Will they do it again isn’t the question, I promise you. They will. The only unanswered query is how will they do it. Well, settle down and listen to my tale, because I think I’ve stumbled across the answer.
Last week the chairman of the House of Lords Appointments Commission appeared before MPs and told them he was shocked. Shocked, I tell you. The use of loans to circumvent the rules governing party finance had not been illegal, he admitted, but that didn’t make it right. “It was a bit like tax avoidance,” declared Lord Stevenson of Coddenham.
The whole loans episode remains a bit puzzling: why take a loan from someone quite happy to give a donation and declare it? But one thing is