Who paid the bill?

Pensioner Sylvia Hardy has been freed less than two days into a seven-day jail term after an anonymous donor paid her £53.71 council tax arrears.

But the 73-year-old, of Exeter, Devon, said she was disappointed she had not been able to serve her full sentence.

Ms Hardy, who argues the tax is unfair on retired people, was jailed on Monday and had been due to be freed on Friday.

Her attempts to draw attention to the steep rises in Council Tax bills was thwarted last year too; another anonymous benefactor stepped in and paid her arrears:

“I don’t know what the motives of this particular person were - he might have been a person that was against the campaign and wanted to blow it up, or he may have been a person misguided who wanted to help, or thought he was helping.”

I reckon a scan of Labour Party accounts - searching particularly for the sum of £53.71 (perhaps itemised as ‘Tea and coffee’ or ‘printing costs’) - might provide the answer…