In early February Guido mentioned that the Tory Spring ball saw bidding reached £440,000 for a portrait of Thatcher and that the auction was a handy way of circumventing the Electoral Commission’s donor rules. The Sunday Times elaborates on the story today.

My blog piece set off a chain of events, with an irritating Labour party employee quoting chapter and verse on electoral law to Guido – as if I cared. The irritating nark seems to have succeeded in forcing the Tories to cough up the name of the bidder, who appears to be an innocent, but fervent, Thatcher memorabilia collector. Unlike say, dubious Iraqi, Nadhmi Auchi, a convicted billionaire crook, backer of the Labour party and recipient of thank you letters from Blair.