Cash-for-access row: Francis Maude is thrown to the Commons lions

The paymaster-general had the unenviable job of making a statement on party funding, and opted for the brazen approach

Francis Maude makes a statement on party donors in the Commons. Photograph: PA

Faced with another scandal arising from his own relaxed habits David Cameron found himself in urgent need of a pointless sacrifice, an expendable colleague who could be thrown into the Westminster lions' den to be chewed up by MPs and turned into hamburgers. But who would it be?

Sharp at 3.31pm up stepped Francis Maude, who rejoices in the suitably pointless title of paymaster-general, a post once held by his dear old dad. Maude Junior had rewritten his will, kissed his children and told Mrs Maude where he hides the car keys. He now proceeded to make a statement on the urgent need for fresh talks to reform party funding.

Party funding? Yes, it was a full four minutes before Maude casually observed that "events last weekend" demonstrated yet again this urgency. And that very ex-Tory co-treasurer who blew the gaff to the Sunday Times, the City wide boy who put the crud into Peter Cruddas? What Cruddas said was "completely unacceptable" and largely untrue, Maude explained piously, almost as an afterthought.

It was the banker's "rogue trader" defence, the Tory version of the tabloid "rogue reporter". In this case the rogue party treasurer, an inexperienced multimillionaire who had since been let go, had been acting rogueishly entirely on his own. No one else knew, they were all shocked and wouldn't have accepted laundered wonga anyway because it was illegal and wrong. Maude didn't quite sound a broken man, but Crudders can whistle for his knighthood.

When a party has been caught red, white and blue-handed with its fingers in someone else's till, backbench loyalists usually sorrowfully admit this sort of thing has been going on on all sides since Essex girl Boudicca led the English Defence League. It has the advantage of being true. Only hard cases try to brazen it out by insisting that their own man is the most transparent politician since Gandhi first donned a sheet and that Labour in office was far, far worse.

Moderniser Maude was in the second camp. Here he was, his fingerprints all over the getaway car, his boss's DNA on jeroboams of champagne drunk at those No 10 donor parties. Yet he insisted the real villains were not the toffs' party but Blair, Brown and their teenage gofer at the time, Eddie "The Kid" Miliband. Labour had taken millions from rascals, mostly trade union barons with tattooed foreheads, and blocked repeated attempts at reform. Heartbreaking or what?

It was an outstanding defence of a hopeless position, mostly nonsense bordering on mendacity, but Maude's adrenaline was up: he almost believed it. Fortunately for party balance not even Labour could mess up this one. Kid Miliband delivered his second bravura performance in a week. Do it again and he will face calls for drug tests. Where was Cameron when his office and personal integrity were at stake? What's he got to hide? Squillions from fat cats who did well out of the budget. This lot think they can get away with it. It was a tremendous rant, but Fearless Frankie outranted him. "Mendacious bluster" he replied, and he should know. It fell to Dennis Skinner to out-brute Maude. Had Cameron failed to face MPs questions "because there isn't enough money on the table?" the old bruiser roared. He doesn't do subtle.