Is history going to repeat itself? Greg Hands is asking how Mandelson made the money dealing in property in his constituency to install himself in a £2.5 million Regency villa. Mandelson admits to receiving money from Alain Minc, the mysterious French fixer who was an adviser to former premier Édouard Balladur and now makes his millions “fixing” things. Monsieur Minc is worth examining closely…

When Guido looked into Mandelson finances a few months ago he was given the impression that Mandelson trousered £1 million from his brief involvement with the Clemmow Hornby Inge advertising agency – a pretty good return on the £30,000 he invested. This plus an inheritance enabled him to finance his multi-million pound home. Gilligan reveals that the inheritance was not that big. New information has now come to light revealing something unexplained about the sale of the shares.

Something that didn’t come out in the Gilligan article is the nearly 12 month gap between Mandelson selling his shares for circa £1 million in summer 2007, and the purchase of the property in August 2006. Did he get another bridging loan from a benefactor, or did he get a bridging loan from a bank? If so, did he use the shares as collateral for the loan?

Tory backer David Ross was forced to resign his position for failing to declare that he had used his shares in Carphone Warehouse as collateral to finance property deals. Mandelson has been in trouble and had to resign before over declarations about his mortgage…