In the General Election last year about £10,000 was spent on my campaign.

Similar amounts were spent by the candidates for the other main parties.

And by law there are strict limits per candidate (around £11,000 in a constituency of Blackburn's size).

But if we'd have been standing for election not in 2005 but in the 19th century, the story would have been a very different one.

Then, extraordinary sums were spent on trying to buy votes.

The "treating" of electors with beer and strong liquor, food and much else, was brazen.

And so were the dire threats of the consequences if workers did not vote the "correct " way.

Routinely, mill-owners let it be known that a vote for the Liberals (then the only opposition) would be an act not of courage but of recklessness.

At best it would lead to a mill worker being shifted on to unpleasant lower paid work; but often to the sack.

Similar things like this went on around the country, but Blackburn achieved special notoriety for intimidation and corrupt practices at elections.

Thus in the space of 16 years the stench was so bad that the Commons twice declared the elections null and void.

In 1852, William Eccles was the casualty. In 1868, it was both of the "winning" Conservative candidates William Henry Hornby and Joseph Feilden.

The Tories were held to have issued an explicit threat to dismiss workers who voted Liberal, in what was called the "screw circular", and had carried the threat out.

Knowing how someone voted in those days was easy enough the ballot itself was public.

It took the introduction of the secret ballot in 1872, and then the start of strict limits on spending in 1883, to start the clean up of politics.

Compared to most other countries, our politics have stayed remarkably clean ever since, and the ferocity with which the press pursue any transgressors is one reason why.

But by the 1990s it had become clear that there was a big gap in the controls on election spending.

So as Home Secretary, I introduced a major new law the Political Parties Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

It is one of the many measures I am proud of. It established the Electoral Commission and set new rules for the disclosure of bigger donations, and limits on overall national spending.

Just over the last two weeks, however, as the headlines have told us, the fact that this new law did not cover loans has been much in the news.

The Lord Chancellor has announced that the law will be amended.

Meanwhile, there is an issue for all of us which is about how we finance our political parties. Democracy cannot operate without political parties.

I know that some people ask why "people of goodwill" cannot just come together and sort out the country's problems above party, but this ignores the key fact that people can have all the goodwill in the world and still disagree as to what should be done.

It is much better for those who broadly do agree to get together, set out their programme, and then be tested by the electorate. It is called party politics.