You have to hand it to Will Lewis, the guy has a knack of being in the right place at just the right time.

Then again, as he would undoubtedly say, getting into the right place at the right time is a skill in itself.

Similarly, he has had penchant for making firm friends along the way, and that too has stood him in good stead.

So let's take a walk through the life and times of a man now at the heart of the News Corporation's clean-up campaign as a key member of its management and standards committee (MSC).

His has been an extraordinary career since he graduated from Bristol University and then gained a postgrad diploma in periodical journalism at City University London.

It was in 1991 that Lewis got his grounding as a financial reporter with the Mail on Sunday. Three years later he moved to the Financial Times, where he was noted for obtaining scoops.

In 1999, while working in New York as the mergers and acquisitions editor, he broke the story that Exxon was merging with Mobil. It helped to put the FT on the map in the US.

He returned to the paper's London office as news editor before switching, in 2002, to the Sunday Times as its business editor. It was, by his own admission, a "brutal" period but said later it helped him to learn fast.

In 2005, he was appointed as city editor by the Daily Telegraph and a rapid rise ensued, moving up to deputy editor and then managing director (editorial) before being named as editor in October 2006. Within a year, he also assumed responsibility for the Sunday Telegraph, attaining the title editor-in-chief.

In May 2009, he oversaw the Telegraph's exclusive revelations about MPs expenses, which resulted in the paper being named as newspaper of the year and Lewis winning the journalist-of-the-year accolade.

Within months, he was appointed by the Telegraph Media Group (TMG) to run a digital innovation division, called the Euston Project.

In May 2010, he was pushed out of TMG by its chief executive, Murdoch MacLennan due to differences of opinion between them (see here as well). The project was terminated as separate entity a month later.

Lewis then turned up, in July 2010, as group general manager at News International (NI). His former close colleague at the Euston project, Paul Cheesbrough, had been appointed as NI's chief technology officer the previous month.

Soon after, Lewis hired two of his former lieutenants - TMG's deputy managing editor Rhidian Wynn Davies and consultant editor Chris Lloyd - to become, respectively, NI's director of editorial development and director of editorial operations.

In January 2011, one of Lewis's oldest friends from their shared schooldays, Simon Greenberg, was appointed as NI's director of corporate affairs.

In July 2011, following NI's closure of the News of the World amid new phone hacking revelations, News Corporation set up its management and standards committee (MSC). Lewis and Greenberg were seconded to the unit.

Soon after, the MSC appointed the City PR firm Powerscourt to act on its behalf. Powerscourt was founded by Rory Godson, the former Sunday Times business editor who succeeded Lewis.

Now let's step back for a moment to December 2010, when Daily Telegraph reporters secretly recorded business secretary Vince Cable talking about declaring war on Rupert Murdoch.

It occurred at a time when Cable's department was deciding whether News Corp should be permitted to acquire total ownership of BSkyB.

Before the story was published by the Telegraph, the tape of Cable's remarks was leaked to the BBC's business editor, Robert Peston, another old friend of Lewis's.

TMG called in the corporate investigations firm Kroll to discover how the leak had occurred. In July 2011, it was revealed (here and here) that Kroll's investigators had a "strong suspicion" that Lewis had orchestrated the leak to Peston.

The Kroll report said it had established that there was "extensive telephone, text and social contact" between Lewis and a former TMG employee, who was also a colleague of Lewis's, in the period just before the leak. That employee is now employed by News International.

When questioned about the leak at the Leveson inquiry Lewis refused to answer questions about the leak, saying he wished to protect his sources. (see here as well).

Lewis later issued a statement saying that the counsel to the Leveson inquiry, Robert Jay QC, considered him to "have been of great assistance to the inquiry."

Meanwhile, the MSC is now the centre of media attention, especially since Saturday's arrests of four Sun journalists by Operation Elvedon, which is investigating police corruption.

And if the MSC is high profile, then so is Lewis - the man who once got headline stories and now makes headlines himself.

• Will Lewis
• News Corporation
• News International
• Rupert Murdoch
• Telegraph Media Group
• Daily Telegraph
• Sunday Telegraph
• Sunday Times
• Financial Times
• The Sun
• Mail on Sunday
• Exxon Mobil
• MPs' expenses
• Robert Peston
• BBC
• Vince Cable
• BSkyB
• Media business
• Phone hacking
• Leveson inquiry
• University of Bristol
• City University London

Tory backbencher says plans to allow constituents to recall their MP will give power to parliamentary committees, not voters

The government's draft bill to create mechanisms for the recall of MPs has been described by the Conservative backbencher Zac Goldsmith as "the worst and most misleading" piece of legislation he has seen.

Goldsmith used Twitter to lambast the bill, which would pave the way for MPs guilty of serious wrongdoing to be forced to stand down and face a byelection if enough constituents wanted them "recalled", saying he could not believe how far it was from "true" recall and calling on those who supported it to be recalled.

Ahead of an appearance on Thursday before a parliamentary committee that is scrutinising the bill, the MP said he could not support it in its current form and suggested many other Tory, Labour and Liberal Democrats would stand with him.

Under the plans, which were published in draft form in December, 10% of an MP's constituents would have to sign a petition for a byelection to happen. A petition process would be triggered either if an MP was sent to jail for a year or less or if a House of Commons committee decided an MP's behaviour warranted it.

However, Goldsmith told the Guardian a parliamentary committee should not be involved in the recall process at all and that the key decision should be taken by voters.

"Recall is usually taken to mean giving power back to voters," said the MP, who has been garnering a reputation as one of the rebellious backbenchers in the Tory party's ranks.

"It's about empowering voters, not parliamentary committees. The government's proposals are the opposite of what was intended and promised.

"In true recall, where a percentage of the voting population sign a petition, it immediately triggers a recall vote and people are asked if they want their representative to be recalled. If the answer is yes, there is then a byelection. It ends the safe seat situation, by allowing people to remove their MP, and to still replace them with someone of the same party."

He added that the bill in its current form will have satisfied a lot of supporters of the idea of recall, but the small print would reveal there was also the potential for abuse.

"It creates opportunities for the powers that be to rid themselves of inconvenient MPs," he said.

"What happens if an MP says something controversial, and is hounded by the press? The pressure on the committee to agree to the recall could be immense, even if constituents are supportive. The only people who should be in a position to initiate and trigger a recall are the voters themselves."

Currently, MPs convicted of an offence carrying a custodial sentence of more than a year are automatically disqualified from office and must resign. However, this rule does not apply to those given sentences of a year or less. Theoretically, they can remain in parliament. The former Labour MP, Eric Illsley, remained as an MP after he was convicted of expenses fraud in 2010 and only resigned shortly before he was sentenced to a year in prison.

• MPs' expenses
• Zac Goldsmith
• House of Commons

National Archives reveals Downing St household economies with PM buying her own ironing board to cut costs

Margaret Thatcher volunteered to buy her own ironing board and bed linen during confidential discussions about the cost of refurbishing her private apartment at No 10 Downing Street.

Correspondence between the prime minister's office and the Property Services Agency reveal that she felt unfairly impugned by questions about expenditure on ministers' accommodation.

The sum of £1,736 for fitting out Downing Street was given to parliament in answer to a question by the veteran republican Labour MP Willie Hamilton. Thatcher's office, however, had not been informed in advance of the release.

A furious exchange erupted behind the scenes. "No one here was consulted about the fact that you intended to publish this information. This must not happen again," her private secretary warned the Department of the Environment.

A full breakdown of the figure was demanded. It shows the costs in 1979 included £464 spent on replacing linen, £39 on "sewing carpet seams", £19 on an ironing board and £527 on cleaning carpets. In fact, the overall sum amounted to £1,836.

The prime minister's personal annotations are on the letter. The £123 for "repolishing furniture" is circled in blue ink. Below she scribbled: "We use only one bedroom. Can the rest go back into store. I will pay for the ironing board." She also offered to pay for "other things like sufficient linen for the one bedroom we use".

Her sense of household economy, typical of the postwar generation, caused problems for the Welsh secretary, Nicholas Edwards, when he proposed spending £26,000 on a ministerial "flatlet" in Cardiff later in 1981.

"It is a good idea," she noted in blue ink on the letter, "but not at that price. I just don't believe that a one-room and bathroom flat [conversion] can cost £26,000. Get some other estimates."

The cost was eventually slashed to £12,000 and her private office wrote to the Department of the Environment that "the prime minister was pleased to learn of the more economical arrangements which have been devised."

• Margaret Thatcher
• National Archives
• MPs' expenses
• House of Commons

Three MPs convicted of making false expenses claims have been told they don't have to pay back legal costs incurred during their conviction. Two and a half years after the scandal, do you feel MPs have been let off lightly?

Judge says case involving Labour MPs David Chaytor, Elliot Morley and Jim Devine established an important point of law

Three MPs convicted of making false expenses claims do not have to pay back legal costs incurred in their battle to avoid criminal trial by claiming parliamentary privilege.

A judge ruled it would not be "reasonable" to expect David Chaytor, 62, Elliot Morley, 59 and Jim Devine, 58, to pay the £140,000 defence costs of hearings at the court of appeal and supreme court because the point of law established was "of public importance".

Chaytor, former Labour MP for Bury North, and Morley, a former Labour environment minister, were ordered to repay other legal aid sums granted for their hearings and subsequent convictions at Southwark crown court.

Chaytor, jailed for 18 months after admitting three charges of false accounting, was ordered to repay £23,036 out of a total of £80,932, as well as £23,176 prosecution costs.

Morley, the former MP for Scunthorpe, was jailed for 16 months after admitting two charges of falsely claiming mortgage payments. He was ordered to repay £33,005 out of £77,980 plus £23,176 prosecution costs.

Devine, the former Labour MP for Livingston, was jailed for 16 months after a jury trial on two counts of false accounting. He was not asked to repay any of his £75,216 legal aid as he has been declared bankrupt.

Eric Illsley, 56, the former Labour MP for Barnsley, was jailed for 12 months. He did not contest the charges against him and was ordered to repay his £10,909 legal aid bill and £12,187 in prosecution costs.

Arguing the MPs should repay full defence costs, Louis Weston, representing the legal services commission (LSC), said: "Why should defendants, who could have afforded to fund themselves but chose instead to fund themselves at the hand of the state, be in a better position than someone who has chosen to fund themselves?"

Jim Sturman QC, for Chaytor and Morley, said any costs order should take into account the fact the MPs were "unemployed and probably unemployable", and there was very little they could do "to improve their situation in future by way of income".

While their current assets were "sufficient to meet the order", they would have to raise the money through disposal of some of those assets.

Weston had argued that the public purse should not pay "rich" MPs for the legal appeals over the parliamentary privilege issues because the costs incurred "flow" from the defendant's criminal conduct, and also it was their "choice to pursue" that defence.

But, exempting them from payment, Mr Justice Saunders said that the parliamentary privilege point "was one which had to be decided and had to be argued". Saunders added that if the defendants had not done so, "I would have done so and would have appointed counsel to argue it which would have been at public expense," to ensure a fair trial, he said.

He continued: "While some prominent politicians and members of the public may have found the answer to the question of privilege easy to arrive at, from a legal perspective that was not the case."

It raised "difficult issues of law" and he considered it would not be "reasonable" for the defendants to pay the costs.

"Where in the criminal jurisdiction a case raises a point of law of general public importance in my judgment it may not be reasonable to require the defendants to pay the costs of their part in establishing this important point of law or public importance."

• MPs' expenses
• House of Commons
• David Chaytor
• Eric Illsley
• Crime

Judge to decide on whether former Labour MP accused of falsely claiming £80,000 expenses should face trial

Margaret Moran, the former Labour MP accused of falsely claiming £80,000 in expenses, may not face trial after a court heard legal proceedings were a "threat to her life, not just to her liberty".

A Southwark crown court judge heard that three psychiatric experts all agree the ex-Luton South MP, who faces 21 charges, was unfit to plead.

Mr Justice Saunders will make a decision on whether the 56-year-old should be tried after hearing evidence from doctors. Jim Sturman QC, for Moran, urged a swift decision, saying: "These proceedings are a continual threat to her life, not just to her liberty, and the experts agree that she is unfit to plead."

He said he would ask the attorney general to apply for a "nolle", a rarely used power to allow the case to discontinue on exceptional grounds.

Describing Moran's mental state, Sturman referred to press reports of her previous appearance at Westminster magistrates court, describing her as a "broken woman" who was "sobbing uncontrollably" in the dock.

He had met Moran just once, he said. "She cried uncontrollably throughout the whole conference, so much so that I had to leave so she could be assured I was defending her, not prosecuting."

Louis Mably, prosecuting, said the experts were agreed "as things stand" that Moran, who did not attend Thursday's brief hearing, was unfit to plead.

If the court determines she is fit to plead, a trial of issue is set for 18 April. But Sturman said there was "no realistic prospect" of her condition improving by then.

Moran, who stood down at the last general election, faces 15 charges of false accounting and six of using a false instrument in relation to parliamentary expense claims totalling around £80,000 between November 2004 and August 2008.

It is alleged that she "flipped" her designated second home, claiming for properties in London, Luton and Southampton, and that she dishonestly claimed £22,500 to repair dry rot at the latter. She is also accused of falsely claiming for boiler repairs and work on her conservatory.

She is the last of five MPs and two peers to face criminal proceedings over the expenses scandal and was only charged in September, after the investigation was held up over claims of her ill health.

Saunders said he wanted the fitness to plead proceedings to be as "open as possible" as the case had attracted considerable public interest, and he wanted the full facts to be heard.

"It is obviously a matter which has considerable press interest. It seems to me that the more information the public have about why the decision was made the better," said Saunders.

He has asked to question in person at least one of the doctors who had examined Moran for the purposes of psychiatric reports to the court. She is said to have been assessed by three psychiatrists, for the defence and the prosecution, over a period of two years.

• Margaret Moran
• MPs' expenses
• House of Commons

A new mechanism for calling MPs to account will create expectations that cannot easily be fulfilled and will be abused by special interest groups

In all the excitement you may not have noticed that the coalition published a draft bill yesterday designed to create a process whereby miscreant MPs can be forced to vacate their seats if a recall petition is signed by at least 10% of their constituents. This is another piece of populist constitutional foolishness that will do more harm than good.

You can read the Guardian's account here – one which carries predictable moans from outfits such as the Taxpayers' Alliance (TPA), offshore-funded and highly ideological in its approach, that the bill is a disappointment because it doesn't allow the public – ie the Taxpayers' Alliance – unfettered access to the petition mechanism the bill proposes to establish.

You can look at the bill itself here (pdf); the executive summary covers most points. It's been signed off by Nick Clegg – who knows, he may even have read it – and by the minister for constitutional reform, Tory Mark Harper, who most people tell me is a smart and able chap. He's certainly read it.

The context for all this is the MPs' expenses affair, which continues to unsettle public life and the nervous and ingratiating decisions that the supposed political elite – itself something of an exaggerated description for the ragged, beleaguered platoon running the country – takes in the naive hope of keeping disgruntled voters onside.

One such was the Fixed Term Parliaments Act – which promises an election on 7 May 2015 if the coalition lasts, as I think it will – along with the boundary changes, the reduction of 50 in the total number of MPs and the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa), which runs MPs' expenses in ways that are requiring more and more wannabe members to be rich before they start.

As the Guardian also reports 6 million voters unregistered today, the equal boundaries idea is already coming up against the awkward fact that so many voters – especially the young, whose interests need to be heard at this difficult times – may not even be registered. So much for equal seats.

Oh yes, I almost forgot the AV referendum – another piece of well-meaning foolishness from the Clegg camp that has now disappeared without trace via the May referendum. Historians note that it was last discussed seriously in parliament in August 1931 – weeks before the second wave of the global financial crisis of 1929 finally crashed sterling.

Why is Mark Harper's draft bill a bad idea?

Because it creates a new mechanism for calling MPs to account – for financial or other serious misconduct – when one already exists. The bill will create expectations that cannot easily be fulfilled – as the TPA is already complaining.

Or it will be abused by special interest groups, the BNP, the Flat Earth Society etc etc to demand, perhaps even to trigger, by-elections yhat an ousted-but-hard-done-by MP might just win.

Didn't I mention that? The ejected MP could stand again (unless he/she is in jail, as might be the case) and the 90% of voters who did not sign the petition might re-elect him/her rather than be told what to do by a vociferous minority. It might be good sport for the media, but will communities come out of the process happier and more united?

Am I being alarmist? Perhaps a little. MPs imprisoned for more than a year already face disqualification. The new rule would apply automatically to those receiving shorter or suspended sentences, once their appeals had been exhausted. But a second petition trigger would arise if MPs voted to allow one in the light of a colleague's misconduct.

That's a new power for the Commons but it is also the bit that upsets critics, who complain that voters, not MPs, should be able to decide whether their MP has been so naughty that he or she should be expelled.

It wasn't in the coalition's manifesto promises, says Labour – which will probably fall into line all the same because the parties are outbidding each other to appease voters, though appeasement usually doesn't work.

In the bill there is protection for the traditional rights of the Commons committee on standards and privileges – which can, and does, suspend miscreants – though it has conceded many self-regulating powers to outside bodies such as Ipsa and is poised to add lay members to its panel.

I imagine it would be the standards and privileges committee's vote, based on an investigation from the parliamentary watchdog, that would lead to a wider vote by MPs – as currently happens when they agree to suspend a Derek Conway or the like. They can in rare cases expel an MP.

Am I being overly sour or suspicious in thinking that: a) this will not change much in practice, but that b) it will give people who love to moan or point the finger of blame – it makes their day – something extra to complain about.

And might it give more power of life and death to some of our great newspapers who dislike a Chris Huhne or a Tam Dalyell?

As the Leveson inquiry is reminding us all, the papers do terrific work in exposing wrongdoing but also do evil work in making a huge, often dishonest fuss about things that are trivial or untrue. Here's a topical example of naughtiness from today's Sun .

Easier mechanisms for getting rid of MPs who upset their colleagues always frightens me because it's a temptation that can be used for party political advantage. I'm not talking financial fiddling here, expenses fraud or cash for questions.

You can imagine the pressure that might have arisen to get rid of Enoch Powell after his "Rivers of Blood" speech in 1968, pressure from Harold Wilson's Labour government which Ted Heath's shadow cabinet might have been weak enough to endorse.

It was a pretty shameful piece of demagoguery – you can read it here – but Powell was a remarkable man and, overall, a distinguished parliamentarian for nearly 50 years. He would have been a loss. And, if that doesn't convince you, how about Winston Churchill? Government business managers working for the then prime minister, Neville Chamberlain, were stirring up deselection talk in his Epping constituency party in 1938. Churchill too was wrong about many things, but not the one that mattered most.

Tony Benn? George Galloway? Alan Clark? Dennis Skinner? All sorts of troublemakers are a bloody nuisance and make enemies in both whips' offices. They also make mistakes of taste or judgments. But they are important people who champion unpopular causes – including both sides of the European debate that has riven our politics for decades.

I recently read Tam Dalyell's memoirs, The Importance of Being Awkward (Birlinn £25). What a magnificent pain-in-the-neck that man could be! Wrong? Often? Brilliantly vindicated years later? Ditto. Stubborn and conceited? Sometimes. Unpopular with successive governments? You bet. Re-elected 12 times despite all that? Yes.

It is voters who should decide these matters – and do so at elections, when they have had sufficient time to take the longer view of a member's conduct.

Petitions are already part of the online static causing trouble for ministers who see (too late?) how easily they can be manipulated by special interests – the motoring lobby is the obvious one – and lead to disappointment.

Politics will have to live with that, yet another device for keeping MPs in touch and on their toes.

But the danger is that they will be used by opponents of politics – authoritarians who are opposed to open division and debate as a means of resolving issues between us all – to undermine still further the fragile trust that binds us together, in good times and bad.

• House of Commons
• MPs' expenses

Ministers told minimum wage should be paid as placements favour children of rich parents who can afford work without pay

Scores of MPs, from millionaire Tory cabinet members to Labour backbenchers, may have broken minimum wage law by taking on unpaid interns, according to legal advice to ministers.

A combination of changes to parliamentary expenses rules and record graduate unemployment is thought to have increased placements offered in Westminster, leading to a fear of a new political class emerging, drawn from those whose parents are rich enough to support months of unpaid work that nevertheless offers networking opportunities.

Hundreds of ads on the Commons site, Work for MP (W4MP) show that, since the election, there have been 260 unpaid internships, some not even providing expenses, the longest lasting 10 months.

Thirteen Tory members of the government offered 28 placements lasting up to six months, out of 138 for Conservative MPs. These included culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, seven, the attorney general, Dominic Grieve , three, and exchequer secretary to the Treasury David Gauke, seven. Ministers Andrew Lansley, Grant Shapps and Andrew Mitchell also advertised.

Lib Dem ministers, MPs and president Tim Farron advertised for 67 for up to six months; 15 were offered even after Nick Clegg this spring condemned a culture of unpaid interns in government. Labour MPs placed 55 ads, four by shadow business secretary, Chuka Umunna, and six from shadow Treasury chief secretary Rachel Reeves.

Internal legal advice to department for business, innovation and skills ministers, revealed by the Guardian this month, stated "most interns are likely to be workers, and therefore entitled to the NMW [national minimum wage]".

Government lawyers added that only "altruistic" relationships, where the benefits were wholly to the intern, of one to two weeks, were likely to be exempt. The department confirmed MPs are not exempt from the wage law, as charities and public bodies can be.

A spokesman said: "The law is clear."

A campaign group, Interns Anonymous, says it has written to the parliamentary standards commissioner.

Some MPs advertise for volunteers, but papers from Revenue and Customs, which enforces minimum pay, state: "Sometimes individuals are told they are interns or volunteers, but this does not prevent them being workers." Lawyers have told the Guardian they would represent interns in tribunals to claim what could amount to thousands of pounds. Louise Haigh, of the parliamentary staff branch of Unite union, said W4MP ads were only part of the picture: "We think there are 450 interns; 7% are paid a wage, and 20% are paid expenses."

She believed MPs routinely break minimum wage law, and also expressed fear that changes in the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (Ipsa) staff budget increased the use of interns, leading to the creation of a new political class. "Since the election, with a lack of clear guidance and regulation, there's definitely been an upturn. "I've been in parliament for 3½ years now. I can see a definite shift to internships, and that being the only defined route into being a parliamentary researcher and a political career."

Celia Hall, 26, spent several months unpaid in the office of the chief secretary to the Treasury, Danny Alexander, in 2008. She said she had fought but failed to get Ipsa to create an interns fund. "When Ipsa was set up after the election, I called and wrote regularlyto ensure proper provisions were being made for interns."

"I was so disappointed that Ipsa made it clear this was so low down on their priority list, despite it being the best opportunity for them to see interns being paid and treated fairly."

Grieve said he did not think he was breaching minimum wage law. He said: "I've done it in conformity with what's been suggested by the Ipsa," adding there was "no money to pay them" anyway, and he set a three-month limit. He said that he advertised on the W4MP website to "broaden the pool" of his intake.

"Some people really want to come in ... And, quite frankly, with the current state of the economy I can understand."

The IPSA said MPs' staff budgets had not changed compared with the old expenses system: £110,000 per year, or 3.5 staff in parliamentary and constituency offices.

A spokesman for the House of Commons said W4MP was editorially independent.

"It does, advertise quite a few different positions including paid and unpaid for members of parliament. Obviously, it is entirely possible for there to be unpaid work within a members office and that be completely legal, for educational benefit or work experience."

"We give advice to members to help them determine their relationship with their staff, but that it up to them," they said.

Additional reporting by Ian Silvera

• This article has been amended, the original incorrectly stated W4MP was outsourced to Capita.

• House of Commons
• MPs' expenses
• Work & careers
• Conservatives
• Liberal Democrats
• Labour
• All sectors
• Graduate
• Work Experience
• Internships

Labour and Conservative reaction to the Kelly proposals shows no lessons have been learned from the MPs' expenses debacle

Foolishly perhaps, I didn't keep a diary of my time as a Downing Street adviser so I can't recall the precise date in 2006 when I first met David Cameron. But I do know the subject of the hush-hush meeting I attended with him, Tony Blair and a handful of advisers: party funding.

I was impressed by the apparent willingness of the new Tory leader to consider a major reform package even though it had downsides for his own party. In fact, the reforms for which I and colleagues in No 10 were canvassing support were pretty similar to those proposed on Tuesday by Sir Christopher Kelly, chair of the committee for standards in public life. Sadly, however, the window briefly open in 2006 seems now to be firmly closed, something the political class will live to regret.

Party funding is a complex issue, fascinating only to a few political geeks; but the Kelly reforms, just like the ideas discussed behind the scenes in 2006, are based on three mutually balancing reforms. First, a cap on individual donations; this largely removes the incentive for party managers to offer favours or high-level access in exchange for funding. It also levels the playing field between the Conservatives – who have lots of rich friends – and the Lib Dems and Labour, who have many fewer. By suggesting a cap of £10,000, Kelly has gone significantly further than the Conservatives would have wanted.

Second, with the same intention of stopping undue influence, corporate trade union donations have to be subject to the same cap. This does not mean individual unionists can't choose to make personal donations, nor that unions can't collect these donations (as some already do), but that trade unionists must be seen to make a positive decision to donate from their own income. This reform hurts the Labour party financially as it means that union chiefs cannot reward the party with donations in exchange for influence or various employment-law-related policy concessions.

Third, to compensate for the other two changes, Kelly proposed a significant increase in state funding but with restrictions on how this can be spent, and the continuation of a cap on overall campaign spending on elections.

Most recent studies of party funding have come up with a broadly similar package to Kelly. So why is it unlikely we will see the proposed reform enacted? Back in 2006 Labour was dealing with the impact of the cash-for-honours allegations and had a leader open to further reform of the party's relations with trade unions. The Conservatives had seen steady decline in their "high value" funding and were still scarred by the allegations of sleaze in the dog days of the Major administration. In Cameron they had someone who wanted to prove he was a different kind of leader, capable of modernising his party and open to co-operating with others in the public good. Now these factors have receded, which helps to explain the lack of enthusiasm in either party.

The resistance reflects two inherent political forces that consistently obstruct democratic reform: competition and populism. Faced with reform, parties ask not "Is this good for the system?" but "Is it better for us than the other parties?". Because they do so badly out of the present system, the Lib Dems will tend to support any reform, but Kelly's proposals — precisely because they're even-handed — offer plenty of scope for Labour and Tory hardliners to argue that the package is insufficiently advantageous to their own party's interests.

Populism dictates that politicians seek to portray themselves as being on the side of the ordinary person against the hated political class. The line of both major parties is to reject Kelly on the grounds that the taxpayer would never accept more state funding at this time of cuts. No doubt this is good politics in the short term, but it shows no lessons have been learned from the debacle of MPs' expenses. This too resulted from the decision over and again to avoid controversy by holding down MPs' wages even as they fell further behind comparable professions. The result was that MPs were encouraged to see playing expenses as an implicitly endorsed salary enhancement. The rest is infamous history.

Unless leaders and party managers are willing now to make a brave and even-handed decision on party funding, they will sooner or later pay a higher price in new scandals and more reputational damage. The politicians knew this in 2006 and they know it today. Sadly, that is no guarantee they will act.

• Party funding
• MPs' expenses
• House of Commons
• Labour
• Conservatives
• David Cameron
• Liberal Democrats

In an era of savage cuts, it's high time ministers themselves felt the pain

Government ministers are busy people: their visibility answering questions in parliament, appearing on the Today programme or making official visits is merely the tip of a vast iceberg of paperwork, meetings, briefings and policy development. Yet all this effort seems undervalued. There have been repeated reports in the past 10 years from political colleagues who insist there are just too many of them. The public administration select committee has examined the matter in detail but its recommendations for fewer ministers working more effectively gather dust under both the last Labour government and the coalition. The number of ministers has been rising inexorably for the last 100 years and efforts to persuade governments they should set a fixed proportion of their backbenchers are rebuffed. Patronage remains the most efficient lubricant of party loyalty. Now, with 119 MPs and peers in government, and at least another 46 MPs serving as parliamentary aides, the coalition is hitting new records. The argument that fewer MPs (down to 600 after the next election) should be accompanied by a similar cut in the size of government has also been rejected. Yet outside the thinktanks, there has been little public consideration of what ministers are for, how to train them, nor how to calculate their productivity – while assessing and promoting competence has always lagged far behind condemning incompetence. In an era of savage cuts, it's high time ministers themselves felt the pain.

• MPs' expenses
• House of Commons
• Liberal-Conservative coalition

While the BBC's constitution imposes certain requirements in terms of impartiality that are not required of newspapers, I am clear that investigative journalism is an absolute bedrock of the BBC (BBC unable to investigate hacking, says Patten, 14 November).

The point I was making in a speech to the Society of Editors this week is that some journalistic practices – such as paying for the information on MPs' expenses as the Daily Telegraph did, or long-term heavily editorialised campaigns that are common in newspapers – would not be appropriate for the BBC, which is required to be impartial and must meet the highest standards of journalistic practice.

I am clear that the BBC's rich tradition of investigative journalism, as seen on Panorama for very many years, for example, is essential to delivering the corporation's public service mission. Given the clear message in my speech, I was surprised by how it was reported in your paper.
Chris Patten
Chairman, BBC Trust

• BBC
• BBC Trust
• Lord Patten
• Phone hacking
• Newspapers & magazines
• National newspapers
• Newspapers
• Daily Telegraph
• MPs' expenses
• Press intrusion

Lord Patten, chairman of the BBC Trust, defended press self-regulation in a major speech tonight, arguing that the statutory regulation applied to broadcasting would be inappropriate for newspapers.

He told editors attending their annual conference: "Statutory regulation of the press would, in my view, be more than wrong-headed. It would pose a real danger to the public discourse that underpins our democracy."

He argued that "it would be wrong to try to import any model of regulation from the broadcast media to the press." Instead he contended that "newspapers themselves need to find ways to re-build public trust in what they do."

Patten was delivering the 2011 Society of Editors lecture, entitled "Ethics and journalism after the News of the World", at Runnymede.

He pointed out that despite though the BBC has a tradition of investigative journalism, "it could not have paid for the information on MPs' expenses as the Daily Telegraph did."

Nor, he said, could it have "pursued the hacking story at News International as remorselessly as The Guardian campaign did."

He spoke of there being "a kind of symbiosis between the BBC and the press," saying:

"We do different but complementary things. The BBC depends on the press for some of its news agenda and it gives some stories back to the press to pursue further.

The style of the tabloids is not something we could or should try to match. But nor should we be snobbish or squeamish about it.

The Sun under Kelvin MacKenzie added... to the gaiety of the nation... I have not always agreed with the Daily Mail... but I greatly admired its brave campaign in pursuit of the murderers of Stephen Lawrence."

Patten added: "I have no wish to turn our tabloids into trimmed down versions of the Church Times. Their vigour is an important part of the liveliness of our democracy.

"Free speech, and therefore that vitality, would truly be damaged if a single group of people, beholden to and perhaps even appointed by politicians, were to have the power to decide what should or should not be published."

This message will surely have lifted the spirits of editors as they begin their deliberations at a conference held in the shadow of the Leveson inquiry, set up because of the phone hacking scandal.

And Patten even went so far as to say he agreed with Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre that "a lot of the noise" about what should and shouldn't be done about the press "is unfair and unwelcome to a great number of journalists in this country, not least in the local and regional press."

He said local and regional papers were "important not only because they hold those in power to account, but also because they fight their readers' corner in seeking to make their lives better and their communities safer."

He added: "Clearly, a gulf lies between this form of journalism and the sort of criminal behaviour that, it is alleged, was institutionalised at the News of the World."

He devoted, unsurprisingly, a great deal of his speech to the BBC, dealing with its commitment to attain impartiality.

"Perfect impartiality is difficult, perhaps impossible,to attain," he said. "I think most people understand that and understand that the BBC is not perfect.

"As for newspapers, I don't imagine people buy them because they think they are impartial. That is not what most newspapers set out to be.

"But the BBC is in a different position. Balance and accuracy are the qualities that licence fee payers seek in BBC output - telling things as they really are, not as this or that political or interest group might wish them to be.

"Taking those yardsticks, they usually appear satisfied with the quality of BBC journalism."

He also mentioned the 2002 Reith lecture by Onora O'Neill in which she warned: "If we remain cavalier about press standards, a culture of suspicion will persist."

Patten said: "That is now more true than ever. The answer is not necessarily to look immediately for a legal or regulatory solution. It may be to think more widely about how trust works.

"Everyone inside and outside the media needs to be clear about why trust in the media matters, and what responsibilities that trust entails."

• Lord Patten
• Editors
• Leveson inquiry
• Phone hacking
• BBC Trust
• BBC
• Daily Mail
• The Sun
• The Guardian
• National newspapers
• Daily Telegraph
• News of the World
• News International
• Kelvin MacKenzie
• MPs' expenses
• Paul Dacre
• Press intrusion

Freedom of information chief demands more details of work done to PM's grade 1-listed flat in Downing street

David Cameron has been told he must reveal further details about the refurbishment of his Downing Street flat under freedom of information laws.

Christopher Graham, the information commissioner, has ruled that the prime minister must disclose what work was done on the bathroom to the apartment at No 11, where he lives with his wife, Samantha, and their three children.

It emerged earlier this year that the Camerons had spent the entire £30,000 budget available to prime ministers annually for upkeep and improvements to his Downing Street flat. Officials stressed the costs charged to the taxpayer did not cover furniture, fixtures and fittings, but things like electrics, plumbing, structural alterations and decorating. Additional costs in the refit beyond the £30,000 publicly funded allowance were met by the family.

Labour MP Tom Watson has been asking the Cabinet Office for details of changes to the bathroom and any instructions given to contractors by the Camerons.

The Sunday Telegraph disclosed that having rejected the request, the Cabinet Office has now been told by Graham's office that he "does not accept" its decision. "In particular the commissioner considers it unlikely that planning for refurbishment works at Downing street would take place without the involvement of the Cabinet Office as the relevant government department," his office said.

The commissioner also raised concerns about delays in responding to Watson's request, which was submitted in June last year.

Watson, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said: "Downing Street is a grade 1-listed building and one of the jewels in the nation's crown. Taxpayers have a right to know what the temporary residents are doing to such a historic building.

"Council tenants up and down the country are seeing work programmes on their homes being cut. Yet David Cameron is trying to hide the cost of the refurbishment he is having done in his luxury apartment.

"He should come clean on the cost of the work and tell taxpayers how much is being spent giving his bathroom a makeover."

A No 10 spokesman said Graham's letter had been received.

• David Cameron
• Freedom of information
• MPs' expenses
• House of Commons

Decision on Lord Taylor of Warwick and Lord Hanningfield, say reformers, highlights need for same disqualification rules as MPs

Two Tory peers jailed for abusing their parliamentary expenses will be free to return to the House of Lords next spring, prompting criticism from reformers.

Lord Taylor of Warwick and Lord Hanningfield were freed in September after serving a quarter of their terms. The House of Lords privileges and conduct committee has recommended that Taylor should be suspended from the house until next May and Hanningfield until April.

Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer who has campaigned for reform of the second chamber, said: "This farce re-emphasises the need to be able to disqualify permanently those people who are convicted of a serious offence. The Lords reform bill says that peers convicted of criminal offences must be disqualified just like MPs. It would be unthinkable to have a peer to be able to vote on laws while serving a prison sentence."

Taylor, 58, was jailed for 12 months in May for fraudulently claiming over £11,000, which he repaid. However, an investigation by the independent Lords commissioner for standards found that he had wrongly claimed £24,311.70 in total, and he repaid the remaining sum. He had told the Lords expenses office that his main residence was a house in Oxford, when he really lived in west London.

When he passed sentence, Mr Justice Saunders said Lord Taylor had thrown away his many positive achievements in public life "not by one stupid action but by a protracted course of dishonesty".

At the time Taylor said he was "full of remorse" but would use what had happened to help others in the future. He said: "I regret that my actions have brought the house into disrepute and for that I apologise."

In a report, David Beamish, the clerk of the parliaments, noted that Taylor had not yet repaid £13,033.90 owed to the House authorities. He wrote to Taylor on 14 September to ask him to confirm 'no later than 3 October 2011' his willingness to repay that sum. "I have yet to receive a reply," he noted. Lord Taylor did repay the money early in October.

Hanningfield, 70, received a nine-month sentence in July after falsely claiming £13,379 in parliamentary expenses for overnight stays in London when he was not in the capital, including one occasion when he was on board a flight to India.

The commissioner's inquiry found he wrongly claimed £30,254.50. So far, he has repaid £1,800 but told the conduct committee he planned to repay the full amount and would not return to the house until he had done so.

• This article was amended on 7 November 2011 to add the information that Lord Taylor repaid £13,033.90 to the House early in October.

• House of Lords
• MPs' expenses
• Lords reform
• Crime

Ex-Labour MP for Luton South faces 21 charges relating to around £80,000 in expenses including £14,805 for boiler repairs

Former Labour MP Margaret Moran is expected to appear in court soon charged with fiddling her expenses by around £80,000.

Moran who represented Luton South, faces 21 charges: 15 of false accounting, contrary to the Theft Act 1968, and six of forgery, in which it is alleged she submitted false invoices.

It is alleged she "flipped" her designated second home, making claims for properties in London, Luton and Southampton.

Among the charges is an allegation that she dishonestly claimed £22,500 to repair dry rot at her Southampton home.

She is also accused of falsely claiming £14,805 for boiler repairs and work on her conservatory.

The court heard at a previous hearing that the charges amount to a total in the region of £80,000.

The former MP, who stood down at the 2010 general election, will appear at Southwark crown court in south London on Friday.

• Margaret Moran
• MPs' expenses
• House of Commons
• Labour
• Crime

The Iron Lady heads the list of former prime ministers who have claimed £1.7m for public duties in the past five years

Lady Thatcher has claimed more than half a million pounds from a taxpayer-funded allowance for former British prime ministers, official figures reveal.

Thatcher heads a list of former prime ministers who have claimed £1.7m in the past five years from the public duties cost allowance, set up to cover office and secretarial costs incurred for public duties.

Figures revealed by the Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, in response to a written parliamentary question by the Conservative MP Philip Hollobone, show that Thatcher has received £535,000 from the state since 2006, and John Major, who set up the allowance in 1991, has received £490,000. Tony Blair has claimed since 2007 and received £273,000. The figures reveal he received £169,076 in 2008-9, more than his salary in office.

The public duties cost allowance is administered by the Cabinet Office and claims must be supported by documentary evidence. Thatcher, who has suffered ill health which limits her engagements, still attends some public events, including an address by the Pope in the UK. According to figures released last year the maximum allowance claimable doubled from £47,568 in 1997-98 to £100,205 in 2008-9. Defending the allowance's value for money, Maude said: "The public duties cost allowance is kept under review."

Figures released by the Cabinet Office also suggested bonuses for civil servants have risen over the last year. Government departments paid civil servants £140m in bonuses between 2010 and 2011 – £4m more than in the previous year.

Days after becoming prime minister last year, David Cameron pledged to halt the bonus culture among civil servants. "Last week the Cabinet and I agreed to take a 5% pay cut. Now we need senior civil servants to join us in showing leadership as we reduce the deficit," he said.

The most generous departments were the Ministry of Defence, with £45m in bonuses for its civil servants, and the Department for Work and Pensions, which paid out £40m.

The Cabinet Office said it had cut the number of civil servants eligible for bonuses – to the top 25% of performers – and had saved £15m in six months.

Details of procurement card transactions worth more than £500 were also published this week. Ministry of Justice payments include a £1,201.76 bill for Avon, £1,832.42 at Debenhams, £756 for Crossroads Kennels and £2,325 at Melton Meat Products.

The Cabinet Office, which is overseeing the release of data, spent £2,260 at John Lewis following an office refurbishment, while other documents showed civil servants from the Communities department spent £5,000 on a bongo-drumming day and the Department of Health spent £258 on finger puppets. Officials at the Department for Work and Pensions used its charge cards to buy £27,000-worth of translation services over five months.

While Michael Dugher, the shadow Cabinet Office minister, said figures showed staff were out of touch during "a squeeze on families across the country", Maude said they showed the government was determined to become a world leader in transparency.

He said more stringent controls on the use of cards had reduced overall spend from £341m to £296m in the government's first year. "What today's data also shows is how seriously the civil service have taken their role in helping us to drive out waste at the very heart of government and get a grip on expenditure," he said.

• Margaret Thatcher
• Tony Blair
• John Major
• Conservatives
• MPs' expenses
• House of Commons
• Politics past
• Civil service