Bernie Ecclestone makes 'machine gun' claim after major row

Bernie Ecclestone once claimed he would face a "machine gun" rather than speak about the nature of a political donation after an intervention by then-British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

In January 1997, Ecclestone donated £1 million to Blair's Labour Party, which would go on to win the 1997 UK general election in May, with Blair replacing Sir John Major as prime minister.

Later that year, in November, the Sunday Telegraph revealed the initial seven-figure donation, with Ecclestone reportedly in talks with Blair's team over another £1 million donation, with a meeting between the F1 chief and prime minister taking place in Downing Street on October 16th, 1997.

This was crucial as, at the time, Ecclestone was lobbying the government hard for an exception to the otherwise blanket ban on tobacco advertising, which he claimed could cost up to 200,000 jobs in Britain, a meeting of which no minutes were kept. 

A few weeks after the Ecclestone-Blair meeting, health minister Tessa Jowell, who was fiercely anti-smoking, argued in front of the EU for an exception to the ban for F1. 

Once the alleged 'bribe' had been revealed, the Labour Party returned the donation to Ecclestone, and the F1 tobacco ban would be implemented over the course of the mid-2000s.

However, three years later, the scandal was brought back into the public eye over claims that Blair and his Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, had lied about what they knew about the initial donation and when the decision had been taken to seek an exemption for F1. 

It was originally claimed that the decision had been taken weeks after the Ecclestone-Blair meeting, but declassified Downing Street memos indicated that Blair had instructed his chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, to do so within hours of meeting Ecclestone.

Blair then gave his version of events, despite Ecclestone believing there was a mutually agreed decision to keep quiet over the circumstances.

Speaking to the Sunday Times, Ecclestone launched a fierce criticism of the prime minister, who would leave office in 2007, whose team he branded as "clowns."

"I rarely regret anything I do, but I'm disappointed that Blair could not keep his word about that," Ecclestone said.

"I said to those clowns: if someone puts me up against the wall with a machine gun, I will not confirm or deny anything about the donation.

"They said: 'Okay, okay, we will do the same.' The next thing that happened is that Blair has started talking. 

"I only found out by accident. It is third-rate behaviour."