Lots of follow-up in the other papers today after the FT’s story on Thursday about the House of Lords being replaced by a “senate” with half the number of occupants. Here is the background article.

Not sure about the idea of “senators”, which is either very old-fashioned (think ancient Rome) or a bit futuristic (think Star Wars, below).

The transfer from the current system to the new one will be intensely complicated.

One of the big unresolved issues  is what to do with the 26 bishops. They sit in the Lords because the Church is/was a major landowner in the UK rather than because of their spiritual influence over Parliament.

But to remove them all would provoke accusations from some quarters - not necessarily from the bishops themselves - that some kind of “disestablishment” is taking place.

Cutting their numbers to a small rump is the current plan. Even that would spark further questions though, such as: why is only the Church of England represented in cosmopolitan UK?

I suspect this one won’t go away for a while.

Of all the people to fall foul of, Tory MP Bob Spink ended up with Bill Sharp, who is 6ft 5in and weighs 18 stone. Sharp is deputy chairman of Spink’s local Tory association at Castle Point, Essex.

It is the personal enmity between these two men which lies behind the departure of Spink from the Tory party today.

Patrick McLoughlin, chief whip, implies that he withdrew the whip from Spink. The MP says this is “brass-necked dishonesty” and “low-political deceit” and that he resigned.

Frankly, who cares whose idea it was for the former management consultant to quit the Tories?

Much more interesting is the bad blood behind the row.

Sharp was an ally of Spink and helped him win his seat at the last election. But the Mail on Sunday claimed three years ago that Mr Spink had a relationship with Gail Boland, former partner of Mr Sharp.

Relations between the two men went from bad to worse and at one point the pair ended up in a court battle.

Mr Sharp was not answering his phone this evening.  Spink told the FT today that his relationship with Ms Boland had nothing to do with the row.

In 2005 he issued a statement saying: “I categorically deny having any sexual relationship with Gail Boland prior to the end of either my marriage or her relationship with Bill Sharp.”

The 59-year old was first elected in 1992, lost his seat in 1997 and returned in 2001. He quit the party ahead of an attempt by his association - not for the first time - to deselect him.

Spink had urged the Conservative party to investigate the management of the association but the party’s year-long inquiry was inconclusive. Today he said he was angry not to have had enough support from Tory central office.

Spink’s last appearance in the news was when it emerged that he had been paying not only his ex-wife but also Ashleigh Sharp - the teenage daughter of Gail Boland and Bill Sharp - to work as his researcher. There was no suggestion of any wrongdoing.

The word from Tory HQ last night, incidentally, was that few tears were being shed for the departure of Spink, whose interests include pottery and marathon running.

Plenty of FT readers have second homes in the countryside. So I feel it’s my duty to shed some light on two big news stories of the last couple of days which would in theory affect them.

 1] A Sunday newspaper has suggested that the government is planning a crackdown on second home owners in rural parts. It based its story on a report by Matthew Taylor, Lib Dem MP, which has not yet been written.

Mr Taylor’s comment yesterday was:

“The report is totally inaccuarate…I have reached no conclusions on second homes being subject to planning controls, and won’t even report until July. I have been asked to look at the findings of the 2006 commission on affordable rural homes, and this was one of around 100 suggestions they made - so it forms a small part of my enquiry, but it is very early days and absolutely no conclusions have been reached, let alone reported to Government”.

 2] Stuart Burgess, the government’s “rural advocate”, has warned that the imminent cut in capital gains tax on second homes - from 40 per cent to 18 per cent - will make it even harder for first-time buyers and young families to get on the housing ladder. This is a genuine concern in places such as Cornwall and the Lake District.

The only flaw in Mr Burgess’s argument is that the changes to the CGT regime are not necessarily the tax cut that they seem.

Until now, the seller of a second home does not pay the entire uplift in its value. This is because you can apply “indexation” - which takes inflation into account - into your calculations.

From April you will only be able to use indexation up to 1998. As a result, some owners will pay less tax than before; others will pay more. Another of the government’s neat little sleights of hand.

By Jim Pickard

The National Gallery, Hadrian’s Wall and the whole of Bath will be free from bombardment from opposition forces - up to a point - under proposals to give heritage buildings special protection in the event of a war.

This unlikely proposition was in a draft bill published on Monday by the culture department. It marks the belated signing up by the UK to the Hague Convention of 1954, which aimed to prevent a repeat of the widespread cultural devastation - think Dresden - which took part in the second world war.

One successful prosecution has already taken place under the convention when a Yugoslav commander attacked Dubrovnik’s Old Town in Croatia during its 1991 siege. Meanwhile the UK will not be allowed to store any military hardware among the crypts and chambers of its favourite heritage sites.

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