The Wrong Time And The Wrong Reason

Anyone who picked Peter Hain in their Fantasy Government Cabinet has just bagged the maximum of 50 points, for having someone who's cocked up so badly they've had to resign.

Actually, whilst I hate this government with a passion, I don't really see this as much of a cause for celebration. It sends out the wrong message. No one should have to resign from their job just because their behaviour has been referred to the Police.

You could argue, quite powerfully, that Hain should have resigned when the appalling management of his Deputy Leadership campaign fund first came to light, on the grounds of clear incompetence. Or you could argue that at some between then and now his position became untenable and that he should have resigned because the pressure has reached a tipping point. But resigning now implies that there is something inherently wrong with being under Police investigation. And there isn't. There's only something wrong with being found guilty by a court of law. It's a critical tenant of our legal system, and we should not rejoice when we see it being undermined.

Gordon Brown has handled this pretty badly in my view. He could and probably should have acted sooner. But there are reasons for people to lose their job, and the Boys in Blue wading in with their size 12s is not one of them.

Quite apart from which, it's another blow for the Womble On Tour Predictions List, which said that Hain would survive and that James Purnell would be the first to leave the Cabinet. I seem to have got that very precisely the wrong way round.

Still don't think there will be any high-profile prosecutions, though. Can't believe that the CPS has got what it takes to take on the Establishment.

If Only I'd Known...

About 15 years ago I got done for speeding. (I've been done twice since then too, but that's irrelevant here).

I was doing 45 mph. In Scotland, as it happens. I didn't know that the speed limit was 30. In fact, I didn't have a clue what the limit was.

Ignorance of the law is no defence, except in the eyes of Wendy Alexander. She doesn't seem too bothered that a £950 donation to her leadership campaign from a supporter based outside the UK broke the law, and certainly doesn't see it even as a resigning issue. "I am confident when all the facts are known I will be exonerated of any intentional wrongdoing", she's reported as saying. In other words, breaking the law's fine, as long as you didn't mean to do it. I wish I'd known that before I took my £60 fine and three points penalty on the chin.

And politicians wonder why the public has no respect for them.

How To Blog Scandal

Guido Fawkes boasts that his site was the top visitor attraction among political blogs in November. This morning it isn't hard to see why he's reclaimed the leadership from Iain Dale.

While some of Dale's posts been petty and malicious, Guido has an absolutely brilliant - and devastating - summary of Donorgate here. Point-by-point he succinctly takes each of the main players to the cleaners; Abrahams, Mendelsohn, Wendy Alexander, Jack Dromey and, sad to relate, The Divine Harriet. He's expecting criminal charges to be brought against Alexander and suggests that the only reason that no one's resigned yet is that if one goes then they could bring the whole edifice down with them.

It illustrates something which I hope I've learned at an early stage; when it comes to scandal, good blogging has to be based on cold-hearted interpretation of the available facts rather than on a desire to score cheap political points.

Go, Girl !

Good to see The Divine Harriet getting onto the front foot over the donations thing.

She's making it quite clear that it was Chris Leslie, Gordon Brown's campaign co-ordinator, who pointed her team in the direction of Janet Kidd, despite the fact that Brown's team has already rejected money from her.

After Brown's reluctance to show his full support of Harriet in his press conference earlier in the week, it's hard to dispel the image of a front-bench team that's at war with itself. Seems to me that if Harriet goes down, she's going do all she can to take Brown with her.

And if she manages that, I'd struggle to think of a Labour politician who had ever done the nation a greater service.

There's Nothing Like An Inquiry To Get You Out Of A Hole

Iain Dale has a great take on the inquiry that Labour are setting up into their party funding fiasco. If you thought the Hutton Inquiry was a joke, wait till you hear this.

The Inquiry will be led by Lord Whitty, who used to be Labour Party General Secretary, scrutinised by Lord McClusky, who is a former Labour politician and will report to none other than Harriet Harman !

I think we already know how rigorous it's going to be...

Hurray ! Harriet's In The News Again !

The Right are having a field day over Labour's donation travails.

This is a bit rich, really. I bet they're no better behaved; it's just that they haven't been caught yet.

They've already had the scalp of the General Secretary of the Labour Party, and now they're after my mate Harriet Harman. Apparently she accepted a £5,000 donation into her campaign for the deputy leadership, thinking it was from Janet Kidd when actually it originated from our old friend David Abrahams. She's going to pay the money back. Some people are calling for her to resign, but I reckon she should tell them all to bugger off.

I can't quite work out which Fantasy Government cock-up criterion this meets, or how many points it merits, but as I'm so hopelessly in love with her I can't resist the temptation to give her some (points, that is) and re-post my favourite photo of her.