British shadow finance minister George Osborne apologised yesterday for meeting Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska on his yacht in the Mediterranean, saying he had made an error of judgment.
Mr Osborne, the Conservative party's chief spokesman on finance, said he had neither asked for nor received money from aluminium magnate Mr Deripaska during the meeting last August, but admitted that meeting him still did not look good. "I think I did make a mistake and I think in politics it's not just what you say or what you do; it's how things look," Mr Osborne said in an interview with BBC radio.
"This didn't look very good and I regret that, and I think the real judgment is can you learn from the mistakes you make," Mr Osborne said, adding: "I have changed the way I am going to operate when it comes to fund raising and I will not discuss individual donations with individual donors."
Mr Osborne's meeting with Mr Deripaska was revealed by his friend Nathaniel Rothschild, a multimillionaire banker and business associate of Mr Deripaska's who helped introduce them. He has said Mr Osborne sought a donation from Mr Deripaska at the meeting.
Mr Rothschild revealed Mr Osborne's role because he was angered that Mr Osborne had revealed details of a private conversation he had aboard Mr Deripaska's yacht with another British politician, Peter Mandelson, who also is friends with Mr Rothschild.
"Perhaps in future it would be better if all involved accepted the age-old adage that private parties are just that," Mr Rothschild wrote in a letter to the Times last week, revealing the series of meetings.
Mr Mandelson, who recently left his post as EU Trade Commissioner to take up the post of Business Minister in Gordon Brown's government, said yesterday he had no plans to resign over his own meetings with Mr Deripaska.
Asked if he would stand down over meetings with the Russian magnate he said: "No, that is a fantasy".
At the weekend Mr Mandelson clarified how long he had known Mr Deripaska, saying they first met in 2004, two years earlier than previously stated.
Mr Mandelson has twice been forced to quite the British government in the past over scandals, once over a property loan and another time over the issuance of passports.
"It's notable that other politicians in dealing with these people have not been as open as I have," Mr Osborne told the BBC in an apparent reference to Mr Mandelson. "But I answered those points in a very detailed statement."