Double trouble

Lord Levy must be having a poor grass-court season.

A fortnight ago he found the Shabbat sermon of Rabbi Julian Shindler – standing in for Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet at Mill Hill – was not to his liking.

Rabbi Shindler kicked off by discussing how "all men have sexual fantasies".

For Lord Levy it was all too much - amid much tut-tutting, he upped and left.

The former Labour Party fundraiser followed it up last Shabbat by abandoning a lunch at Woodside Park Synagogue.

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Lord Levy still has security protection

Sixteen months after ending his role as the Prime Minister's envoy to the Middle East, Lord Levy continues to have security protection. He was last week seen travelling to synagogue accompanied by a bodyguard.

Cabinet ministers and senior government officials do not normally continue having official protection after they leave their positions, with the exception of the Prime Minister and, during the "Troubles", former Northern Ireland Secretaries.

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Levy: ‘Miliband has no chance’

Former Labour fundraiser and Middle East envoy Lord Levy this week dismissed Foreign Secretary David Miliband as a possible Labour leader.

Lord Levy told an audience on Sunday that Mr Miliband "doesn't have the gravitas or the stature to be a great leader of the Labour Party. But talk to me in five or 10 years' time and it might be different."

Lord Levy was in conversation with journalist, author and JC columnist Jonathan Freedland at the first Hackney Limmud event.

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Jewish Care raises record £3.5m

Jewish Care fundraisers are celebrating a record £3.57 million pledged at the charity’s campaign dinner at  Grosvenor House on Tuesday.

The generosity of the 900 guests delighted campaign chairman Steven Lewis, who said that “in such financially challenging times, the community’s ability to understand the importance of what we do and offer their overwhelming support is truly outstanding”. The previous record was last year’s £2.9 million.

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£2.2 care project launched

Eighty Jewish Care supporters gathered in Edgware on Wednesday to mark the start of a £2.2 million mental health resource project.

The foundation stone for the Martin Cohen Centre for Wellbeing was laid by Marcia Feldman, the driving force behind the scheme.

It will herald a significant change in the charity’s delivery of services for those with mental health needs, moving away from the traditional model of a day care centre and offering a wide range of treatments and therapies.

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Review: A Question Of Honour

By Lord Michael Levy
Simon & Schuster, £18.99

In July 2006, Lord Levy, Tony Blair’s chief fund-raiser and personal envoy to the Middle East, was enjoying a birthday lunch with his family when he was told by his solicitor to report to Colindale police station, in North London, where he was going to be arrested. A Question of Honour describes in graphic detail the purgatory he and his family endured for over a year before he was released without charge.

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Lord Levy: how I survived

Lord Levy, the man at the heart of the cash-for-peerages investigation, and who is said to have saved Tony Blair from being in hock to the trades union movement, finally told his story this week, after nearly two years of silence.

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