Cameron u-turns on donor secrecy — but what now?

One distinct feature of the ‘cash for access’ row is that we’ve seen it all before. And not just the glutinous mix of politics and money, but also the debate over what should be done to fix it. Last November, Sir Christopher Kelly, chair of the Committee on Standards in Public Life, released a report into the funding of political parties that featured many of the options we’re hearing today. It landed on 24 recommendations, of which one stood out: ‘the only safe way to remove big money from party funding is to put a cap on donations, set at £10,000’. But to prevent a subsequent shortfall in parties’ funds, it also proposed that state funding be increased to the tune of an extra £23 million. ‘The equivalent,’ the report pointed out, ‘of only about 50p per elector per year’.

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Alexander Larman

Beware the middle of Lidl

This plan met with opposition from all sides.