Mark Pack

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Oakeshott is clearly not put off by coalition from his pursuit of Tory donors and their tax statuses. Today it is Jon Wood, whose tax affairs have been in the papers with Lord Oakeshott saying, “Now is the time to take... »

For the Conservatives it’s the quitting of their next treasurer, David Rowland, whilst for Labour it’s John Prescott warning of the Labour facing bankrupcy (the context for which you can see in these graphs).  »

Two illegal donations totalling £101,500 dating back to 2004 and 2006 have been forfeited by the Conservative Party. »

A quick update on Philip Lardner, whose suspension as a Conservative candidate during the election following homophobic comments we covered back in April – and who had previously been suspended by the Conservatives in 2008 for praising Rhodesian leader Ian Smith. After he made the homophobic remarks this year, he was also suspended from his [...] »

The following three graphs are from the Electoral Commission and show income and expenditure for the three main political parties as reflected in their annual accounts. There are some important exceptions to what they show, such as the money brought in and spent directly by election candidates, though from what I know of these exceptions [...] »

A footnote to our previous coverage of Lords McAlpine and Laidlaw, two non-dom Conservative members of the House of Lords. They had both for a long time been unmoved by criticism of their tax affairs, but ahead of changes to the law they have both decided to give up their seats in the Lords. Lord [...] »

Conservative candidate Gulfam Wali has been arrested by the police as part of an investigation into electoral fraud at the 2010 elections. »

The Guardian reports: The Conservatives last night withdrew a leaflet targeted at Muslims that claimed Labour was complicit in “a whole saga of atrocities” in Iraq, Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon. The leaflet, published by Tories in Blackburn, where their candidate, Michael Law-Riding, is up against the justice secretary, Jack Straw, also predicted Straw would be likely to [...] »

This morning The Observer ran a piece detailing the less than savoury attitude towards homosexuality of Philippa Stroud, Conservative candidate for Sutton & Cheam and head of the influential Conservative think-tank Centre for Social Justice: A high-flying prospective Conservative MP, credited with shaping many of the party’s social policies, founded a church that tried to “cure” [...] »

Political Scrapbook has the story: The election is providing no shortage of time-lapse gaffes, where online activity of some vintage has come back to haunt candidates and activists alike. It’s no surprise that Stuart Penketh, the Conservative candidate for Ellesmere Port and Neston, tried to delete his Grey Funnel Line blog. When not describing third-world debt relief as “letting tyrants [...] »