I heard Malcolm Rifkind from the Conservatives on Radio 4 yesterday maintain that the Conservative Party would not have influenced the Tory-supporting newspapers to run Nick Clegg & LibDem smear stories.
The truth is now out with the following information last night on the blog of Nick Robinson, the respected BBC journalist. It also shows up the smear story in the Daily Telegraph about Nick Clegg's bank account for the total rubbish it is :
I now learn that political reporters from the Tory-backing papers were called in one by one to discuss how Team Cameron would deal with "Cleggmania" and to be offered Tory HQ's favourite titbits about the Lib Dems - much of which appears in today's papers.
The key personal allegation about payments from donors into Nick Clegg's personal bank account came, however, from the Telegraph's expenses files. Incidentally, the party has now published details of Nick Clegg's bank statements and party accounts showing that Mr Clegg received payments totalling £19,690 from three businessmen (Neil Sherlock, Michael Young, Ian Wright) and then paid staff costs of £20,437.30 out of the same account. According to these figures, Mr Clegg actually paid £747.30 out of his own money towards staff costs.
The Tories should be ashamed of themselves and it is clear they are not fit to run the country.