These continue to be difficult times for the Party with the economy slowing down dramatically and the financial turbulence continuing.  The Government is shovelling so many billions into the banks we have all lost count. 

What is happening in the financial sector has a direct knock-on effect on the real world.  Here in East Lancashire house prices are falling and mortgage repossessions are rising (admittedly from a modest base).  In Pendle there has been a 32% increase over the past 12 months (from the third quarter 2008) and landlord repossessions are up 48%.  The number claiming JSA is up 51% in the year to November 2008. 

The global financial system reaches everywhere and no country is immune from the effect of the world-wide recession. Our task is to do everything we can to make the recession as short and as shallow as possible. 

Allegations of sleaze continue to swirl around Westminster and stories about the excesses of the bankers make us all gag in disbelief.  I have again called for Sir Fred Goodwin to be stripped of the knighthood he was given in 2004 for “services to banking”.  And I strongly believe that he should not get the £700,000 a year pension (which kicks in at 50) which he maintains he is entitled to.  If RBS had not been bailed out by the taxpayers he would have got nothing. 

With these difficulties facing us I find it truly astonishing that we have managed to shoot ourselves in the foot again in the most spectacular fashion.  The Government’s proposal to part privatise the Royal Mail will win it few friends.  Our policy – until it was changed by Peter Mandelson – was to have a wholly publicly owned Royal Mail and that has morphed into a partnership with a private sector organisation. 

The Bill was published last week and goes into the House of Lords first.  This is highly unusual as most controversial Bills start out in the House of Commons.  Putting it through the Lords first has the advantage (for Mandelson) that the Upper House never votes against a Bill on its introduction.  I have made it clear that I will not be voting for this Bill in any way, shape or form.  It is completely disingenuous for the Government to make the rescue of the pension fund conditional on support for a private sector partner.  In fact, the pension fund ballooned because the Government, under the Conservatives and Labour, took a 13 year long pension’s contributions holiday from 1988 to 2001. 

Here the Conservative election spending continues unabated in its target seats. The spending between elections is unregulated and huge sums of cash are flooding in to key seats. It was with all this in mind that I tabled amendments to the Political Parties and Elections Bill.  These would make it unlawful for a tax exile or a non domiciled UK resident to give money to a political party.  This would catch Lord Laidlaw, who is based in Monaco and who has given £4 million to the Conservatives. 

217 MPs backed my amendments but weird Parliamentary procedures intervened to stop me moving these and getting a vote. There may be an opportunity for the amendments to be moved by a sympathetic peer in the House of Lords when the Bill goes down there. I am not sure.

Why are the amendments needed?  There is a gaping loophole in our law which allows the super rich who don’t pay our taxes to fund our political parties.   The Rowntree Report on “Purity in Elections in the UK: a Cause for Concern” published last year, said there was “substantial evidence to suggest that money could have a powerful impact on the outcome of general elections – particularly when targeted at marginal constituencies over sustained periods of time.” 

The Conservative peer, Michael Ashcroft, who is based in Belize in Central America, has written about this strategy. It is no secret. In 2005 he wrote:  “On Friday, 6 May 2005, the day after the election. Stephen Gilbert worked out how the candidates we had supported financially, compared with those who had not received our support.” “It soon became clear that we had been wasting neither our time nor our resources. Of the 33 candidates who had won seats from labour or the Liberal Democrats, no fewer than 25 had received support from the fund that I had set up with Leonard Steinberg and the Midlands Industrial Council.” 

Elsewhere at Westminster I had a useful debate on Lobbying and the Government will indicate in the next week or so whether they are going to introduce legislation to bring in a mandatory register of lobbyists, which I have been calling for.