Sleaze questions that the Labour and Tory leaders must answer

11.06.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Sat 8th Apr 2006

Crawley Lib Dem Group Leader Cllr Gordon Seekings and Lib Dem leader Sir Menzies Campbell at a recent party conference

Speaking in Manchester whilst campaigning for the local elections, Liberal Democrat Leader, Sir Menzies Campbell MP called on Tony Blair and David Cameron to agree to changes in electoral law to prevent a repetition of the 'secret loans scandal'. Sir Menzies said "As Tony Blair and David Cameron met on Wednesday they have two questions to answer "Why did they fund their election campaigns with large scale concealed loans?" and "What possible benefits could there be for those who made these loans?"

"It may be that these loan arrangements conform to the letter of the law, but they do not conform to the spirit of the law and to the principle of transparency on which it is based. The Liberal Democrats have already called for changes in election law to make it impossible to arrange such secret loans in future.

"We have also led demands for a reduction in national campaign expenditure limits, a cap of £50,000 on large donations to be applied to all parties at the same time and a limited extension to state funding of our democracy. It is also a key democratic principle that preferment for a place in Parliament should never be linked to generosity towards a particular party. The short-term solution to the problem of scandal surrounding the nominations for peerages is immediate transparency."

"But the real answer is to have a proper democratic and accountable method for choosing members of the House of Lords. The power to recommend peers should not in future rest with party leaders. There should be a predominantly elected House of Lords with any independent peers properly appointed by a fully independent commission."

"Our democracy must make the leap from the 19th century into the 21st."