PM says questions about his financial affairs and transparency over who may have lent him money are a "farrago of nonsense"

Here's a few reasons why questions around this matter are from it.

Sometimes people talk about these matters being rules. They're not. we're talking about the law, as governed by the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000. So this is at heart a matter of whether or not a PM and the party he leads has obeyed the law.

Second- whatever the Electoral Commission decides, think about the Ministerial Code. It makes clear that ministers must ensure that not only does no conflict of interest arise but no perception of conflict must arise, and transparency is required to achieve that.

Has that happened this week? Clearly not. So you can credibly argue the ministerial code has already been broken. Of which in our system the PM is supposed to be the guarantor.

That's serious in itself- but also off the back there is clearly a strong argument to say what hope is there of holding other ministers to account on that code, which is supposed to be the bedrock of our public life, if the PM hasn't set an example?

This is especially important in a system such as ours- where there are relatively few external checks on the comportment of ministers, certainly not in adhering to the code. It relies on ministers taking the code seriously, for the reasons the PM makes clear in his own foreword.

Note too the fifth Nolan principle on public life. Has the govt as a whole adhered to them this week? Bear in mind we're reaching the end of it and are in the extraordinary situation of Downing St simply refusing to answer directly a simple question about the PM's finances.

There's a ubiquitous argument which is "people don't care"- well we can't really know that (and those who claim it have a clear interest in so claiming). But in any case it's irrelevant. Because politicians and especially the government are the custodians of our political...

...system. They're supposed to think about this stuff in a way that of course members of the public don't. Their job is of course to do what's in their interest but also have an eye on the political system which they bequeath.

If that system is one where norms no matter less, or there's precedent for less transparency, or questions around propriety become taken less seriously, none of that is irrelevant just because they're of relatively low electoral salience.

It'll just mean democracy as a whole doesn't function as well, which the current government might not like if they're replaced by a government of another colour at some point.

So as I said in my piece last night, this isn't a story about furnishings or wallpaper, it's about the law and about the standards we expect in our democracy- about openness, transparency and so on. https://www.youtube.com/watch?at_custom2=twitter&at_custom3=%40BBCNewsnight&at_medium=custom7&at_custom1=%5Bpost+type%5D&at_campaign=64&at_custom4=E2697EA0-A872-11EB-8DB3-C003933C408C&v=YkM6002VG-8&feature=youtu.be

Some other important context to this in the thread below, with regards to the PM’s recent chequered history with regards to both Parliamentary and ministerial rules. https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1388124682562547712