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A few more thoughts on the Public Administration Committee's Ashcroft inquiry (see below).

First, it's worth remembering that they have been prepared to embarrass Labour over peer-related issues. They did look into the (quite separate) - although the hearings had to be suspended for a bit, while there was a live criminal investigation under way. (.)

The committee interviewed all the main protagonists, including Labour's key fundraiser, Michael Levy, aka "Lord Cashpoint". And was critical of loopholes in the law on political donations.

Of course, the current complaints made by critics of Lord Ashcroft are of a rather different nature, but my point is that the committee has been prepared to look at issues the Labour government would rather not have had examined.

Second, the Conservative MP present when the decision was made, Charles Walker, did not vote against (or for) looking at the case of Lord Ashcroft. He opposed the move as a political stunt but thought that a headline about a Tory MP trying to block an inquiry into a Tory peer wouldn't help either.

But he and another Conservative committee member Ian Liddell-Grainger are both furious with Labour colleagues like Gordon Prentice, Paul Flynn and Kelvin Hopkins, who they accuse of outrageous pre-election manipulation of the committee. And they're promising to do all they can to thwart the investigation.

So a plague of party political serpents look set to descend upon Dr Wright's committee room Eden of disinterested study of the political system.

A comment on my previous post on this issue asked if a Labour Cabinet Office minister signed off on Lord Ashcroft's ennoblement. I don't know; I'll try and find out.

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