We're bad, we're all bad....I don't think so

Following the twists and turns of the Labour funding fiasco should be a full time job. Unfortunately, I already have one so blogging on this quickly evolving story has been difficult.

It looks like more people in the Labour party know about the donations than they are saying. Several careers are dangling by a thread, including Harriet Harman, Jon Mendelson and Wendy Alexander (different matter, but related). I think Mr Mendelson and Mrs Alexander will both have to resign while Mrs Harman will struggle on until the next time.

Gordon Brown made three mistakes at his press conference. The first being that he declared the donations illegal, whilst that is obviously true it means that a police investigation was inevitable. By not mentioning the legal status he may have got away with internal and electoral commission enquiries. He has left himself open to being the second PM (in only the space of a year) to be questioned in Downing Street. This PM ain't as astute as he was cracked up to be.

The second mistake was to not to proclaim confidence in Mrs Harman from the start. The press detect the nuances of what you say and don't say, and the fact that he needed to be goaded into support maybe truthful but plays badly in the press. The press will now look for any differences between the two and exaggerate them.

The third was to proclaim that only one person knew about the arrangement with Mr Abrahams. The PM should know by now to not say something categoric if you don't know the answer. He's behaving like a political novice.

The latest move by the PM is to turn the attention to funding of the parties. This needs to be sorted out but, as ever, if it is done in the atmosphere of panic bad legislation will ensue. Dangerous dogs anyone? I suspect that GB will not do this in the spirit of fairness either. Throughout his career, he has tried to batter the Tories and I guess he will do the same again.

Although there were some mentions in the press that he was willing to put union funding in the mix, I doubt that he would. There will be a small concession but nothing designed for fairness. He will, most likely, try to cap spending on General Elections, limit individual and corporate donations, and spending between General Elections whilst exempting union funding. So Labour's funding fiasco will be turned to their advantage. If this happens, David Cameron will rightly walk away.

My proposal would be:

• Cap General Election spending at £15 million.
• Cap individual and corporate donations to £50,000.
• Enrolling into a union will present the employee which a choice of which party to donate a sum to. None would be a valid choice, in which case there would be a refund.
  
• Cap limits on the spending between General Elections on a seat to £10,000 per year for all parties.
• Scrap the communication allowance of £10,000 for M.P.'s.

Now that would be fair. Bet we don't see it.

Squiffy.