Will Dame Shirley have to pay up

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A.� Well, she can certainly afford it. Dame Shirley Porter, the former leader of Westminster Council, has been ordered to pay a surcharge of �27 million for the home-for-votes corruption scandal.< xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

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Q.� Surcharge What's that

A.� John Magill, an independent auditor appointed by the Audit Commission, found in 1996 that Dame Shirley and her deputy David Weeks had sold council homes in marginal wards to buyers with the aim of boosting the Conservative Party's electoral hopes. Mr Magill said the council, as a result, had lost �31 million. He ordered Porter, Weeks, and four others, to repay the loss.

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Q.� And they accepted that

A.� No. They appealed to the High Court, which in December 1997, upheld the auditor's decision, though it reduced the figure. That decision was overturned by a majority ruling from the Court of Appeal in April, 1999, but reinstated by the House of Lords, the country's highest court.

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Q.� And have they paid

A.� No - and the deadline has now passed. Westminster Council has instructed city solicitors Stephenson Harwood to 'take all practical steps' to retrieve the debt. Colin Wilson, the council's director of legal services, said: 'The surcharge is still outstanding. We will now take appropriate legal steps to recoup the money.'

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Q.� Where is Dame Shirley

A.� Dame Shirley, 71, now lives in Haifa, Israel. She is said to be worth �70 million.

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Q.� How

A.� Her father, Sir Jack Cohen. He was the man who founded and built up the Tesco empire. Shirley was his youngest daughter, born in Clapton, east London. Legend has it that Jack started out selling matzos from a barrow. By the 1930s he had three or four shops, having co-operated with a merchant called TE Stockwell. The chain became known as Tesco. Cohen's early business slogan was 'pile it high and sell it cheap', but that was replaced by 'YCDBSOYA' - 'You can't do business sitting on your arse'.

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Q.� Tell me more about her wrongdoings.

A.� Porter, a Thatcherite who took over Westminster in 1983, pioneered the privatisation of local services and set a poll tax of �36. She then sold Westminster's public cemeteries for 15p to a Panamanian-registered company. They were later sold for �1.2 million.

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Q.� And the vote-rigging

A.� It was a simple four-year plan to ensure the Conservatives won the 1990 local elections. Council homes in eight key marginal wards would be put up for sale, under the 'right-to-buy' policy. This would attract more voters inclined to vote Conservative. The poorer people - more likely to vote Labour - were put in 'appropriate wards'. This usually meant two tower blocks contaminated with asbestos.

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Q.� And what was said in court

A.� The Law Lords didn't pull any punches. Her policies, they said, represented 'a deliberate, blatant and dishonest misuse of public power' and 'wilful misconduct'. Lord Scott said: 'The corruption was not money corruption. No-one took a bribe. No-one sought or received money for political favours. But there are other forms of corruption, often less easily detectable and therefore more insidious. Gerrymandering, the manipulation of constituency boundaries for party political advantage, is a clear form of political corruption.'

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We must wait and see if she pays the price for that corruption.

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Steve Cunningham