Quite a lot if you agree with Alex or James. The cause of their ire is Labour’s plans to give the government the right to remove the jury from coroner inquests, and replace the coroner with an appointee of central government’s choice.

As the BBC reports:

The government is facing a backlash over controversial proposals to remove juries from some inquests.

Provisions in its counter-terrorism bill, published last month, would also allow home secretaries to replace coroners with their own appointees.

Ministers insist the new powers would be used sparingly and the vast majority of inquests will still stay public.

But critics

…

The incumbent pro-Western Serbian President, Boris Tadic, has beaten the pro-Russian nationalist Tomislav Nikolic by around 51% – 47%.

The story so far: Alan Johnson runs for Labour Deputy Leader. His campaign receives a donation in the name of someone who is on the electoral register and eligible to vote. It then turns out the donor was really passing on money from someone else (brother-in-law). This isn’t allowed because (as with the David Abrahams affair) the original source of the money must be named.

Alan Johnson’s defence? His team checked the person who handed over the money, and there was no way they could have known the money was really coming from someone else.

As initial explanations in other donation sagas have …

For the Conservatives, today’s papers bring bad news for four different MPs: the MP couple who were able to carry on claiming for the cost of a home even after they had paid for it, the one who employed someone at the other end of the country and there’s more about Derek Conway.

UPDATE: And then there is the case of Anthony Steen…

Today’s papers brings a bumper crop of new allegations, defences and updates relating to MPs and money.

On the Labour side, it is Wendy Alexander and Gordon Brown who are in the spotlight.