It was "support that Mr Robinson has been fully entitled to give Mr Brown has enjoyed no personal financial gain or loans. It's bigger than any individual." However, the Government will face further questions about Mr Robinson's generosity. He also helped pay for the cost of leaflets detailing Mr Brown's achievements, which have been sent to activists around the country. While in opposition he funded research into the windfall tax and other economic issues through a special trust called the Smith Political Economy Unit.The revelation of the extent of Mr Brown's reliance on Mr Robinson, who resigned as Paymaster-General last week after details of his pounds 373,000 loan to Peter Mandelson became public, will be embarrassing to the Chancellor and Tony Blair.It is believed that at least some of the money came from the profits of offshore trusts of which the former Paymaster-General is a beneficiary. "He made a mistake, he did something wrong and he paid a very heavy price for it," he will tell the BBC's Broadcasting House "The Labour Party is New Labour. Mr Robinson's contribution to the pay of Mr Brown's key advisers has cost the taxpayer tens of thousands of pounds, because their opposition salaries had to be matched from the public purse when Labour won power in May last year. The subsidy led to a furious row between Lord Burns, then Sir Terence Burns, the most senior civil servant at the Treasury, and Mr Brown's office. Sir Terence queried the pay requests made for Charlie Whelan, Mr Brown's press secretary, and Ed Balls, his chief economics adviser.

Sir Terence did not understand why the salaries asked for were so high - around pounds 50,000 for Mr Whelan and pounds 60,000 for Mr Balls.The issue was referred to the ministerial committee responsible for special advisers' salaries - which included Peter Mandelson, then minister without portfolio. The committee approved the aides' pay, but relations between Sir Terence and Mr Brown never recovered. Sir Terence was eventually edged out and given a peerage.Tony Blair will today seek to draw a line under the loans row, distancing himself from Mr Mandelson. Complaints from United States Air Force pilots in the 1980s prompted the international Aerospace Medical Association to carry out a detailed study, which concluded the complaints were "not a rare event" and leakages posed "a clear threat to flying safety because of acute toxic effects".. GORDON BROWN will this week come under fresh pressure over the extent of his links with Geoffrey Robinson, after it emerged that the former Paymaster-General helped to fund the Chancellor's office in opposition and subsidised the salaries of his staff.

Then you might end up having some sort of leakage where something does get through." But a former captain on an Australian passenger airline told the Independent on Sunday about one occasion when she felt "as drunk as a skunk" while piloting her plane, a BAe 146, into Brisbane airport.The Australian Bureau of Air Safety is investigating a separate incident in which a pilot became incapacitated while approaching Melbourne; the co-pilot landed the plane, but it was found the company had failed to replace a faulty engine seal discovered by mechanics 23 days earlier.The danger posed by fumes in aircraft air-conditioning systems has been recognised for at least 15 years. The claim in Sydney was put forward by Alyssia Chew, a former flight attendant with the airline. According to documents presented to the court this month, Ansett received reports of 14 "smells incidents" on board its 14-strong BAe 146 fleet in less than a year.Meanwhile, a group of 19 former Alaska Airlines flight attendants are suing the airline over similar incidents on board the American-made McDonnell- Douglas MD-80.Ansett acknowledges that some cabin staff can suffer short-term irritation and headaches as a result of exposure to oil fumes, but denies any link with long-term nervous- system damage.Paul Tattersall, head of sales and marketing for British Aerospace, said the BAe-146 was built to the most stringent en-gineering standards, but added: "You can't cater for failures where something does break down in an unforeseen way. "Fresh" air is routinely drawn into the cabin through the jet engines, which heat and pressurise it. But faulty bearing seals in the engines allow oil to leak into the airstream, causing smoke and fumes to enter the cabin.The oils contain organo-phosphates, which are used in high-performance lubricants but have been blamed for serious illnesses suffered by farmers using old-fashioned sheep dips.Airlines are anxiously following what is being viewed as a test case in Australia involving the BAe 146 and Ansett, Australia's leading domestic carrier. An estimated 3,000 pilots and cabin crew in Australia and the United States are already pursuing claims for compensation for long-term damage to their nervous systems. One case involves Britain's most popular short-haul commercial passenger jet aircraft, the four-engined British Aerospace 146, which is used by the Queen's Flight and is also operated by the airlines Debonair and KLM UK.The problem is thought to be linked to the method of circulating air in flight.

The world's airlines face lawsuits running into billions of pounds from employees who have complained of loss of consciousness, blurred vision, memory loss and neurological damage as a result of faults in air conditioning systems used on commercial jets. AVIATION EXPERTS have warned that the lives of thousands of airline passengers are at risk because pilots and cabin crew are suffering mid- flight seizures and blackouts after inhaling toxic engine fumes. "Discoland: Where the Music Never Ends" screens throughout January at the National Film Theatre on London's South Bank, SE1 (0171- 928 3232). For a chance to win, answer the following question: Which former Calvin Klein model starred as Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights? Send your answer on a postcard together with name, address, daytime telephone number and choice of film to: Disco/ Information comp, Promotions, National Film Theatre, South Bank, Waterloo, London SE1 8XT, by Monday 4 Jan 1999.

Twenty runners-up will receive a pair of tickets to a film in the season. We have a case of Gordon's gin plus a pair of tickets to five different films in the Disco season and an NFT membership to give away to one lucky winner. Three second-prize winners will receive a bottle of Gordon's and a pair of tickets to one of the "Disco" films. This stars Michael Myers as Steve Rubell in a recreation of the glory days of the outrageous Manhattan discotheque. Other hit disco movies featured are Can't Stop the Music (9 Jan, above), Xanadu (7 Jan, below right), Gay Disco Shorts (11 Jan), The Music Machine (14 Jan), Thank God It's Friday (15, 22 Jan), Disco TV (18 Jan) and ABBA the Movie (23 Jan).