Lord Bhatia does a Father Ted Crilly

As sure as the coming of a new day, we have another New Labour sleazey bastard caught bang to rights as the Daily Mail reports...

Labour's flagship academies scheme is in disarray after a leading backer was forced to resign over the misuse of taxpayers' money.

Lord Bhatia has quit the City Academies programme after Government investigators found that £60,000 of public money ended up in the coffers of one of his charities and a further £10,000 was blown on a trip to Dubai.

Last night, the peer, a Labour donor appointed to the Lords by Tony Blair, denied the money had been misspent.

Lord Bhatia, 77, was chairman of the Edutrust Academies Charitable Trust (EACT), which has opened one academy in Lincolnshire and has applied to open a further seven across England in September with the help of £500,000 of public money per school.

Last year, after receiving a tip-off from a whistleblower, the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) began investigating EACT's finances.

They found that £70,000 had been misspent, including £10,000 on a 'research trip' to Dubai and £60,000 in 'excess rent' to the Ethnic Minority Foundation, a charity chaired by Lord Bhatia.

Maybe he could use the Father Ted excuse where Ted always claimed that the money was just "resting in his account"...

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