I have long thought they are a load of crooks. Break the law, resign or get sacked then just a few months later rejoin the system having lost nothing.... Even those that go to jain seem to be rewarded. When we break the law we are punished and rightly so, read todays Rubbish Collection (£100) fines???.

Anton.E, Salisbury,

The point about party funding (and cash-for-honours) transgressions is that they represent things that can actually be pinned on governments, unlike incompetence and mendacity which they'll always wriggle out of.

I don't think most people cared much whether Blair had known about honours sales - they just wanted to see him get his comeuppance for ten years of spin and the Iraq war. Same with Brown & Co - party funding is really Discgate, insufficient schools provision etc, etc, by proxy.

The only problem is, who'd be better? Cameron and Co? I don't think so.

Paul Stephens, Bath, UK

I think whether or not a political party administers any aspect of its duties in a criminal manner is actually quite important, Ms Purves.

Abioye A Oyetunji, London, UK

When will politicians, put the fear of the devil into the
common herd , by explaining the real dangers of world overpopulation! But most citizens are more worried about football, and sex scandals, than deep thought. Darfur is a picture of the future for millions!

DAVID VINTER, Louth, Lincs., UK

Jim I have not trusted ANY Politicion for a very long time

Jim Taylor, Pinner, Middlesex

A minister or civil servant just LOOKING at an IT system should be a criminal offence. They can't handle them. Computers fill them with a hot, sickly excitement that makes them want to rule the world and reduce everbody to a tiny electromagnetic dot. IT systems drain them of any common sense and alienate them completely from the rest of us. Computers are remote and impersonal; the French call one an 'ordinateur', which sounds as if it should mean 'civil servant'; giving a government department an IT system is like giving whisky to an alcoholic.

Frank Upton, Solihull,

Dectora - if you think your experience of your mother's hospital was typical, take yourself over to the Alpha Mummy blog and read the responses to the thread about maternity care. The vast majority of those 80odd replies would just that Libby is more on target that you are.

Libby - bang on target as usual, whilst I'll shake my head in disbelief at the sheer incompetence of our elected representatives and their incompehension that "I didn't mean to do anything wrong" isn't a sufficient excluse, I'm much more concerned about the way they refuse to acknowledge that my son's identity is now at risk, even though he's only 16 months old, and that most of the schools and hospitals in my area are failing despite more money than ever before.

Jill, Edinburgh,

'.........new Labour look stupid for breaking its own rules. But deep down, do we care?'

I'm sorry Libby but you just don't get it do you? They haven't broken their own rules as you so quaintly put it. They've broken the law. And deep down, personally, yes I do care. Although I am aware of how anachronistic I am for doing so.

Bill, Sheffield,

Er, yes, I DO care that the people who are governing the country are (a) breaking the law and (b) taking money from people on the sly, in return for who-knows-what favours. Oh, and getting away with it. It serioulsy matters.

maskahl, Wimbledon, GBR

Even if the theme of this article is restricted to party funding I am far less concerned by a donation of £950 from a dodgy source than I would by a legitimate £100K donation as the latter donor might be hoping to purchase influence

Chris, Birmingham,

Your article hits many nails on the head. The Government's continuing obsession with performance management contributes greatly to the problem by ensuring that vast amounts of public money are tied up in producing statistics to "prove" how efficient the Government is while it stubbornly declines to notice that many ordinary people are unconvinced by the results of the bean counting and have decided that the government is incompetent. Albert Einstein's dictum "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted, counts" becomes ever more true.
And yes, it is good to be able to tax cars on line but what a pity the technology that enables the DVLC to determine within seconds that my car is insured and has MOT, cannot be extended to Post Offices, so that they can offer similar fast service. You still have to produce bits of paper there. We need Post Offices, why not give them the same advantages as online and us the choice!

Glenys , Stroud, UK

"So — a rich weirdo secretly gave money to help a couple of Labour anoraks beat each other (not even the Tories) in a struggle to be the new John Prescott? So what?"

The point is that Labour introduced legislation on party donations which several of its senior figures have broken without remorse, claiming ignorance or carelessness as the excuse.

Do we want legislators who don't know the import of the Acts they frame and vote into law ? Do we want an executive of ministers marked by their ignorance ? Is carelessness the watchword of an efficient administration ? Is law-breaking in office to be casually brushed aside ?

My view is that the funding scandal and the rest all have the same root cause: Labour politicians putting career above every other consideration, coupled with brazen arrogance on being caught out.

steve_roberts, Leicester,

This article does correctly identify many bad things that the current New Labour government has done, by act or omission, that have more immediate and material effects on the lives of UK citizens and other residents. In this, I am in full agreement.

However, a must dispute the appropriateness of headline: "Now for the scandals that matter".

Unable to sleep last night, my thoughts drifted to a circumstance that might arise if the legal system ignores the blatant and undeniable breaking of these political funding disclosure laws. Any of us charged with new laws passed by parliament since May 1997 would be able to try the "New Labour Defence"; namely that parliament passed laws without expecting them to be anything more than a public statement of somewhat desirable good behaviour. Much as I dislike many of the petty-flogging overzealous and useless laws that have been passed over these ten years, to make available such a blanket defence cannot be a good thing.

The New Labour governm

Nigel Sedgwick, Beaconsfield, UK

When were you last in a hospital , Libby? I took my elderly mother into her local hospital a few weeks ago and it was dazzlingly clean. I suspect that you, like many journalists, have come to think in syndromes. You become imprinted with a concept, say 'dirty hospitals' and keep in repeating the formula, like a mantra, which, if chanted frequently enough, becomes effective. I had the grim experience of being in a French hospital a few years ago and my room was 'cleaned' by a look and nothing more ( I cleaned my own washbasin, when I was able to walk).

Dectora, London, UK

The attraction of the Abraham Story is that it will get a knee jerk reaction from Downing Street. They just yawn at your other concerns. The likes of me, feel empowered when they feel threatened. I find it fascinating to see what they react to. It never is to the really important things.

John Collins, Eastbourne, East Sussex

You have hit a very subsantial nail right on the head. But what's to be done? Take a look at the worthies on the government front bench, it's like a chimp's tea party. Hain, Hain?, Straw, Harman, Smith, Millipede, Browne and Broon, presided over by a ruffian from the gutters of Glasgow. None of them have had a proper job in their lives yet they are the ones running our lives. I was so furious on reading this article I didn't know whether to throw my laptop through the window or go back to bed. Bed has won. Goodnight.

B. J. Carroll, Hong Kong, China

And give adequate funding to our forces .The way they have been treated by Gordon Brown is disgusting.

COLIN , Hong Kong,

The problem is that the Abrahams issue also goes to competence and is much easier, quicker and cheaper to prove than the fiascos of gold bullion sales, pension fund raids, taxing privatised companies rather than the shareholders who actually received the windfalls, and the passing of the buck to the Bank of England to name but a few.

The bigger problem is that the inevitable pendulum of political vogue will swing in favour of an opposition similarly devoid of talent, experience, and ambition to achieve for persons other than themselves.

David Williams, Eastnor, England