Labour grandee Geoffrey Robinson helped Beijing group 

Multi-millionaire Geoffrey Robinson has survived a catalogue of scandals during a long and colourful career.

Now aged 83, he was elected MP for Coventry North West in a 1976 by-election and retained the seat until his retirement in 2019, but it was not until he became Paymaster General in 1997 that his financial affairs came under scrutiny.

In 1998, he resigned after it emerged he had given a £373,000 interest-free loan to Cabinet colleague Peter Mandelson, whose department was investigating Mr Robinson's business interests. Three years later, he was suspended from Parliament for three weeks for failing to properly declare a 1990 invoice for £200,000 to the corrupt tycoon Robert Maxwell.

Two years ago, The Mail on Sunday revealed that Mr Robinson had been reported to Scotland Yard over a £30,000-a-year taxpayer-funded salary paid to constituency worker Brenda Price. A leaked email, dated January 2018, showed he told Commons authorities that Ms Price, then 89, was working for him virtually full-time. In fact, she was so frail that she required round-the-clock nursing care. Mr Robinson subsequently paid back the money.

In 2019, the MoS revealed that intelligence files named Mr Robinson as a spy who allegedly handed defence secrets to Communist-run Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. He strenuously denies the allegations.

His personal life has also been eventful. He inherited more than £12 million in 1997 from close friend Joska Bourgeois. Shortly afterwards, the MoS revealed he and Italian film star Annabella Incontrera had been lovers since 1973. To the fury of Mr Robinson's wife, the opera singer Maria Elena Giorgio, Ms Incontrera said: 'Geoffrey was very persistent in his proposals of

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