Disagree. This may not have a direct impact on polls in itself, but is a potentially very significant blow for Cameron. He successfully managed to position himself as the ‘Lets clean up parliament’ candidate over expenses and made a huge play over transparency. As a result, this kind of story will move some to conclude that he is ‘just like the rest’. For a candidate wishing to seize the mantle of change, being flung back into the quagmire of the same old politics is very damaging – much more so than it would be for Labour. I think they have made a tactical blunder – they were forced into this admission as the Cabinet Office has been ordered by a FoI request to release details by Friday, and as a result they have had to make this a public story just when things have been difficult for them. They should have cleared the decks on this story when they were 25% up and not under serious scrutiny. I’ve been saying for a long time that Ashcroft was coming to get the Tories, and this is probably only the start. A potentially much more damaging aspect is the status of the Bearsden Corporation – if as the Lib Dems are demanding, the 18 month long investigation into what looks suspiciously like a dormant shell company concludes that it is being used to transfer overseas donations to the Tories, Cameron’s entire anti sleaze edifice will crumble. As the Lib Dems are threatening legal action on the GE outcome over this we could be in for some serious business.
The key issue is that this was all so avoidable if Cameron actually practice what he preached. The fact that he didn’t is itself a damaging indictment of the fact that he is proving not to be a believable character and this strikes at the heart of one of his opponents key attack lines.

On ITV 6:30 news it does not even make the announcements at the beginning;

These are- Yorkshire Ripper; Bosnian Hague trial; schools standards story and a story from rural China.”

and now number one on C4 (part of ITN): go figure !!

Just out of interest why would he know before Anthony?

Or is someone pulling our leg?

I’d perhaps agree with you… If not for one thing that this plays into.

Cameron just gave a speech announcing it his patriotic duty to defeat Brown. And it’s been pointed out quite precisely that it’s hard to equate patriotic duty, and accepting millions of pounds from non-doms through dodgy holding companies. So this adds on to the ‘Dodgy Dealer Dave’ image being generated around him.