Peter Mandelson is right (Blair felt under pressure to ban foxhunting after donation, says Mandelson, 15 December). I’ve known for many years that Labour’s Hunting Act 2004 was bought and paid for by a political donation, but I was surprised to see Mandelson admit it in an eruption of honesty. I know because in 1996 I was sent by Tony Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, to the Draycott Hotel in Chelsea to meet Brian Davies, the founder of the International Fund for Animal Welfare. Standing on the doorstep, I collected from him a cheque for £1m made out to Labour. As he handed over the cheque, he was fiercely direct: “We have to stop hunting with dogs.”
At the time, I was running Labour fundraising with Jon Norton, a former banker who went on to marry the wonderful Mo Mowlam. Then Tony Blair appointed Michael Levy to run a Labour “high donor” campaign.
