Tory Funding Scandal: Deliberate Obfuscation of Donors

The sordid details of the Sir George Osborne attempt to bury bad news for Peter Hain have trickled out all day.

These "Wish of George Osborne" donations have been steaming in throughout 2007. From January to December inclusive. It was not until 7 December 2007, as he continued his assaults on Hain's situation, that GOO asked for advice on whether he should have been registering the donations.

Although there was a short period in which the advice was that this figure almost approaching half a million pounds did not have to be added to the Register of Members' Interests this soon passed.

The full extent of this type of support for Shadow Ministers - with all but David Willetts failing to register their interest - will no doubt emerge in the coming days and weeks.

While I'd have to agree that Peter Hain is a bit of an embarrassment with what Steven Pound MP said might be "a think tank that doesn't think" and for his team's incompetence - not to mention his delusions of grandeur - that has been over an internal selection.

Cameron, Osborne and the like may have been receiving massive sums passported through CCHQ for their own operations without declaring it properly, and all the while making hay over Labour's rather similar system problems.