BBC Tories and Labour in murky affairs

What a convoluted affair is developing around the BBC business Editor Robert Peston. Peston, if you are not aware, is the BBC journalist who on his blog and in his reports wrote about the financial crash and who appeared remarkably, very remarkably, informed.

The tone of his reporting caused many, including myself, to write questioning whether his journalism was adding to the turmoil in the markets.

Then yesterday ,Robert Peston reports that the Tory shadow chancellor George Osborne is being accussed by his erstwhile Cambridge friend Nat Rothchild, a multi millionaire hedge fund magnet, of trying to solicit funds for the Tory party from Russian billionare Aluminium magnet Oleg Deripaska. (That's Nat Rothschild of the awesomely rich Rothschilds)

I hope you are following this because it gets worse...

It is suggested by Peston ( BBC reporter - c'mon stay with me here..) that Rothschild is angry at his friend Osbourne ( Shadow Chancellor .. yes?) because Osbourne claimed that at the dinner party on a yacht where all this happened. (Sorry I forgot to mention the yacht earlier).

Ok on the yacht where this is all claimed to have happened someone leaked the suggestion that Peter Mandelson ( former EU commissioner and now back in the labour Government) had dripped poison through the dinner about his now boss Gordon Brown.

It is suggested by Peston that Nat Rothschild is pissed at his friend Osbourne's suspected indiscretion about this dinner conversation so he is now said to be countering and alleging that at this yacht event in Corfu Osbourne was soliciting funds from the Russian oligarch. Such donations would have been illegal, Osbourne has roundly denied the allegations and Robert Pestons blog is full of comments from Tories trying to suggest this is all a non-story.

Oh and here's another twist. Peter Mandelson as EU commissioner had responsibility for and information on matters that would have been very relevant to a trader in aluminium. But of course this would not have been discussed over dinner.

And a Tory MP has called for an investigation into where Robert Peston was getting all his juicy information from and the possibility that this influenced the markets and speculators. Idle speculation that the information came from somewhere inside the powers that be has of course been denied.

Oh and as I said - Peston is the business editor for the BBC. So exactly why is he breaking what is essentially a political story?

A curious thing my dear Watson. We must consider the evidence carefully ....