1/12/2008

It's not for no reason he is known in some circles as Peter Vain

The vanity of Peter Hain is well known. A man barely able to pass a mirror without taking a second glance at himself, never afraid to chase a headline, gets some column inches or turn up for the opening of an envelope, he is everything that gives politicians a bad name.

Take the brazen way he used the Young Liberals to get himself well known before jumping ship to Labour, a classic sign of a man without political principles, obsessed only with power and himself. This has been my own personal opinion for some years, based on what people in the Westminster bubble tell me and from what us written and said about him. Some might have accused me of showing political bias, but surely Peter Hain's statement today shows that he is a man of very few principles.

It appears Peter Hain thinks forgetting to declare £100,000 is just an oversight. Let's get it in to perspective, we are talking about £100,000, not a few hundred quid. I wonder if Hain had been made Chancellor, a job he had eyed in the past, if he would have allowed the Treasury to view people who fail to disclose £100,000 of income as "an oversight".

As it is, it shows almost comedic levels of incompetence from a Minister who has responsibility for two government departments. Gordon Brown is stuck between a rock and a hard place because if Hain goes, so should Harman and probably Wendy Alexander in Scotland because they too have had problems with donations in recent months. But if they stay, he is left saddled with useless ministers who refuse to face up to when they have broken the rules.

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