LATEST SHOW It's a British Watergate. There's been a massive common-sense bypass, as there always is in these scandals. Political parties are no longer mass movements; they are cliques of the political class. Martin Bell Watch the show

1201 Everybody now says it's time to get rid of the stench of sleaze - after they've lifted their snouts from the sleaze trough. But is a cap on political donations the answer? We'll be looking at that and other solutions the parties are suggesting - and asking if it may already be too late. Andrew welcomes the Editor-at-Large of the Daily Telegraph, Jeff Randall, who joins us for the whole programme.

1204 There's a sound here at Westminster this morning - the sound of party spokesmen rushing towards the nearest microphone to explain how they're going to clean up politics. All too late, they've realised that the current system cannot go on. The Tories and Lib Dems were quick off the mark, with Labour running fast to catch up. But is anything that's being proposed going to work? Jenny holds her nose and goes in.

1207 Jenny's joined by a man who knows a thing or two about countering sleaze, the former MP Martin Bell.

1209 Andrew welcomes Labour backbencher Chris Bryant to the sofa. He says:

"I would prefer us to have a fully open and transparent system. When we drew up the law, we should probably have included loans as well, and the loophole should never have existed.
We've never done anything illegal; we've done something which all the political parties have been doing.
One of the difficulties we've got to face as a country is that if we want properly, professionally run political parties, how are we going to fund that whilst making sure that there's transparency?"

1217 We round up the other stories making the news here at Westminster this lunchtime in our Newsbelt.

1219 That minimum wage announcement and this week's Budget are obviously not unconnected. The Chancellor's big speech on Wednesday will be his tenth, and of course it'll be closely watched because his decisions will affect every single one of us. But how much do you know about the origins of this annual parliamentary ritual? We asked Daniel Brittain to dust off the budget history books and find out what's behind this event that's been taxing us all for centuries.

1224 Andrew turns back to Jeff Randall to guess what's coming up in Wednesday's budget box.

1226 Your emails and questions for Jeff.

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