High-flying minister was implicated over Tory leak

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Government whip Helen Goodman wrote a secret report that embarrassed the former Conservative government when it fell into the hands of Gordon Brown, then shadow chancellor.

The curious leak of the report - Ms Goodman says she was cleared by her formerbosses - is being dragged up by Whitehall officials because it shows how dramatically the Prime Minister's attitude to leaks has changed.

Mr Brown had no hesitation in publishing the leaked report on the eve of a major economic debate in the Commons in the summer of 1996. It embarrassed the then-chancellor, Kenneth Clarke.

The report forecast, among other things, the privatisation of pensions by and welfare benefits.

When not working at the Treasury under her maiden name of Helen Goodman, the report's author was an ambitious Labour politician using her married name of Helen Seaford.

Oxford-educated Ms Goodman left the Treasury in 1997 and worked for charities until gaining the safe Labour seat of Bishop Auckland in 2005. She was promoted to deputy Commons leader under Harriet Harman when Mr Brown became leader in 2007. This autumn she moved to the whips office.