Luciana & the landlord

Rich friends are always helpful in politics, even if you sometimes have to hold your nose while trowsering their cash. Just watch out when they come back to you after the election though.

Joe Anderson has run a very successful line in taking cash of private developers, and not worrying too much about what they might expect in return for greasing your way into power.

Luciana too is not afraid to accept money from friends with interesting reputations.

Private Landlord Anwar Ansari handed over £4000 to help fund Luciana, despite his involvement in a major donations scandal in 2008 when he helped fund Alan Johnson's bid to be Labour deputy leader, as reported by those well known Tory rags, the Daily Mirror and the Grundian.

According to reports, a penniless migrant who arrived on a student visa, Waseem Siddiqui, handed over thousands to Johnson's campaign despite not knowing who the now Shadow Chancellor was. He later admitted that he was acting as a proxy. Purely by coincidence Mr Siddiqui's landlord just happened to be one Anwar Ansari.

This isn't the first time Mr Ansari has been caught in controversy. In 2006 he was selected to be a Labour candidate in Croydon's council elections. Mysteriously he was vetoed as a candidate by Labour's ruling NEC. No explanation has ever been given but Labour insiders suggested to the Mirror that a person's fitness for office was a possible reason for the NEC taking this unusual step.

Neither has there been any explanation as to why Mr Ansari should choose to donate to a candidate standing so far away from Croydon.

In what we are sure is another astonishing coincidence, an Anwar Ansari has submitted a number of controversial planning applications (including one for a 63 bed hostel) in Liverpool that have been refused.

By yet further coincidence, someone by the same name has also got property and planning application interests in Greater Manchester, where Mr Ansari also happens to spread his benevolence towards the Labour party.

Isn't it amazing the sort of coincidences that can be found when one spends a few minutes researching on the internet? It's a pity Liverpool hasn't got any investigative journalists, instead of leaving it to a poor old border collie to dig up the dirt.

Oh and proving she hasn't given up her Camden links, another major donor to Luciana's campaign was Baron Mitchel of... Camden. You couldn't make it up.