Yesterday I visited Williams F1 headquarters at Grove in Oxfordshire.

There is a great deal the British public sector and some things private manufacturing can learn from the pursuit of excellence by F1 car makers.

The most impressive feature of the company was the total dedication of the workforce on winning. They all know what winning means. They wish to make the fastest cars on the grid. They define their own tasks in terms of tenths of seconds anything they do is assessed by whether it will help make the next car go faster.

The messages of focus, quality, honesty and innovation come from the top, led by the inspirational Sir Frank Williams. Each person has substantial delegated authority to make decisions and get on with their tasks, as speed is of the essence in all they do as manufacturers. They have to design and build a completely new car every year, and rebuild and adapt the cars for every race. Senior managers are kept informed and can make important decisions rapidly.

The production areas are clean. Although they are cutting metal and using cooling fluids and oil, they ensure all floors and work surfaces are kept dirt free.

The production areas are uncluttered. There is no stock of parts and materials and discarded components littering the workplace.

There is a can do approach. People do not say they cannot change one of the car’s components this week because they are going on holiday or a bit busy. If it needs changing for the race, someone in the team changes it.

All the money they raise is used to refine and improve the cars it is a kind of not for profit.

If you compare this with the NHS, the contrast is stark. I appreciate there is a big difference in scale, but only because the NHS tries to manage most things from the top down, declining to give real authority to individual hospitals and surgeries. The myriad performance numbers means people in the NHS do not know what wining means. Why doesn’t the NHS just ask every staff member to understand that winning means ensuring as many patients as possible get better as quickly as possible that should be their equivalent of building the fastest car? If men in a car plant can deliver a required standard of cleanliness,can’t we expect the same of staff in a hospital? If it is possible to combine senior management making or agreeing all the big judgements with rapid decision making and devolved authority at an F1 factory, can’t we do the same in the NHS?

Williams like all F1 companies have three time horizons for innovation. The first is as short as fortnightly in the season. They will introduce new features and adaptations for each race. The second is annually, designing a completely new car for each season. The third is longer term, introducing major breakthroughs by harnessing new technical ideas. Currently the industry is working on harnessing kinetic energy to supplement the energy generated by burning fuel in the engine.

The F1 teams are innovating, creating lighter, more aerodynamic and safer vehicles. Their use of materials and design can inform mainstream motor manufacturers in making lighter and safer cars, which will be greener cars. I was asked to lift one of the spare wheel and tyre sets for an F1 car. Remembering the weight of saloon car versions I was surprised at how easy it was to lift it was more like a heavy beach ball than a spare wheel. Most of the innovations to make an F1 car go faster would make a saloon car run more fuel efficiently.

Manufacturing has got much more efficient under the pressure of global competition, but larger traditional manufacturers can still learn things from F1 about speed to market. Which motor manufacturer can design and build an entirely new car in a year?

Vince Cable is given endless airtime by the BBC to rubbish any bid or serious interest in Northern Rock and to propose nationalisation. It is typical of the BBC’s bias that they invite him, and refuse comment from those of us who have positive proposals to salvage the taxpayers money.

Mr Cable’s wish to nationalise is fatuous. His logic is flawed. He tells us rightly that ??30 billion at risk for the taxpayers is a lot of money,and the risks are considerable. He then concludes that the taxpayer should put ??100 billion at risk by taking over the whole balance sheet of Northern Rock! If he thinks the Rock is a bad bet, why does he want to more than treble it?

Nationalisation is the last thing we should want to do. Northern Rock’s assets will be worth more when the credit squeeze abates. The issue is how to get them through the worst part of the squeeze at least cost to the taxpayer. Nationalisation would maximise the risk and cost.

What we need is a Bank of England which acts as a strict bank manager, rationing the credit, setting repayment schedules and monitoring the use of the cash. They should not be letting Northern Rock put up pay, award bonuses, or make other unnecessary payments. Every action at the Rock should be husbanding cash, to maximise the repayments. Meanwhile the taxpayer needs to take plenty of collateral or asset protection. If we took over the lot, we would have to suffer the losses on the less desirable assets. That is not a game taxpayers should be playing.

Mr Cable should be ashamed of himself, rubbishing every sensible effort to save the bank, and recommending such a dangerous and stupid approach for the taxpayer.

The authorities stumbled forwards yesterday as they sought to tackle the twin and related crises of Northern Rock and broken money markets.

The 25 basis point (0.25%) off the MPC interest rate was a belated and hesitant step in the right direction. It just goes to show if we all shout loudly enough at our so-called independent MPC they throw their economic essays out of the window, eat the words of their recent speeches, and change their minds. We need to do it more often.

Cutting interest rates on its own is not going to correct all the damage to bank balance sheets that the MPC and the regulators have done,but it does help begin the repair job needed. It means fewer people defaulting, which in turn means a better value in the market for packages of loans, which in turn gives stressed banks another option to raise cash.

The government should now tell the international community it cannot press on with the Basel II regulations, which compound the folly of encouraging banks to take on off balance sheet instruments which lie behind the current international banking difficulties.

The arrival of the Olivant bid for Northern Rock has perked up some of the shareholders, who think it offers better value for them than the Virgin bid. It means there is now some healthy competition to take over the distressed bank.

The tragedy is the failure of the government to use this situation to get a better deal for the taxpayers. According to today’s media accounts of the rival bids, the improvement in Olivant over Virgin has come in the terms to shareholders, not in the terms to the taxpayer.

The government is making us all pay for its own incompetence. Either it should have set out tough requirements for repayments in advance that all bidders had to hit - tougher than those offered so far, or it had to demand that bidders bid on how much money they could repay how quickly and tell the shareholders that otherwise the government would demand early repayment.

The government has failed in its duties to both taxpayers and Parliament.
It has failed to act as a responsbile bank manager, lending cautiously, taking plenty of security and insisting on repayment timetables.
It has failed to tell Parliament - and the market - what it expects from an owner of Northern Rock.
It has failed to tell Parliament how much it has lent on what basis, or to seek Parliamentary approval for this massive sum.

Putting some fo these mistakes right would still help the government dig itself out of the hole, as well as creating a more orderly market in Northern Rock’s shares and expediting the auction process.

Presumably Virgin now loses its preferred bidder status, unless that had some legal force we have not been told about.

The new Australian PM changed his policy rather than the climate when it was revealed to him that supporting a 25% cut on 1990 carbon emission levels by 2020 would lead to large rises in electricity prices.

He is yet another of these politicians who thinks it is warm and friendly to say he wants to do something to curb carbon, but who finds the policies needed are too unpopular. Just like Labour here, they talk the talk but do not walk the walk.

The answer is to encoruage and incentivise people to be burn less energy, not pillory them with taxes and regulations. The public does not believe climate change theory sufficiently to welcome large increases in energy prices through higher taxes, or taxes on particular lifestyles that they have adopted.

2007 has been a fraught year for many. Here in central Berkshire we have faced floods and cattle disease. Some residents are still tackling the water damage to their properties. We have mourned the loss of members of our armed forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have worried over hospital infections and the credit crunch. Many of you have described to me the struggles you have faced.

Christmas comes as a welcome holiday after a cold wet summer and a windswept early winter. It is an opportunity for families to come together, for mothers and fathers to take a few days off from the paid job. Some dreams come true as presents are opened and eyes sparkle with delight. Children perform in plays and carol concerts, choristers voices soar and more of us get to the theatre to see a panto or a favourite play. Many of us take a childlike pleasure in the lights, the sights and the sounds of the season. We can enjoy the happiness of others and forget the day to day responsibilities for a while.

Christians will fill the Churches to celebrate the birth of Christ. Most will get to the shops to lay in the turkey and the puddings, the sauces and the wine for a vintage celebration. Fires will be lit, trees decorated, Santa costumes dusted down and cakes iced. It’s a busy time, a time for love and friendship. It’s a chance to remember that many of the things that bring joy do not need money to buy them. The handmade card, the traditional games, the Boxing Day walk, taking more time and trouble for others can all make Christmas special.

Christmas is a steaming bowl of mulled traditions: the angels and the Magi, Father Christmas and his reindeer, the mid-winter feast with a plumb pudding and the coming of commercial Christmas with the Victorian trees and cards.

I would like to say a big Thank you on behalf of all of us to those who will keep our important services operating over the Christmas season, and for all the efforts they put in all year round. I hope we will extend the hand of friendship to neighbours and to the lonely over the Christmas period. For the few who are on their own on December 25th the feeling of loneliness must be that much greater, and an invitation that much more welcome.

I wish you and yours a very happy Christmas. Forget the mortgage and the bills, the nightmare journey to work and the forms that still have not been filled in. You too deserve a break.

It was music to my ears this morning to hear a Conservative spokesman saying that we should reward people who save energy or generate their own power, rather than hitting those who dare to burn some fuel to go about their daily business.

Labour and Liberal believe in more tax and more regulation. Conservatives should believe in more incentive, and the liberating power of technology.

At the same time as Greg Barker was planning his encouragement for generating more at home, I was talking to Phil Woolas, the Water Minister, about how we could collect and use more of our own water at home.

I have installed the water butt to collect water off my roof, only to make the obvious discovery that my roof produces far more water than the butt can take. It also means I have plenty of water for the garden when the garden is sodden!

Why not encourage more and cheaper systems to collect roof water and to use it for flushing loos and washing cars. We really do not need to be using high grade drinking water for such purposes.

Oil prices down - you read it here first!
House prices down.
Commercial property prices down.
Mortgages down.
New borrowing for everyone down.
People’s spending squeezed.

How can the Bank think this is the background to higher inflation in a year or so?

Overall price increases are still a bit above target - that’s because the Bank and the MPC got it wrong a couple of years ago, keeping interest rates too low for too long. It is also because the government owned or influenced monopolies like railway fares, Council tax and fuel tax have gone up.

Yesterday sterling fell and the UK Stock market rose sharply. Markets are clearly expecting an interest rate cut today.

Whether the Bank does or does not cut rates, expectations of more cuts will build up in the days ahead, as no-one in the markets thinks the Bank can remain unconcerned about what is going on in the banking sector for much longer. Today’s problems for the banks are tomorrow’s problems for everyone else, as money makes the economy go round and banks supply the money.

As someone who opposed the 28 day period of detention without trial I am implaccably against an extension of this.

The government has run into huge difficulty trying to persuade enough people to support the extension they crave. They have rumoured they plan to increase it substantially, floating various lengths of time. Today we learn that they are now thinking such an extension should only take place if Parliament approves it when needed.

Why then take action now about it? Parliament can always vote for emergency powers in extreme circumstances. There is no need for such action today. The government still has to produce a single case where they think they could have stopped a terrorist incident or obtained a conviction if they had been able to detain someone for longer without charge or trial.

Guantanamo Bay has been a blot on Western democracy. Internment in Northern Ireland did not stop the violence during the troubles. Why is this government so blind to the need to protect our liberties? Why does it wish to make endless extensions to state power? Why can’t it see how unpopular it is, even if it can’t see how wrong it is?

My colleague Mark Pritchard obtained a debate in Westminster Hall yesterday on the way some authorities in the UK wish to play down Christmas as a Christian festival, replacing references to the birth of Christ with more to the success of Mammon.

He spoke well, to a largely empty chamber. MPs do not regard Westminster Hall as a proper substitute for the main Commons Chamber, seeing it more as a reminder of how the government has damaged our Parliament, limiting the time and the topicality of main Chamber debates to avoid too much scrutiny. I was therefore pleased that the BBC picked up Mark’s debate and gave some of the ideas from it wider coverage.

Many people in the UK, of all faiths and none, understand that Christmas without some recognition of the birth of Christ is absurd. The lights, decorations and spirit behind the festival should reflect the origins of it. The general message of thinking of others and bringing families together extends well beyond Christians in its appeal.There has been a lot of nonsense talked about Christmas. Some have renamed it winterval?, and some companies and institutions have taken all reference to the Christmas story out of their cards and messages. It’s like seeing Hamlet without the Prince.

I am glad most of our primary schools still put on their nativity plays and sing carols. I am delighted that many of the cards I am receiving still manage to say Happy Christmas whilst illustrating the traditions of the holiday season. Most people of other faiths and of none appreciate that this mid winter break represents the coming together of the Christian celebration of Christ’s birth with older pagan winter festivals. The plum pudding and the groaning tables go back a long way and are enjoyed by most, whilst the cards, presents, pine trees and Christmas cakes were embellishments of the Victorians who saw a commercial opportunity with the growing wealth and incomes of their society. They wanted to make the tills ring as well as the Church bells. Our retailers are hoping that is not just a fairy story this year.

It is a special time for children, who become excited by the thought of presents and by the magic of the stories the birth of Jesus in a manger, and the folklore of Santa Claus and his famous reindeers. They accept and enjoy the glorious muddle of these traditions for what they are great fun, a welcome respite during the colder and darker part of the year, and days of religious significance for those who do believe in Christ.

If the Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England wishes to be anything more than overpaid members of an academic seminar watching as the money markets go their own way, they need to cut interest rates tomorrow.

Market rates are almost 100 basis points or 1% above the MPC’s rate. Money policy is far too tight. The MPC is not in control of the markets.

If the MPC dithers and concentrates on the short term increases in prices, it will make the credit crunch worse. It will be as incompetent as the rest of the Brown government. House prices are falling, commercial property prices are falling, consumer confidence is falling. What more do they want? How much damage do they want to do?

Surely by now MPC members have learnt that changes in interest rates have an impact many months into the future. The inflation we are living with today is the result of keeping interest rates too low many months ago, and the consequence of ill considered banking regulations that encouraged off balance sheet excess. When will the regulators of the world revisit their folly, the Basel rules? When will they start to take some of the blame for the mess?

Today the credit crunch is the result of the unravelling of that mistaken banking regulatory model, and the result of interest rates that are too high.
The Bank of England, shorn of its old responsibilities to manage the public debt and to monitor the day by day balance sheets of the clearing banks, has lost its touch in the money markets. Gordon Brown’s botched "reforms" of the Bank of England did not make the Bank more independent, they made it less powerful.

IT IS VERY EASY : CUT RATES, CUT THEM BY AT LEAST 50 BASIS POINTS, CUT THEM NOW.

The Chancellor lurches from muddle to mess on his various battle fronts.

Today we read that a rival bid is being warmed up for Northern Rock. I read in some papers that Virgin was given preferred status and allowed to enjoy great publicity for its bid in the hope that its name associated with Northern Rock would reassure depositors and stop the withdrawal of so much more money. Because the withdrawals continue, it appears the government is keen to give airtime to other bids, or will not stand in the way of their promotion.

When will this government realise that instead of playing media games with important issues like this, their job should be to define the taxpayers interest and get on with managing the banking relationship between the company and the public sector, influencing the sale process in the taxpayers interest? The deposits will only be stabilised when there is an agreed deal the public believes in. Today’s revelation of ??1,000,000,000 a year now being spent on spin by central and local government just underlines how far government time and priorities are distorted by trying to influence the media instead of trying to manage efficiently.

It appears that they still think spin is the answer to the Rock’s problems, when some good old fashioned banking discipline to determine how much taxpayers money is available on what terms should be central to an orderly auction and a successful outcome.

We also read of the growing concern in the City about the very tight conditions in money markets. Readers of this blog will remember predictions of monetary tightness over the year end, and my call for lower interest rates now. I am glad to see the heavyweight members of the Shadow MPC out and about in support of this cause - Tim Congdon and Patrick Minford are both calling for cuts in MPC rates. I will be happier when the MPC itself gets the point.

Market interest rates are almost 1% or 100 basis points above MPC rates. The MPC, if it still thinks 5.75% is the right rate, needs to cut its own indicative rate to try to get market rates back down to around 5.75%. They should ignore the short term price pressures on energy and food, and realise that the credit crunch means inflation coming down again next year.

I also suspect all the worries about further large rises in oil and other industrial commodities are overdone. Oil is now falling from near the $100 a barrel level. At an oil seminar yesterday I learned that barring a major disaster in one of the big oil producing areas experts see no great problem with supply and demand next year. Saudi Arabia can decide how tight the market should be as the swing producer, and I suspect Saudi will be reluctant to tighten too much more given the fragility of the international economy and the views of the USA.

The message from previous "oil" crises was that the bigger damage to world growth was perpetrated by central banks raising interest rates to try to offset the energy price increases, leading to less lending and a slowdown or reduction in activity. The Fed looks as if it wishes to avoid this this time. How about the Bank of England?

It is good to know there is more intelligent life on the planet, and chimps can be good at these things without the benefit of going to any of the UK’s much better funded state schools. What’s the excuse of those who could not beat the chimps?

My job has become the pursuit of incompetence. Each day brings more evidence of how Ministers fail to control and direct their great departments in the interests of the taxpayers. Each day some new Minister comes before Parliament to make a confession, offer an apology, or show brass neck in claiming all is well when their administration is in tatters.

Last week the Opposition hauled the Chancellor back to the House to explain how the personal records of 25 million people in the UK were lost by sending them on CDs through the post. The original apology in the statement of November 20th implied it was a one off mistake by a junior official. On further inspection it turned out to be one of many occasions when data was lost. The policy of putting the data onto discs had been approved by senior officials, and senior people at the Treasury knew of the loss 12 days before the public and Parliament were first told.

I tried with other MPs to find out how much money taxpayers now have at risk in Northern Rock, what security the authorities have taken for the loan, and when and how it is going to be repaid. Mr Darling either does not know these simple facts, or wishes to prevent Parliament and taxpayers finding out these basics about this whopping loan. Every time an Opposition MP asks anything about the security, size and repayment of the loan he is treated to a rant about how the Conservatives no longer support this measure. It really is a disgrace that a senior Minister treats the House and taxpayers with such contempt. We are left in doubt as to whether he is simply incompetent and has failed to take proper security for the loans and to demand a sensible repayment timetable, or believes he has some divine right to spend ??30 billion of our money without a by your leave or any rudiments of Parliamentary accountability.

My colleague David Davis asked the Home Secretary to explain how she was progressing with Project Stork, a pan European project to develop identity data storage and ID cards. She showed she had no knowledge of such an important project within her own responsibility. This is the lady who cannot see that the loss of 25 million personal records by HMRC has driven a coach and horses through the idea that a national data base for Identity Cards. Why on earth should we trust the government with our most personal details, when they lose our National Insurance records, details of our children and our bank account numbers? Far from making us safer, a national database would be a nightmare for us all, leading us to worry about when it will all be put on CD and find its way into the underworld.
Our borders remain porous. I recently asked a Minister to get a grip on our frontiers, and to use passport and visa controls to make sure criminals, other undesirables and illegals are not allowed to enter Britain. I was told that view was very twentieth century?. The government apparently intends to spend more of our money on more checks at our frontiers, but does not think any of it will work, and tells us that only an ID card scheme could do the job. What arrant nonsense. Of course it is much easier to stop illegal migrants and suspected criminals at the frontiers, where all have to show their identity passes, rather than using random searches of any of us on the streets once the dangerous minority of undesirable migrants has blended into our society.

The worst feature of it all, is there is never any sign that Ministers are about to get a grip. In statement after statement, they just look helpless and out of their depth. They keep on spinning, but they are still not governing.

We learn today that the Chancellor favours a bidding war for Northern Rock, and that other bidders are preparing to challenge the Virgin bid.

What a shambles!

We recently learned that Virgin was the preferred bidder. That implied there had been a first round of bids under proper conditions, the bids had been evaluated, and Virgin’s was the best. Normally in such a position there is either a declared second round of bids to seek a better answer or the best bidder is given a period of exclusivity to reach contracts. Instead they invented this half way house of "preferred bidder" status, leading the press to believe Virgin was likely to end up the buyer quite quickly. It encouraged the other bidders to come back with new ideas, as if there is a proper second round.

I have been saying for a long time that as this is an unusual bidding process because the taxpayer has a different interest from the shareholders. The government and the company needed to be careful and to set out the rules in advance. Clearly the taxpayer wants to get as much of the Bank of England loan back as possible on sale of Northern Rock, with as short a time scale as possible for repayment of the rest. Shareholders want the maximum price for their shares, and their shares are worth more, the more money there is available from taxpayers for longer.

There were two ways of handling this. I proposed that the government set out in advance how much money was available for how long so all bidders bid on the same basis. The company could then compare how much each bidder offered to shareholders and make the appropriate decision. Alternatively the government could have said it wanted bidders to bid for how much money they could repay how quickly as well as bidding for shareholder value, and the government as bank manager could have insisted on the bidder offering to repay most most quickly winning. That way always left it more likely shareholder and taxpayer interests would end up warring with each other.

From the leaks and briefings we do hear it appears the governemnt made it no clearer to bidders than they have to Parliament how much money is available for how long, so they allowed the bid process to be complicated by the twin bid issues. Now apparently the Chancellor is having second thoughts about the preferred bidder and likes the idea of other bidders coming back in with revised bids.

If they are not careful they will lose the Virgin bid without finding a better one they can get to completion quickly. In the context of more depositors taking their money out, and the Bank of England having to lend more and more money to Northern Rock, time is of the essence. If Mr Darling helps delay an outcome to the bidding process by complicating or changing it he is doing damage to taxpayers, as it means more public money going into the mortgage bank.

It is difficult to rescue the auction because they did not set out in public in advance what people could expect from the government when buying Northern Rock. This obvious error has made this auction a mess, and has delayed a result. They may now have reached the point where however they handle it from here there will be aggrieved losers.

Mr Darling is not up to the job, and taxpayers will all end up paying more as a result.

The Labour party line is clear - as Ruth told us they are profoundly "shocked" and "saddened" by the dodgy donations row. They speak about it as if about the death of some respected colleague, in sad tones. They then move on quickly, say this is a crisis for all political parties and tell us they will solve the whole problem by changing the rules for party funding in future.

How absurd. This is a crisis for Labour, because their own senior figures claim not to have understood the law their government put in place. It is being made worse by the refusal of most of the top people to answer any questions about it, or for one or two to provide incomplete answers which turn out to contradict other testimony or evidence. Ruth Kelly notably did not defend the Leader in Scotland, Wendy Alexander, saying she did not know about that case. Surely she was briefed before going on air to discuss this very subject?

Ruth Kelly was unable to answer the question how are they sure that Mr Abrahams (the main donor) is wrong in saying 10 senior Labour figures knew about all this? She retreated into Labspeak about helping the police and awaiting the enquiry.

Why can’t all these figures just make short and accurate personal statements, having checked their diaries and files? Surely by now they have all recollected what they did know and who they did talk or write to?

They should not behave as if they are the solution, not the problem, or they are at a funeral where they had nothing to do with the bad news. If this is a funeral, it is for the straightforwardness of this government. Their words and actions now will define whether its reputation can be revived.

Each of the three public crises hitting the government - lost data ,dodgy donations and Northern Rock- is getting worse.

Today we learn of more data that was sent out on a disc with no encryption or password protection. That ended up with a newspaper who returned it. It proves the Revenue and Customs loss was no one off by a junior official, but part of a careless culture in this government. Ministers clearly did not think the protection of our data was a priority and have allowed their offices to be casual in their approach.

We hear from the Labour donor that as many as 10 senior Labour figures knew that his money was going to be declared in other names, although he has not told the press the names of the gang of 10. Some may be officials, some may be politicians, some may have left their jobs but some may still be in post. If Gordon Brown wishes to stop this story sapping the reputation of this government further he needs to order everyone who knew and may have inadvertently or intentionally broken the rules to come clean before the police find out for themselves. How can we believe this government wants higher standards if members or advisers to it keep quiet until they are outed? If the government’s line remains that their donor is wrong, they had better make sure everyone the donor thinks he told is telling the truth and there is no evidence to the contrary. Denials like the Scottish one do more harm than good when letters reveal a different story.

We also learn that the Bank of England does not seem to have imposed effective controls over cash management and costs at Northern Rock. Now we the taxpayers may have as much as ??30 billion at risk I would expect the authorities led by the Chancellor to be taking a very detailed interest in how the money is spent by the company and look forward to them getting a grip and telling us more about when they think they will get the money back and how they are monitoring progress. Of course a commercial bank keeps these details confidential for its customers, but this loan is massive, it is already public, and proper accounting for public money requires the authorities to put into public view how they are protecting the taxpayer interest. The Competition authorities also need reassuring that this loan is being run commercially.

All those ultra greens who are busy telling my constituents they should not take the car to get to work or to bring the weekly shopping home might like to campaign against an easier target to cut our carbon emissions.

Have they noticed how many shops, offices, homes, trees and streets are being adorned with numerous lights? Do they realise these lights are going to be kept on for all of December? We know we do not need these lights for anything other than adornment, as we get on fine without them all the rest of the year. Wouldn’t it be a modest proposal to ban them as unnecessary planet wreckers? They are kept going by electricity from the national grid, mainly generated from hydrocarbons.

Tomorrow I am going to attend the ceremony to turn the lights on in Wokingham, as I love them. I do so wondering for how much longer we will be allowed this indulgence by the greens’ carbon police? I look forward to a debate on this on the BBC, as one of their many daily climate change items.

All those Labour MPs who have howled for and insisted on ever more regulators, compliance reports, box ticking and the divulging of information must regret the day they ever made it apply to themselves.

Labour set up the Electoral Commission and required, on penalty of committing a criminal offence, that certain donations should be registered, and the true identities of the donors revealed. As always with Labour, it began as a poltiical response to a problem, and clearly some of them did n ot take it seriously when it came to applying it to themselves,or thought they could be casual about following the rules and get away with it. Some in senior compliance positions claim not to have know the rules, though they were the rules Labour invented.

The rules were very proscriptive, but they were invented for a reason. I presume Labour wanted this amount of transparency, so all could see who had given money, and all could then be sure that those donors had bought no influence and changed no policy with their cash.

What is surpising about the Prime Minister’s handling of this is:

1. He immediately said they had broken the law before undertaking a full enquiry.
2. He told us the General Secretary was the only one who knew the truth about the donations, yet others appear to have known more as well according to some versions of events.
3. He did not go to the support of his Deputy wholeheartedly, leading to a feeling in Labour ranks that each person with issues to explain has to defend themselves as best they can, even if that means dragging others into the enquiry.
4. He has not told us why a donation from Mrs Kidd was unacceptable to his campaign managers but was suggested by them for Miss Harman’s (Mrs Dromey’s)campaign.

There is a Labour spin abroad which says all this is rather technical Westminster Village type chatter. They say there is nothing that is serious here and the PM will clear it all up.That is difficult to accept in Labour’s own terms, as it was Labour who said the correct reporting of donations was so important that they set up a quango to receive the reports, and legislated to require everyone to do it.

I could accept that individual honest mistakes can be made - in the heat of an internal or external election campaign it is possible for a team to forget to register a donation and for the candidate to be unaware or to overlook it or forget it amidst the myriad things they have to do. This is, however, much more than that. In certain important cases the teams did not forget to register - they registered in the wrong name. If it was clear they were all deceived by the donor they might have a defence, but if some in Labour knew the identity of the true donor that defence becomes more difficult to susttain. In the Scottish case it is unfortunate that the politician denied personal knowledge of the donor, only for the donor to reveal a thank you letter that suggests otherwise.

Labour are making all this worse by offering expalnations for events which fall over or are questioned shortly afterwards as more evidence comes to light or more people make statements to justify their own positions. If they want to start to win back public confiddence, the PM or his representative should come to the House of Commons on Monday and make a full statement of what they have found out so far, and what remaining issues they intend to to get to the bottom of in their internal enquiry. The PM told us that Parliament will be given a more central role, and this surely is central to the current state of politics.

The House of Commons would be a better forum than spin through the popular press to test out how serious this all is, allowing Ministers to answer the many obvious questions or to tell us how they are going to be cleared up. To end this crisis the government needs to tell us 1) how many mistakes were made 2) who knew what 3) how press and public can be sure there was no motive for registering these donations in the wrong name other than the stated reason of wishing to preserve the donor’s anonymity 4) why senior Labour officials did not apparently know their own rules or understand them correctly and how that will change. All this now has to be done whilst being careful not to hinder the police enquiry.

For the sake of politics this needs sorting out quickly. It would be a good idea to have a new deal on donations, imposing a ??50,000 limit on gifts from any single source. That is a different matter, as the donations currently causing problems are doing so owing to Labour’s own 2000 legislation, which the government implies it wishes to keep on the Statute book. Labour should not be allowed to divert media attention away from explaining what has happened, and why the PM thinks the law was broken, into a more general discussion about the future of political funding. We need all party talks on that with some give and take by Labour on Union funds, and then a seperate statement to the House when the government has some proposals likely to win general support.

Meanwhile, I hope Labour MPs will use this moment to understand how many people feel about their compliance regime in so many other activiites of life, and will savour for a bit the daily pressure on most people in business to comply with ever more intrusive disclosure rules.