Mr Brown goes to jail

On any other day, the jailing of the biggest-ever Liberal Democrat donor, Michael Brown, might have made the front page.

We now know that at the last election the Lib Dem campaign to clean up politics was led by an alcoholic and financed by a fraudster.

It reminded me that when Times Comment printed an unflattering article on the Liberal finances and the donation from a crook, the Lib Dem press office called me up to protest. They were very heated. I gently told them that, while I understood only too well the need for party press officers to complain from time to time, this might, ahem, perhaps not be their strongest moment.