Jack Straw keeps HP sauce dossier

  Contrary to my earlier post about who in the new government would pick up the Hayden Phillips dossier on the political funding, it has been retained by Jack Straw. The new Leader of the House, Harriet Harman, is married to the Treasurer of the Labour Party. Under the new regime at No. 10 there is clearly a better sense of propriety about possible perceived conflicts of interest.

Latest news from ongoing deliberations is that there is NO prospect of a cross-party consensus. The Tories' finances following the sale of CCO in Smith Square are relatively sound compared with either Labour or the Lib-Dems. The main target is legislation to impose caps on election spending and an end to the so-called 'financial arms race', which in Labour's case led, wholly unnecessarily' to the so-called cash for honours debacle. There are also lingering high hopes of dollops of taxpayers' money for political parties. I find this very difficult to take seriously in the absence of Tory support. Better to cap the spending asap, then see how the Tories square up in the marginals on a theme of 'buying votes'.