan’s daughter – and it is, according to the rules. The Lords’ Code of Conduct describes breaches of personal honour as peers who show ‘a clear willingness to breach the Code (for example, by attempting to negotiate an agreement to provide parliamentary services in return for payment)’. A Lords spokesman said another example of a ‘personal honour’ breach would be lobbying Ministers or ‘abusing their position as a member of the House’.

Asked to comment on the probe, Jay remained silent. It was a different story when she appeared on Newsnight last week to comment on Cushiongate, having been approached by Tory donor Lord Brownlow to sit on the Downing Street Trust. Thanks to recently published emails we now know Lord Brownnose donated £ 58,000 ‘ to cover the payments the party already made on behalf of the soonto-be-formed Downing Street Trust.

He then approached Jay this year to sit on the Trust. She told Newsnight she expressed interest but ‘nothing formal was ever agreed’ and it all went nowhere.

Probably a good thing, given her own unrelated ethical quagmire.