The second thing was the potential political gain of one of the key recommendations - to allow every working council tenant to purchase their home at their existing rent under a new revamped Right to Buy. This could create swathes of Conservative voters in urban working class areas – the very areas that they often failed to capture last time.

This is a quick plug for Prisoner Ben. If you don’t already read Ben’s Prison Blog, then you should. The details are all up over there, but suffice to say: Ben has been in prison for 30 years. He does not deny that he committed a terrible crime when he was 14 – murder. However, Ben has been trying to rebuild his life from inside prison, in particular by pursuing education. As Ben admits, this is partly to improve his meagre job prospects when he is released. But as he himself says, it is also part of his felt duty to atone for his crime, by making of himself a valuable member of society that can contribute to the wider good. Ben has been unable to pursue his PhD studies for the past year because the prison where he is currently held has made his educational pursuits impossible. However, he needs to find the money for his next year’s PhD study but cannot go back to the private donors and charity organisations that have so far funded him because he has nothing to show for the last year. Ben is trying to raise £1,650 within the next 30 days to secure his PhD funding, with the hope that his scheduled move to a less constrained prison will allow him to resume his studies.

Some aspects of Cruddas' endorsement I just plain disagree with "Cruddas warns that it's a grave mistake for Labour to attack and disparage the Liberal Democrats. "David is not just attacking the Liberals, as some of the others have been."". Run that past me again Jon ... a rival party that has been trying to steal votes of us by presenting itself as to our left suddenly goes into coalition with the Tories and backs savage cuts to public services and a regressive budget and you don't think we should attack them for it? We shouldn't just be attacking them we should be trying to destroy them as a viable political entity. If that view reflects David Miliband's view then in itself it is reason enough why his brother should be leader instead. Whoever becomes leader, if I get on the NEC I will be pushing for attacking the Lib Dems to be a major part of our electoral strategy.

"...application forms on the Tory Party website make it clear that business leaders prepared to spend £1,000-a-head can guarantee that they dine with at least one serving government minister. The platinum tables are guaranteed to be "prominently positioned" near the top table, where Mr Osborne is expected to sit, and the diners will also get access to the VIP Lounge at the party conference and reserved seats in the main hall for Mr Cameron's table. Because the fee for a seat is below the legal limit for declaring donations, the identity of guests does not have to be made public. In 2006, Mr Cameron pledged to clean up politics, proposing new party funding rules to remove "the impression, now deep in the public mind, that influence, access and honours can be bought by wealthy institutions . . . and individuals". When Mr Cameron took office in May, he promised a "new politics" that would restore public trust. During the campaign, he promised to reform party funding to "clean up our messy politics"

The institute's report will come as a blow to Clegg who reassured anxious Lib Dem MPs on the night of the budget that he and his ministers had ensured that it would be fair. He told his MPs that he and Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem chief secretary to the treasury, had worked hard to guarantee the budget would not follow the path of most previous fiscal consolidations which have tended to hit the poorest members of society hardest.

Leaving your party is the most honourable course when your party leadership leaves you.

Labour’s new programme must not be imposed from the top but fed and informed by people in communities across the country who have something to tell us and hold our fate in their hands. Never again must we allow ourselves to become so aloof and out of touch. This means listening to and engaging with our councillors, activists, trade unionists, rank and file members and, above all, those who either deserted us in the polling booths or didn’t bother to turn out at all.