The very real effects of no longer receiving Short money are beginning to hit the LibDems. Twenty staffers whose salaries were all covered by it have been fired from their press and research teams, as well as from Nick Clegg’s office. There was some speculation that the Tories were keeping their staff for an extra few months just in-case the coalition went wrong though Guido understands that redundancies have started taking place in CCHQ.  Clearly the Liberal Democrats and the Tories are not expecting an election anytime soon.

Given the Short money is essentially a kitty divided up based on number of seats, because there is only one large party now to take the cash, Labour will be getting almost as much as Tories and the LibDems combined got in the last Parliament. No wonder so many former Labour SpAds are still loitering around while in opposition.