The Telegraph has come out in favour of Anne Widdicombe.  Or at least Andrew Pierce has. Iain Dale had already mentioned her interest: winning over Labour is key.  John Bercow will struggle to win over Tories, apparently, and Frank Field ditto for his own party.

If you can bear to watch  the British public in one of its 'periodic fits of morality' (see full Macaulay quote in this FT letter), the BBC's Question Time shows MPs being barracked to a ludicrous degree by an audience that seemed to want a general election. I gave up half-way, with more respect than before for the courage of the MPs that turned up (Hague, Cable, Ben Bradshaw).

The letter I link to there points out a more serious failing of our system:

"However, the expenses furore should be seen as trivial compared with the “moral hazard” of safe parliamentary seats – about 200 each for the two main parties – where there is no measurable risk of dismissal by the elector-employers." This blogger worked out how having a safe seat made you more liable to abusing expenses - and is now being quoted by Polly and interviewed on national radio.  Good on him. 

Charlotte Gore quotes the Economist pointing out what a bad idea an election would be. The quote is worth repeating: 

"If an election were called next week, Britain might well end up with a Parliament for the next five years that is defined entirely by its views on claiming for bath plugs, rather than on how to get the country out of the worst recession in 70 years"

Emma Jacobs of the FT with greater sarcasm points out another pitfall: more Esther Rantzen. 

"We will have the option of voting for sleaze or against sleaze. Pretty challenging stuff. I've thought quite hard about this and I've decided, on balance, I'm against sleaze. So next time I'm going to vote not for a politician, but instead for a television presenter, preferably one who fronted a show championing consumer rights. . . . On a tour of the town, a council cleaner stopped to wish [Rantzen] good luck. He did a thumbs-up and said: "I think you are doing a marvellous job." At what, the newspaper fails to explain."