SPENDING ON LEADERSHIP BIDS SHOULD BE CAPPED

In the wake of the Peter Hain fiasco ( which I still don't expect him to survive ) Harriet Harman is apparently calling for a cap on spending for leadership and deputy leadership campaigns.
Sounds pretty sensible to me. After all, Hain wasted over £200,000 on his campaign, which was marked by slick and glossy literature and national newspaper advertising
However, no-one has mentioned the considerable amount of money which must also have been shelled out for Michael Meacher's campaign that never was . Perhaps this is because everyone has forgotten........ but in that dismal week after Brown became leader without a contest, our CLP secretary had to bin dozens of leaflets from the Meacher camp. Meacher, I recall, also had a pretty swanky website .
By way of contrast, John McDonnell's hard-working but cash-strapped team did their best with basic A4 leaflets - and an awful lot of volunteers who hoped good policies would win out over flash PR.
What is truly extraordinary I suppose is that Hain should spend so much - and do so appallingly badly. What is even more extraordinary is that Gordon Brown's unnecessary leadership "campaign" was the most expensive of all, costing £203,852. Talk about a waste of money.One wonders what would happen in such campaigns if there were a properly level playing field.