Recently some have been calling for the Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith to stand aside over the "Cash for Peerages" row.

It's a fair comment, if politically biased in some quarters. The Attorney General is, in theory, answerable first and foremost to HM The Queen, not the Prime Minister, and it is one of those constitutional anomalies we have in this country which allows situations like this to develop. However, to call for Goldsmith to stand aside is, as some Labour critics know, pointless. Any successor of his would be appointed by the PM and therefore up for the same criticism. The Conservatives know this and are just using the position of the Attorney General as an exercise in kicking the government in the unmentionables during an election campaign.

If they, and others, were serious about the whole matter, then an all-Party review into the role of Attorney General would take place and whether it should be a Party-political post or one elected by members of the House of Commons. It's not as if the government isn't open to this. After one of Derry Irvine's regular exercises in arrogance and stupidity (a man who wasn't actually popular with many Labour MP's and activists), Labour did much to try and split the Office of Lord Chancellor and aviod acusations of bias.

But no, an All-Party group looking into the Office of Attorney General won't happen. The Conservatives like to continue their kicking, thus putting electoral expediency before decency.