"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.

In Wednesday's Guardian Simon Jenkins posited that "Ipswich proves how badly we need Tory libertarians". He does not recognise the current Conservative Party as being able to make the case for an increase in basic civil liberties:

What is the matter with the Conservative party? It once claimed a nodding acquaintance with the cause of liberty. Now it runs with the corporatist pack. If there is anything to be banned, regulated or computerised, it howls from the dispatch box for "something to be done". Be it prostitutes, drugs, prisons, NHS computers, data protection or civil rights, the Tories are desperate not to be seen as out of the action.

Just like Blair, Cameron seems content to have his agenda shaped at the behest of focus groups and the press. As Jenkins continues:

The Tories could tell us exactly what a modern Conservative means by a free society, and list the regulations and restrictions they intend to repeal in their bonfire of controls. They could seize the moment of the Ipswich headlines by declaring their determination to end counter-productive bans on consensual crime. Merely preaching an end to government interference in the private affairs of citizens is hypocritical if, when case after case comes along, Cameron funks mentioning it for fear of the press.

Indeed. Project Cameron is not about any sort of principle, as Cicero argued so persuasively earlier this week. It is solely about securing a return to power for the Conservatives, who have finally come to the realisation that the "Natural Party of Government" finds loss of power more painful than the triumph of the viewpoint of one their disparate sects (although, of course, if power was secured these internal tensions would surface immediately).

Yet what is the point of this power, if the Conservatives will not act?

If the Tories spend every day dancing attendance on the tabloids, they will get absolutely nowhere with wavering voters. If oppositions, especially those professing an aversion to an overwhelming state, cannot see how specifically to curb it, who will?

The answer is obvious - it has to be the Liberal Democrats. A clear and urgent expression of Liberty has to be our rallying cry in the run up to the general election. We owe it to the voters to offer them this choice; they will not get it from the Blue Labour parties.

It is distinctive, but it is also right.

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...

If Liberalism is about anything it is about the idea that ordinary men and women can improve their own lives and those of others. OK there is a lot more to it (although we often burden teh liberal message with low/value baggage). But this idea really is at the heart of Liberalism.

Are we doing enough with it? In my view, probably not. Lsitening to some of the debates in Brighton I was struck by the moralising, fun-free nature of some of it. There is a big constituency within the lib dems for a platform based upon moral exhortation. Personally I don't find the prospect of lecturing the electorate to be better to be very attractive*.

So I was interested in Andrew Rawnsley's account of Cameron's speech to the tories.

It is not true to say that David Cameron has no beliefs. The Tory leader outlined one to his party conference that can be summed up in a word. Optimism is his policy. Cheerfulness is his creed. Being happy is his ideology. He cried to them: 'Let sunshine win the day!'

I wouldn't want us to copy Cameron's vacuity (although I would caution those who confuse moral posturing with "having something to say"). Still we can't allow him to have a monopoly on optimism.

Just think back to some of the great US presidential campaigns (Reagan v Mondale perhaps) to remind yourself how powerful a force it can be.

Indeed our message should be built around it. Britain is held back by two forces: Labour who want a regulation and a central control for every human activity, and the Conservatives who want to turn the class system back to full blast.

Only Lib Dems will release the energy of the British people.

*Incidentally one of the standard features of Lib Dem (and Liberal) conferences is (was) the fringe meeting at which someone stands up and berates the parliamentary party for not doing enough to promote some unpopular cause.

Last week we listed a string of issues about Tory finances. This week a new story has emerged.

According to the Observer

It was a poker night with a difference. Renowned Australian cricketer Shane Warne teamed up with millionaire ecologist Zac Goldsmith to entice the rich and famous to pay £10,000 a head to play cards at an exclusive London members' club.
The aim, thought most of guests there, was to raise money for charity and those who turned out included Sting, his wife Trudi Styler, Goldsmith's sister Jemima Khan, her partner Hugh Grant, the footballer Teddy Sheringham and Tom Parker Bowles. There were also various additional members of the Goldsmith clan, including Zac's wife, Sheherazade, who was the centre of media attention after rumours that her husband had been having a relationship with Alice Rothschild, the sister of his younger brother, Ben's wife, Kate.

But today The Observer can reveal that the event was actually planned by Goldsmith in part to raise thousands of pounds for the Conservative party through a company run by his cousin Alex.