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Political Parties (Funding)

No; the right hon. Gentleman had his chance and he blew it. The concern is not only that the Government have fallen short of the expectations they themselves set out when introducing that legislation. I do not blame the Lord Chancellor for this, nor do I blame the plurality of Members of his party, just as I do not blame the plurality of Members of any party for the actions of a few within their parties. There is, however, a concern that the party of Government have systematically subverted their own legislation, and that is a very serious matter indeed. The levity that has been displayed on the current occasion is entirely inappropriate. This latest episode has been described in the newspapers as a fiasco and a farce, and one commentator was prompted to employ a word I would not normally use in a debate: ““degringolade””. I have no idea whether it is a degringolade, but I do think it is a tragedy. It is a tragedy not because of the particular circumstances, but because the consequence is further to undermine confidence in, and the standing of, not only the Labour party, but all the parties represented in this House, and that is a matter of concern to all of us. Let me briefly deal with the present situation. There are questions that still need to be asked; the Lord Chancellor, or whoever replies to the debate, will probably not be able to give the answers, but they are questions that the country is still asking. I have no idea whether this is incompetence on a grand scale in the higher echelons of the Labour party or conspiracy—I think that the investigations will show that. I must say, however, that if it is incompetence, that is very difficult to believe given the calibre of some of the people involved and given the very clear instructions in the law. The right hon. Member for Horsham (Mr. Maude) was right to say that what we are talking about is not to do with just some petty rule book—this is about not the rules of a game, but the law of the land. There is not only a prima faciae case of it having been broken in this instance, but that is also by the admission of the Prime Minister. We hear that the Prime Minister's party leadership campaign team rejected the donations from Janet Kidd. Why did it do that, and did it tell anyone else in the party when it did so?