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Labour’s continuing woes

After his successful visits to India and China, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown was clearly looking forward to taking the high ground, with plans to seize the political initiative from the Tories. Within hours of his returning home, his government was hit by its first ministerial crisis when Peter Hain, the high-profile Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, was forced to resign for failing to disclose a £103,000 donation to his deputy leadership election campaign. This bit of sleaze presents uncomfortable parallels with the early days of the Blair administration. Tony Blair was barely months into office when his government suffered its first Cabinet casualty. Peter Mandelson, the Trade and Industry Secretary, had to quit under circumstances similar to those that brought down Mr. Hain. Like him, Mr. Mandelson had ‘forgotten’ to declare a substantial financial transaction — a £373,000 housing loan. Allegations of sleaze were to haunt the Blair government for the rest of its tenure, culminating in the infamous cash-for-peerages scandal that went right up to Downing Street and ultimately hastened Mr. Blair’s departure. In a worrying replay, the Brown dispensation has been dogged by funding and donation rows. Two senior Labour figures — deputy leader Harriet Harman, and the Scottish Labour leader Wendy Alexander — are under a cloud with the Electoral Commission investigating allegedly illegal donations to their leadership campaigns.

All three have sought to blame their difficulties on ‘complex’ funding rules and administrative oversight, or both. Mr. Hain admitted he made a mistake but claimed it was an “innocent mistake.” He resigned only after the Electoral Commission decided to hand over his case to Scotland Yard, making his position untenable. Mr. Brown’s attempt to play down the affair by dismissing it as a case of mere “incompetence” has provoked ridicule. Opinion polls show that voters see ‘Donorgate’ as another manifestation of the continuing culture of Labour sleaze. In recent months, a series of crises has weakened public trust in the government — among them its handling of the collapse of Northern Rock, the first major British bank to go bust in more than 150 years; the loss of the personal data of millions of Britons; and a revolt over public sector pay. The Hain affair is seen to have diminished Mr. Brown’s political authority and, as The Guardian sees it, left him “desperately needing to restore his reputation for resolve” — which is in short supply at this low point for Labour.

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