As always it is the dogs that are not barking that tell the tale. A decade of so ago Labour has self-indulging in an orgy of Tory-bashing over sleaze. The big guns of the Shadow Cabinet turned on the hapless John Major. A white suit even won a seat where the saddest of the sleazey, one Neil Hamilton, was MP.

Today, Labour is in a jam of its own making over party financing. But where is the Tory indignation? If ever there was a case for some forensic moralizing by Ming surely the Lib-Dems should be up on their high horses raining scorn on Blair.

But Dave and Ming are silent. As well they have to be. Because the crude truth of politics is that democracy costs money. Big money. When TB and JP and GB and the others went into the slick campaign office in Victoria Street last summer, did none of them ask who paid for it all. As reporters toured the key marginals did none of them ask who was paying for full-time organisers and the smart election literature?

Trade union leaders like Jack Dromey know and knew that their contributions to Labour combined with membership subs could never pay for a modern election campaign.

Purists will argue that politics should become more modest. Back to basics of ronoed election addresses and dusty church halls. The Tories and Lib Dems would like nothing better as they will out-spend Labour to the hilt. In my own constituency of Rotherham there was a sudden display of Lib-Dem posters with Charlie Kennedy’s face. The Lib Dems have no presence and no chance in Rotherham but they found themselves with spare cash at the end of the campaign and there were empty poster sites in Rotherham so up went  Kennedy’s face.

We have even heard a Mr Stuart Wheeler, a big donor to the Tories, on the Today programme announcing what Tory policy on Europe should be and Dave and William have done him proud with an increased Tory hostility to Europe.

Of course, the loans should have been out in the open for Labour, for the Tories and for the Lib-Dems. But in the end, parties in power or about to win power have to raise serious money, mainly to employ professionals, to discharge their democratic duty to seek support for their policies.

For me, the answer has always been simple. There are two simple solutions to the present imbroglio.  Either democracy pays big money to support politics or big money pays for politics and exercises a say over democracy. I prefer the former. Yes, it is time to bite on the bullet of serious state-funding for mainstream democratic politics.

I argued in vain as a back-bencher, as a minister and in every manner I could when discussing this at all levels of the party. Robin Cook rejected the idea saying the public would not like it. He was wrong. I tried as a back-bencher to get changes to the Political Parties, Elections and Referendum bill to allow serious money for policy development by political parties. In my latest pamphlet, “Britain’s Voice in Europe: Time for a Change” published by the Foreign Policy Centre I argue for support for European policy networking. At the moment, too much politics relies on donations by  the rich, sponsorship by companies or trade unions, and other sources all of whom want some payback, reasonably enough, for their money. I think the public will accept a clean-up of the financing of politics and are prepared to pay for this. But it does need all-party agreement. If the Tories and Lib-Dems want to play games by trying to score points then we will stay mired in the mud of opaque party financing.

Charlie Falconer has come up with some good ideas. Let them become law quickly.
Oh, and my second solution to the current mess? An elected House of Lords down to say twice the size of the US Senate. And the quicker the better.