Critics claimed the switch in the way affiliations are recorded will mean Tories could “hand top jobs to their mates”, just months after officials blocked part of Mr Cameron’s resignation honours list in which aides and friends were handed baubles including a peerage and knighthoods.

In other news

Theresa May’s government has been accused of changing the rules on public appointments to make it easier in future for ministers to pick their political allies for senior jobs at the BBC and regulators such as Ofsted.

The new code on public appointments will give ministers greater powers over who oversees a raft of agencies, watchdogs and advisory committees, while weakening the involvement of the independent commissioner for public appointments, who scrutinises the system.

It won't make much difference, as the constraints on crony-ism and corruption in politics are already almost nil.

Going in the direction of greater corruption always makes a difference.

Theresa May is going to go down in history as the most authoritarian PM Britain has ever had.

She really is Bad News. Unfortunately most people seem to be blissfully unaware. The creation of an entire nation of drinking/X factor /gaming zombie population seems to be developing into a success.