The entire political class, particularly the party leaderships, are setting up the taxpayer for the most audacious political and financial swindle in modern history. Both Labour and the Conservative party finances are tens of millions of pounds in the red with the LibDems looking likely to have benefitted to the tune of £2.4m from the receiving of stolen goods. Bankruptcy stares them all in the face now the traditional criminal sideline in the selling of honours is out of the question. So what do they plan to do? They plan to make us pay for their crimes.

The biggest cover-up in politics isn’t Downing Street deleting emails or even suspicious office fires, it is the political class holding to an all-party ceasefire of silence on the Cash for Honours issue. Only the Scottish Nats are failing to observe the terms of the ceasefire.

Blair, Cameron and Ming will soon start chorusing that because of their past crookedness they should be rewarded with more taxpayers’ money. State funding of politics will not clean up politics, it will make it worse. All the various proposals ignore the reality – most people think there is already too much politicsin our lives, people don’t like politicians and they certainly will not welcome even more glossy leaflets through the letterbox paid for out of their taxes.

If the legacy of Levy’s shenanigans is the state funding of political parties we will all have been robbed by him. Is it too much to ask them to raise their own funds from their own supporters? By all means allow tax breaks to donors, but taking taxes from people with no interest in politics to finance their foolery would be making crime pay. Crime must not pay off for politicians. The American colonialists fought a revolutionary war with the slogan “no taxation without representation” this time the slogan is “no taxation for representation“.