The three arrest pictures of Michael Brown taken by Florida police threaten to make real mugs out of Liberal Democrat leaders and electoral commissioners alike. Both have a limited claim to sympathy over the affair. In the hurly-burly of the build-up to an election campaign, Charles Kennedy and his advisers could hold that they were acting in haste, as other parties have no doubt done without being exposed as recipients of funny money. The Electoral Commission might insist that its role gives it no powers to prevent highly dubious donations from going ahead. But such defences are wide of the mark and — it is hoped — beneath either party.

First the Electoral Commission: it has already invited cynics to doubt the trueness of its intent by letting the Liberal Democrats off with the mildest slap on the wrist earlier this month after The Times’s initial revelations about Mr Brown’s donation. The first tranche of Mr Brown’s £2.4 million came from a Swiss bank account, via a company that did not have an office in the UK, and when Mr Brown was not registered to vote in Britain. Yet the commission ruled that the Liberal Democrats had not breached the ban on overseas donations. Unless the commission is prepared to deal with cases on their merits, and unless it sheds its apparent fear of offending any party, it will become a psychological prisoner of the status quo while failing British democracy. With party rolls falling, its role in preventing big donors buying outsize influence — and trouble — for all parties is critical.

Mr Kennedy’s travails are more immediate and painful, and will get tougher unless he gets his response right. Our revelations today that his treasurer, Reg Clark, was encouraging Mr Brown to invest in his own struggling businesses will make the most unedifying reading for Liberal Democrat members. Mr Clark may no longer be in post. But the questions facing Mr Kennedy and his inner circle, Lord Razzall and Lord Rennard, are as numerous as those unanswered by Mr Brown. Where did the donor ’s money come from? Where did the Liberal Democrats think it came from? What checks did they carry out? What were Mr Brown’s motives? Were they his alone? Seven years before he gave the £2.4 million — an act of extraordinary generosity, given that he puts his own worth at something over £10 million — he was unable or unwilling to pay his grocery bills.

There are two steps that would help to extricate all sides from this mess. The commission should demand new powers to intervene directly over donations of more than, say, £100,000. It could then issue green or red lights, before the proceeds are spent. Secondly, Mr Kennedy would be wise to divest his party of the money, even though it has been spent. This could be done by instalments, before the extremely strong case for doing so builds within his ranks. Mr Brown now wishes that it had gone to charity anyway. The two sides could discuss suitable recipients.