A new calendar year, a new political agenda and a new, sleaze-free chapter in Gordon Brown’s premiership… or so he’d surely hoped. However, as is so often the case when dealing with the unpredictable world of parliamentary politics, the reality of the situation has proven to be somewhat different.

The final drunken notes of Auld Lang Syne had barely faded away when yet more Government-related controversy arrived, this time involving Peter Hain’s failure to alert the Electoral Commission to donations he’d received during last year’s deputy leadership bid, and any notion that the PM would be able to turn his back upon a disastrous few months was swiftly put to the sword. Hain’s ministerial career now hangs in the balance and he must patiently await news of his fate as various investigations into his conduct wend their weary ways towards some kind of collective resolution; however, far more is at stake for New Labour than the future of the incumbent Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, and we will come to some of these potential ramifications in due course.

For those of us who have paid close attention to the New Labour project since its inception, the whole situation has a distressingly-familiar air. A newspaper writes an exposé unearthing a hitherto-concealed piece of Blair- or Brownite skulduggery; the guilty party immediately makes a series of indignant public statements, denying any form of wrongdoing whatsoever; other journals begin to examine the saga in more detail, often revealing a plethora of increasingly-heinous secondary transgressions in the process; the PM issues a less-than-full-throated endorsement of his colleague, leaving enough room to back-pedal if circumstances worsen; and several inquiries are swiftly convened in order to placate the public and the media alike, all of which share the mandate “Condone when possible, condemn when expedient.”

In this particular instance, it was The Guardian which lit the proverbial blue touch-paper by revealing, on January 8, that Hain had failed to declare some £103,000 in donations during his ill-fated quest for the deputy leadership. (Although allegations regarding the minister’s misbehaviour date back to late November 2007, the full extent of his chicanery was not known until the broadsheet published its findings.)

Playing to type as a butter-wouldn’t-melt New Labour minister, Hain promptly issued a serious of pious assertions in which he decried the suggestion that the non-disclosure had been in any way deliberate, instead preferring to blame the distracting nature of his government responsibilities which had, he claimed, diverted his attention away from such campaign-related minutiae. He also sought to call his campaign team’s aptitude into question, citing “administrative errors” on their part which had apparently contributed towards the alleged oversight; if it seems harsh to publicly discredit anonymous staffers who can’t easily defend themselves, remember that Hain eventually ranked fifth (out of six contenders!) during the election in question. Perhaps, then, his grapes remained somewhat sour in this regard, hence the otherwise-inexplicable assault upon his poor associates.

Matters became murkier still when closer examination of the Hain campaign’s accounts revealed that a sizeable proportion of the undeclared donations had been channelled to the beleaguered MP’s coffers through the Progressive Policy Forum think-tank. Had you heard of this group before the faeces collided with the fan over Hain’s dodgy dealings? Probably not, and here’s why: to date, the PPF has yet to produce a single report or put forward so much as one policy suggestion. It has no actual staff. Perhaps most damningly of all, according to BBC News Online on January 12 (emphasis added):

“It was set up three months after the launch of Mr. Hain's campaign and counts John Underwood, who was closely involved in financing the Hain campaign, as a trustee.”

Confronted with these facts, it’s hardly surprising that Westminster’s Tory contingent has been crying foul ever since the Guardian’s allegations first surfaced. The whole issue reads more like a Tom Clancy espionage novel than a summary of a bog-standard election campaign, and the deeper we dig the more bizarre it starts to seem. For instance, it soon transpired that two of the donors had been unaware that the money they’d paid to the PPF would end up financing Hain’s campaign; furthermore, in addition to having flunked the disclosure requirement enshrined within the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000, the minister had failed to register the donations in the Register of Members' Interests. Whoops!

During Prime Minister’s Questions on January 16, Gordon Brown was keen to emphasise his belief that Hain had not been deliberately deceptive in failing to catalogue these endowments in the necessary ways. Instead, he said, the harried minister was guilty only of “an incompetence”.

Let’s pause and consider this scenario for a moment. No doubt the PM intended his remark as a defence of his colleague, albeit one which was delivered with all the inbuilt wriggle-room one has come to expect from New Labour bigwigs; however, it still seems like an extraordinary proclamation and, if anything, it may sound the death-knell for Hain’s ministerial career instead of salvaging it. So, over £103,000 went undeclared as a result of the man’s bungling ineptitude… and this is somehow supposed to be better than the alternative, i.e. that the non-declaration was a result of mendacity and deliberate deception? We’re actually supposed to be pleased with the idea that one of our leading MPs – who holds the post of Welsh Secretary in addition to his Pensions portfolio, remember – is merely incapable of doing his job properly, as opposed to being too dishonest to discharge his duties? What a remarkable train of thought!

The doctrine of individual ministerial responsibility, broadly defined, states that the proverbial buck must stop with cabinet ministers whenever any form of serious misbehaviour occurs within his or her department. The principle is not contingent upon ministers having awareness of the wrongdoing in question, and less still is active participation an essential concomitant thereof. On this basis, then, Hain must surely resign.

However, the demise of this noble concept has long been lamented among British political analysts – not least since New Labour seized power in May 1997 – and it is now, to all intents and purposes, as dead as Monty Python’s parrot. The question, then, is whether Hain’s errors were so egregious as to necessitate his departure from office in any case or whether, thanks to the gradual erosion of principles such as individual responsibility, the bar for resignation has been elevated to such an extent that the low-key nature of his misconduct will allow him to slip safely beneath it.

With that borne in mind, let’s have a quick look at some recent resignations, ‘recent’ meaning ‘post-1997’. (An interesting, though incomplete, list of New Labour stand-downs can be found by clicking here.) We need to ask ourselves whether Hain’s misdeeds, when measured against those of his erstwhile co-workers, really necessitate his departure. After all, this is the scale against which he will ultimately be judged and it seems somewhat disingenuous to pretend otherwise.

Perhaps the most (in)famous resignations of the Blair epoch came courtesy of Peter Mandelson and David Blunkett, each of whom stood down twice from their cushy Cabinet jobs following catastrophic errors of judgement. Of these, Mandelson’s first demise is perhaps the most relevant as it involved a financial transaction which should have been conducted openly but wasn’t; however, Mandy’s ‘mistake’ was probably more heinous than Hain’s as it involved a far larger sum of money, some £373,000, and it also presented an unavoidable conflict of interests as the cash came from a man who was under investigation by the minister’s department at the time, then-Paymaster General Geoffrey Robinson. Blunkett’s initial disappearing act, meanwhile, may yet prove to be a useful analogy as he clung in vain to his post until the relevant inquiry returned something akin to a ‘Guilty’ verdict against him. Lastly, Beverley Hughes’s April 2004 resignation can also be perceived as germane, involving, as it did, incompetence as opposed to intentional sleaze or malfeasance.

Perhaps it’s a slightly tenuous idea, but it may turn out that the most appropriate comparison comes in the form of Charles Clarke, one-time Home Secretary, who offered Blair his resignation in April 2006 following a series of PR disasters, most of which involved the Home Office’s unfortunate habit of releasing of foreign prisoners from jail without first considering them for deportation. The PM rejected Clarke’s altruistic gesture and insisted that the minister retain his job, only to sack him a few weeks later when political pragmatism demanded it. If Brown’s continued streak of bad luck doesn’t disappear soon, then, I for one would be less than surprised to see Hain tossed to the wolves in the near future even if the aforementioned investigations ostensibly clear his name, should it suit the PM’s ends.

As the Clarke correlation suggests, we need to bear in mind the timing of these revelations, which could hardly have been worse from a Brownite perspective. Does anyone remember a little farrago known as ‘cash-for-honours’? How about the Prime Minister’s reaction thereto, back when he was only PM-elect, involving a series of promises which put reform of the campaign finance system, not to mention increased transparency in this regard, front-and-centre? One can well imagine that the surly Scot must have been little less than livid to have another funding-related scandal with which to deal before 2008 was even a month old, and the extent to which his anger continues unabated will also have a decisive impact upon Hain’s ongoing frontbench presence.

Although only tangentially-relevant to Hain’s predicament, it’s worth briefly pointing out another leitmotif of the New Labour era: the use of attention-diverting tactics at times like these, designed to ensnare their political rivals in the fracas and thereby dilute the amount of public interest directed towards Millbank. Predictably enough, this occasion was to be no different, and finance-related allegations were immediately levelled at Shadow Chancellor George Osborne. The accusations were superficially-similar to those faced by Hain, in that they pertained to undeclared campaign contributions, but a crucial differentiating factor separated the two cases in that Osborne had told the Electoral Commission about his donations while Hain, of course, had not. New Labour, therefore, sought to make an issue out of Osborne’s misdemeanour – failing to register his bequeathments in the Register of Members’ Interests – and dishonestly implied that it was analogous to Hain’s, which it blatantly wasn’t.

The Government soon sought to expand the scope of its own complaints, having failed in the attempt to divert the nation’s attention towards Osborne. Accordingly, two Brownite MPs, John Mann and Kevan Jones, contacted the Electoral Commission in order to request that no fewer than 80 Tories be investigated for alleged fiscal wrongdoing. Desperate times, it seems, do indeed call for desperate measures.

Before I wrap this up, it’s worth taking a paragraph or two to consider the law which was contravened by Hain and/or his staff – the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000 – and examine prior treatment thereof.

Despite the highfalutin rhetoric which accompanied the creation of the Act, New Labour have repeatedly shown their distain for its principles of transparency and openness, thereby proving that it is not worth the paper on which it was printed. Since it came into force in 2000, its creators have perpetuated a series of grotesque breaches against it and, in that sense, Hain’s neglectful approach towards complying with the statute is little more than the continuation of a long-established pattern.

The first indicator that Blair and Co. had no intention of taking the Act seriously came in December 2000, mere weeks before it came into force, when they banked a £2m cheque from a mystery backer and refused to divulge the donor’s identity even in the face of widespread public outcry. (The man was later revealed to be Lord Paul Hamlyn, a millionaire publisher and long-term Labour supporter, who admitted his involvement in the face of the government’s refusal to do so.) Further clues as to the statute’s toothless nature came in May 2002, when another undisclosed loan (this time from Richard ‘Dirty Des’ Desmond, of Asian Babes and Horny Housewives fame) came to light, and February 2003, when Party officials were reprimanded by the Electoral Commission for failing to declare thousands of pounds in donations in time for their inclusion in the body’s impending accounts report.

Needless to say, there are other examples available, but the point has already been made: as far as New Labour were concerned, the Act in question was every bit as irrelevant and disposable as the rest of their empty promises.

Lastly, what of those aforementioned broad consequences for New Labour as a whole? For a start, Hain is not alone in facing the wrath of the authorities for financial irregularities and the outcome of his case will surely have a bearing upon those of his colleagues, for better or for worse. Harriet Harman, who beat Hain to the coveted role of Deputy Leader last June, is also under investigation by the Electoral Commission for accepting £5,000 from businessman David Abrahams; to be more precise, the fact that the endowment was made via a proxy donor seems to be a contravention of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act, either in spirit or in more tangible terms, and it is this issue – christened ‘Donorgate’ by the nation’s press – which is now under consideration before the Powers-That-Be. Meanwhile, Wendy Alexander, MSP for Paisley North and Labour Leader in Scotland, is in the dock for accepting £950 from a Jersey-based businessman who did not qualify as a "permissible donor" under the terms of the Act.

The issues facing Gordon Brown himself, however, are wider still. In a scathing article for The Times on January 22, Anatole Kaletsky said:

“The Prime Minister, like John Major before him, remains in office, but he is no longer in power.”

Kaletsky was writing specifically about the ongoing Northern Rock fiasco, but there can be little or no doubt that his words have a broader applicability when it comes to the issue of Brown’s tenuous control of 10 Downing Street. We’ve already seen how the PM’s recent dithering over the will-he-won’t-he general election damaged his reputation, and – especially when problems such as Northern Rock’s downfall and the (alleged) plagiarism of the Tories’ economic plans are taken into consideration – it becomes apparent that Hain’s misdeeds could hardly have been more ill-timed. It is now a distinct possibility that Brown is little more than a lame duck leader, fatally-compromised but under no obligation to put himself out of his misery by calling an election, and if this is indeed the case then we must surely consider the prospect that his days as leader are numbered.

In conclusion, then? It’s immensely difficult to proffer a definitive opinion one way or another, taking into account the habitual breaching of the PPERA undertaken by New Labour since its inception and the non-existent nature of the doctrine of ministerial responsibility in 2008, but on balance it seems evident to me that Hain ought to go. Even if Brown is right, meaning that his cohort is guilty of nothing more than incompetence, said ineptitude is in itself a clear sign that Hain is not fit to hold a ministerial portfolio at present (never mind two). If the PM is wrong, meanwhile, and the non-declaration was part of a deliberate deception on Hain’s part, the case for his dismissal is even more clear-cut.

Either way, Hain ought to do the decent thing and step down.

UPDATE: On January 24, Peter Hain became the first high-profile casualty of the Brown era when he resigned from his two Cabinet positions. This decision was prompted by the Electoral Commission’s announcement that it would be referring its findings to the Metropolitan Police for further examination, effectively implying that they had been unable to clear Hain’s name and even hinting that legal action against the (now-former) minister is a distinct possibility.

The Shadow Home Secretary, David Davis, immediately pointed out that the Commission’s decision suggests a degree of guilt on Hain’s part – or, to be more precise, that the body felt there was “a substantive case to answer”, to deploy Davis’s own diplomatic parlance – and it seemed evident that even Hain could see no other way out of this new predicament. Accordingly, he handed a letter of resignation to Gordon Brown within minutes of the Commission’s declaration.

It wasn’t long before allegations of procrastination and indecision were levelled at the beleaguered Prime Minister, the Tories being keen to turn the nation’s focus back upon New Labour as a whole. Only time will tell whether Brown can recover from this ongoing run of bad luck and atrocious judgement, but one suspects that even he, a hardened political realist above all else, can’t be overly-optimistic as things currently stand.

 

PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BY SID FRISBY. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. REPRODUCED WITH PERMISSION.