The recently ennobled Lord Hameed’s companies have given £400,000 to the LibDems in the past two years. Lord Tim Clement-Jones is head of spin for DLA Piper’s public affairs and government relations practice as well as the LibDem’s party treasurer. (Incidentally, the LibDem’s voted to require lobbyists who were LibDem parliamentarians to withdraw from lobbying two years ago. Clement-Jones ignores the party ruling.)

When The Times asked Clement-Jones who it was who put Hameed forward for a peerage, he said that he had “no idea” who had proposed Lord Hameed. After The Times said it had evidence that it was him, he said: “I couldn’t remember that. That’s fine. I thought he was a very upstanding member of the Asian community and somebody who would make a very good peer.” An amazingly quick recall of why he proposed him when seconds earlier he couldn’t even remember proposing Hameed.

It gets worse, no declaration of the donations was declared to the Lords Appointments Committee. Lord Dholakia, the deputy leader of the LibDems and their representative sitting on the Committee knows Hameed but denies he knew he was the third biggest donor to the party. The party of course denies any link between the cash and putting Hameed forward for an honour. Stinks doesn’t it? Maybe Chris Huhne will write another letter to the police about it…