There is some bafflement in Tory circles this morning over from where exactly UKIP have plucked the quarter of a million pound figure for defector Arron Bank’s donations to the Conservative Party since 2005. A hungover scan of the Electoral Commission website by Guido shows only two donations of £25,000 from Banks to two Tory branches since Cameron became leader: Thornbury & Yate and Northavon, and no money to the central party. Which makes the £250,000 being punted on the news channels look a little iffy.

Leaving that aside this initial confusion while it’s investigated, what will Arron Banks’ new friends at UKIP have to say about his wife’s somewhat mysterious acquisition of the right to stay in the UK? Banks married Ekaterina Paderina in 2001, who regular readers will remember was a good chum of LibDem turbo-perve Mike Hancock:

“Miss Paderina came to Britain from Ekaterinburg in eastern Russia on a student visa in the late 1990s. In November 1998 she met and married Eric Butler a retired merchant seaman from Portsmouth, who was more than twice her age. Immigration officials were suspicious about the marriage and Miss Paderina was informed she could face deportation. But after seeking help from their local MP, Mr Hancock, Miss Paderina was allowed to stay in Britain, despite her marriage to Mr Butler allegedly lasting just three months.”

According to Paderina’s ex, Handy-cock “went out of his way to help the blonde Russian after she paid several visits to his constituency office.” Rather awkwardly for Banks, Hancock’s seat is very high up the list of UKIP targets that he’s now funding… 

UPDATE: UKIP sources are confident of the figure. They immediately point to an outstanding loan from 2007 of £75,000 from Banks’ Panacea Finance to the Thornbury association, as well as the £50,000 given in his own name. So that’s halfway there then…