The BBC is reporting that Gordon Brown will appear before the Chilcot Inquiry into Iraq *before* the General Election in the Summer. This could have a massive effect on performance of the out-going government in June’s elections.

It was thought that if Brown appeared before the General Election, it would be used like a political football prior to the election, so plans for his appearance were being shelved until after the Summer.

Things took a turn when Lib Dem leader, Nick Clegg applied pressure on Brown by asking him what he had to hide and if he would do so before the elections. As expected, opposition MPs jumped on this and Brown was left with little choice, but to volunteer.

In recent days, Brown wrote to the Sir John Chilcot’s investigation offering to appear before the election.

Former PM Tony Blair will before the inquiry at the end of this month.

Photo: Dreamstime (1990)

Apologies on the blogging front. Election.ie has been a little quiet. Yoyoing between bouts of panic buying gouge-happy stuff for burning and combining the odd reminents left in my press into new meal concoctions. Hello meat stuff with goopy onion tapenade. Darina, how are ya?

On a night where the rebellion against Brown looks well and truly alive, it is interesting to see the financial disclosures of spending in European Elections by UK political parties.

The Electoral Commission released figures yesterday showing just over £9 million was spent by UK political parties for campaigning for the Euros. Some 80% of the amount was spent by the Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and United Kingdom Ind Party.

Breakdown of the spending by the parties:

(Table snipped)

Over Christmas, Suzy linked to the SIPO report to the Ceann Comhairle on spending by Irish political parties for their European campaigns. Very interesting reading there!