Blair quizzed again over cash-for-honours

Tony Blair has been questioned for a third time by detectives investigating cash-for-honours allegations, it has emerged.

Sources confirmed the former Prime Minister has once again been questioned by officers, possibly in the last week.

A spokesman for Mr Blair, who stepped down on Wednesday, would neither confirm nor deny the reports.

The Metropolitan Police have been investigating since March last year whether political parties nominated people for honours that come with seats in parliament's unelected upper house, the House of Lords, in return for cash.

Mr Blair was named as a peace envoy to the Middle East Quartet on Wednesday and is quitting as an MP for his Sedgefield constituency where his Parliamentary career began 24 years ago.

Before leaving Parliament, he waved his P45 at Prime Minister's Questions and left with the final words: "That is that. The end."

The search for Mr Blair's successor has already begun, and a by-election could be held as early as July 19.

Mr Blair represented Sedgefield since 1983 and at the 2005 General Election increased his majority to 18,457.

It was at the Labour Club that in the early hours of May 2, 1997, he celebrated becoming the country's youngest prime minister since 1812.

© Independent Television News Limited 2007. All rights reserved.