A comeback for the days of wine & roses?

The Daily Telegraph reports from the HoC how the Standards and Privileges Committee thinks that politicians are currently spending a “disproportionate” amount of time updating official records with “trivial” information about payments.

They conclude that MPs should not have to register receipt of gifts that include honey, bottles of wine or flowers. Instead the committee recommends that members should in future only have to declare individual payments of more than £66 - equivalent to 0.1% of their salaries.

There is, as yet, no indication if this suggested arrangement would have any impact on any declaration by David Cameron about the private dinner he attended shortly before Christmas at the Oxfordshire home of Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International. Guests included her boss James Murdoch who is very keen to acquire a bigger chunk of BSkyB - if the government will let him.