Sixteen months of investigation have produced nothing in the way of charges and you can expect some strong reactions from across the political spectrum today.

There's obviously a sense of relief in No 10. Even though today's No 10 had no part in all this, it was a cloud on Gordon Brown's horizon, the prospect of a lengthy court case involving the former prime minister and with Labour's name up in lights in a cash-for-honours trial. Now they'll try not to get involved. Gordon Brown's already spoken in Paris to say that he hopes it will put paid to all the speculation.

In the Blair camp, the reaction will be one of relief too, but it will soon turn to anger. There will be anger that the last year and a half of his premiership were dominated by an investigation that those in Downing Street always claimed would never result in charges - because nobody did anything wrong.

There are also those who believe that Tony Blair would not have had to leave office so quickly if it hadn't been for the cash-for-honours row. This was one of the factors which contributed to a lack of trust in him and that lack of trust was cited by the people who wanted to get rid of him, including supporters of Gordon Brown.

I understand that Tony Blair is going to make a statement later on. Lord Levy is also going to make a statement too and perhaps Ruth Turner too. There is, of course, the possibility of legal action - it is quite open to those who have been arrested in this case and had details of what they are alleged to have done leaked openly to newspapers and broadcasters to sue for libel. We will see that happens or not but I'm pretty sure that Lord Levy will consider legal action. It's interesting that he'll be making his statement from the office of his solicitors.

Or they may all decide to say 'thank you and bye bye' and get on with their lives, especially in the case of Ruth Turner. She's a behind-the-scenes person and in her case I'm sure she will quite happily go back to obscurity.

When the SNP first made this complaint, I regarded it as a stunt and didn't see any chance of an investigation - and I have to admit that I was completely wrong.

I didn't think there was any chance of them taking those allegations seriously and launching an investigation, because they were going into an area that is impossible to penetrate. It's a world of hints and innuendos, where people rarely say anything out in the open. If they really thought they were going to find evidence of cash being paid for honours they were being wildly optimistic. Whatever goes on has been going on for so long, under both governments, but the police failed to see that these were political allegations, made in a political way, directly to embarrass both the Labour Party and the Conservative Party.

I was astonished that this ever became an investigation but I must say that I am not surprised by the result.

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