I understand that Boris Johnson 's first conversations about having the Downing Street flat renovations funded by donors were as long ago as February 2020.

At the time Ben Elliot, joint chair of the party suggested the PM borrow to pay the costs.

The PM then came up with the idea of a blind trust, again funded by donors. But the Cabinet Office could not sort the proprieties.

According to an email leaked to the Daily Mail, the Tory donor Lord Brownlow then contributed £58,000 "to cover the payments the party has already made on behalf of the soon to be formed 'Downing Street Trust'" - which was never formed.

The Tory Party had seemingly already paid back the Cabinet Office for the decorating bills it had paid on the PM's behalf. And the PM has now paid back the Tory Party.

We don't know when the PM paid the Tory Party, or how he found the funds to do that when he didn't have them in February of last year.

We also don't know whether...

1997. A desperate government clings to power; a hungry opposition will do anything to win. And journalist Gil Peck watches from the sidelines, a respected commentator on the sport of power politics. He thinks he knows how things work. He thinks he knows the rules.But when Gil's estranged sister Clare dies in a hit-and-run, he begins to believe it was no accident. Clare knew some of the most sensitive secrets in government. One of them might have got her killed.As election day approaches, Gil follows the story into the dark web of interests that link politics, finance and the media. And the deeper he goes, the more he realises how wrong he has been.Power isn't sport: it's war. And if Gil doesn't stop digging, he might be the next casualty.