The investigation involved 25 MPs, more than 60 witnesses, 13 oral hearings and 14,000 pages of evidence. Finally, it simply ran out of parliamentary time to complete its mission. MPs were sent home for the last time in this parliament on Friday, even though the Commons will not be dissolved for three weeks, technically permitting a recall that the Government does not want. It looked like a seamless scam.But into this vacuum stepped the Guardian, arguing that the whole basis of the British electoral system could not work if voters were denied essential information about those who aspire to represent them. Failure to arrange publication denied this “essential safeguard” to voters in 10 constituencies. “The electoral process is thereby frustrated, and needlessly frustrated, since but for John Major’s obduracy, none of this need have occurred,” the paper said. It went on to risk the wrath of Parliament by publishing evidence it had been given in confidence.

The charge sheet is formidable – though it should be remembered that many of the allegations have been denied. As it stands, transcripts of evidence given in confidence to Sir Gordon – and passed on by his office to the Guardian as part of the investigatory process – suggest that former ministers and Tory MPs accepted money for political favours and lied to their colleagues and political masters.John Major described the Guardian story as “total and complete junk”. This is difficult to accept, since most of it was based on the evidence of the Tory Ten themselves. Tim Smith, MP for Beaconsfield and ex-Northern Ireland minister, was quoted as confessing to the Downey inquiry that he had taken pounds 25,000 in cash while asking questions in Parliament on behalf of the Harrods’ boss Mohamed al-Fayed. The confidential evidence states that he was given the money in pounds 50 notes. Mr Smith’s somewhat lame defence is that Mr Fayed is “an unusual man who does business in an unusual way”. Mr Hamilton, a tax barrister, is said to have admitted taking pounds 10,000 in “commissions” which he did not declare to the Inland Revenue for nine years, and taking a second free holiday at Mr Fayed’s Ritz Hotel in Paris, and lying to the Deputy Prime Minister, Michael Heseltine.

Mr Hamilton, who withdrew from a libel case against the Guardian last autumn, described the disclosures as “a pack of lies”. Michael Brown, MP for Cleethorpes, is said to have failed to declare pounds 6,000 in commissions from Ian Greer Associates for working on behalf of a US maker of oral tobacco. Sir Andrew Bowden, Tory MP for Brighton Kemptown since 1970, is said to have admitted taking pounds 5,000 in cash from Mr Fayed in return for disclosing information about Lonrho, the Tiny Rowland conglomerate with whom the Harrods’ boss was engaged in a bitter business struggle. Sir Michael Grylls, retiring member for Surrey North West, is said to have admitted lying to MPs about his lobbying activities, and was secretly paid commissions by Ian Greer.Sir Gordon Downey deplored the Guardian’s actions, saying they were “a gross breach of trust”. Selective leaking of evidence was “against the interests of natural justice”.

And the story is necessarily incomplete because his report is not due to be completed until this week. What more, it might be asked, could there be? Mr Rusbridger says the paper has more dirt, but does not plan to publish it “We have made our point,” he insists. The Conservatives accuse him of working in tandem with Tony Blair, but the Labour leader’s office and the Guardian editor are not considered close, despite the paper’s sympathy for the aims of New Labour.NEW Labour is promising a new start if (an increasingly inappropriate preposition) it wins the election. Tony Blair has promised that the Nolan Committee on Standards in Public Life, originally set up for a three-year term that expires this autumn, will be asked to carry on Its remit will also be extended.

Labour will invite Lord Nolan to look again at the issue of MPs’ behaviour and review the working of the Code of Conduct introduced in the wake of the cash-for-questions allegations.Furthermore, the Labour front bench would withdraw to arm’s length from the Standards and Privileges Committee. Tony Newton, Conservative Leader of the House, presently chairs this body. Under Blair, the Leader of the Commons would not serve on the committee, much less direct its fortunes, “so as to remove all doubt of any governmental interference”. Labour sources hint that a “Dale Campbell-Savours-type figure” will take the chair. Mr Campbell-Savours, MP for Workington and a member of the committee, has been the Government’s most dogged tormentor on sleaze. Giving him – or anybody like him – the job would signal to the Conservatives that losing office will not secure them immunity from prosecution.A Blair administration will also tighten up the rules on ministers’ financial interests. Look out, too, for a toughening-up of the Members Register of Interests, so that MPs could not sprinkle themselves around the boardrooms of British companies as they do at present.