"The reason? Candidates are advised to amass of fighting fund three times greater than the legal limit. According to the Times:

THE Tories are planning to flout electoral spending laws in the local elections...Candidates for councillor are being told to recruit celebrity fundraisers to “raise three times the legal election maximum”, according to a leaked copy of the party’s campaign manual. "

You may find the advice useful. I didn't spot any surprises in the activities set out there. But the repetition of the Conservative "line" is interesting

"The Conservative Party of today is more green, more family friendly and less arrogant that politicians have all the answers to the problems we face. We understand that people want something to be done about the environment and their quality of life, and above all people want a government that delivers for them."

A good campaign might feature plenty of evidence to the contrary.

The first of our featured articles, from the New Statesman gives the latest rumours on loans-for-peerages. According to Martin Bright:

"Cash for honours, loans for peerages, or just plain old-fashioned political shenanigans? Call it what you like, the Labour Party's ill-conceived scheme to raise a fighting-fund for last year's election campaign has already proved disastrous. Even before Deputy Assistant Commissioner John Yates of Scotland Yard presents his findings to the Crown Prosecution Service, the party is broke, its activists are demoralised and its future is uncertain."

That much we knew, I suppose. But the insider gossip is apparently that:

party officials now believe the loans scheme was dreamt up at a meeting attended by Blair and a tiny group of trusted loyalists: possibly just Levy; Jonathan Powell, the chief of staff at No 10; and the then party general secretary Matt Carter.

But the Labour National Executive is said to have been briefed at an early stage.

"Labour future" means Brown, of course (It is hard to see John Reid running a sufficient number of terrorism scares to find himself running the country.) The Telegraph reports that

Mr Brown's first 100 days will be modelled on New Labour's blitz of policy announced after Tony Blair was swept to power in 1997.

Plans include moves to strengthen the role of Parliament, to clean up party funding after the "loans for peerages" affair, to reduce the powers of political advisers and to outflank David Cameron on the environment.

As a sign of what is to come, it emerged yesterday that air travellers and owners of petrol-guzzling cars will be targeted for sharp tax rises in Mr Brown's Pre-Budget Report next month.

Separately, details emerged from a No10 policy document of a new contract between the state and citizen setting out what individuals must do in return for key services.

The BBC are making an effort to stir interest in the Politics Show tomorrow - promising to expose the links between the Midlands Industrial Council and the Conservatives. The new element seems essentially to point the finger at Julie Kirkbride as the official go-between.

The BBC are also revealing the names of the participants - most of whom had been outed by the Telegraph a while back.

Funnily enough there is a familiar ring to some of them.

Seriously rich tory donor Bob Edmiston has of course been in the news as one of the tory donors who didn't get to the house of Lords. The Sunday Times put it like this:

The chairman of the council is Bob Edmiston, a multi-millionaire car importer who was nominated for a peerage by the Tories last year. His nomination was blocked by the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which vets potential peers.

Bob Edmiston is apparently one of those creationists who has taken advantage of the New Labour City Academies scheme to set up a few schools - including one in Solihull.

Sir Anthony Bamford hit the headlines when Cameron made his trip to India. The Sunday Times were onto this as well:

The MIC president is Bamford, knighted by Margaret Thatcher in 1990. He recently accompanied Cameron on a trip to India where the Tory leader opened a JCB factory.

So the MIC story links back to the Cameron product placement story that emerged back in August.

Not once but twice in fact. Also on the list is Peter Shirley of Midlands Chilled Foods. Here is what Labour blogger Fair Deal Phil has to say:

Peter Shirley - of Midland Chilled Foods whose new factory in Basingstoke, Hampshire was recently opened by David Cameron. Mr Shirley told the ST:
“I’m a member of the MIC. I was aboslutely amazed that it was David Cameron who came to the (factory) opening.”

(Okay he is just quoting the Sunday Times here - but he has obviously done some work on this crowd).

Other blogs with pieces on this story include Lib Dem Voice,Colin Ross, and Norfolk Blogger.

We last looked at Tory finances here.

The big UK political story is the extension of the cash-for-peerages investigation. All the papers are running it - and it is going to run on for a while longer. Brown is not quite in the spotlight, but is out on the public stage. Here is the Guardian covering the Sky News report:

Police have contacted a "substantial" proportion of Tony Blair's past and present cabinet ministers over the loans-for-peerages scandal, it was claimed today.
Sky News reported that every member of the 2005 cabinet except the prime minister had received a letter about the claims.

"Every minister" includes Brwon of course. So his chances of appearing as Mr Clean after Blair has gone are reduced. Michael White breaks the bad news

why might a protracted controversy over details like that - or the Met's failure to make a case that the CPS and the Attorney General can sanction - matter to prime minister Brown? For the same reason that Neil Hamilton and Jonathan Aitken's doomed libel suits against the Guardian mattered in the mid-90s to John Major whose ministers they had been. A background of scandal makes it harder to make a fresh start, even if Brown is free of this particular taint.

Quite who is tainted is an interesting question. The Guardian also quote a Conservative denial:

A Tory spokesman said no shadow ministers had been contacted by police, apart from the party's former leader, Michael Howard.

This is quite a small group of people. Always interesting when denials are so specific...

The Guardian article is pretty brief. A Tory councillor has been suspended )pretty promptly) after sending a racist e-mail to fellow conservative councillors. It tells you that there is a little more to Cllr Ellenor Bland than this - she was a Conservative candidate in Swansea East at the last election (the Guardian descibes her as having been a PPC, but it seems that she actually fought the seat).

You could think this is par for the course. These things happen - and we know that the Tories have their unreconstructed, tombstone-like wing.

But find your way to This is Wiltshire and you'll find that she is in fact a thoroughly modern, Cameron-supporting Tory.

"I am a firm supporter of David Cameron's policies...If I wasn't a supporter of David Cameron I certainly would not be a conservative.

"This e-mail has been circulating for years and I forwarded it in a harmless, not racist or malicious, way and it has come back and blown up in my face."

This was going to be a busy week for Ellenor Bland. She is opening her new shop, Sophisticatz on Saturday. Perhaps she should have another think about the name...

tag: augean stables