As MPs prepare to suspend the disgraced Tory MP Derek Conway from the Commons for 10 days, friends of the former Cabinet minister Peter Hain seem to be deserting him - even though he has paid a heavy price for his late declaration of £103,000 to his Labour deputy leadership campaign.
Richard Wilson, the actor who played Victor Meldrew in TV's One Foot in the Grave, is decidedly grumpy with Hain, whose campaign he endorsed by speaking at its launch and appearing in a video chat with the candidate. "I do feel let down," Wilson told the BBC's The Daily Politics programme. "I do find it quite difficult to believe that Peter Hain did not know about £100,000." He is so disenchanted that he might stop giving money to Labour.
There's a lively debate at Westminster as well as in our Open House forum about whether the Conway affair will damage the Tories more than the Hain crisis will harm Labour. The relief among Labour MPs and ministers that "Tory sleaze" is back in the headlines is palpable.
My hunch is that the man in the Dog & Duck will be more angry about an MP who paid his son from the public purse to do nothing than an ambitious minister who raised money to further his career through a shadowy think tank. For one thing, Conway's offence is much easier to understand than the Hain campaign's murky finances. But the public's overall response will probably be to think that all politicians are on the make (which is untrue), and that all parties are as bad as each other. There's nothing for Labour MPs to celebrate after two bad weeks for politics.
Oh Dear !
I'd hoped that with all the emerging evidence of large scale Labour graft and dishonesty, the Tories would finally unstick those sticky-fingered Blairites ... though I guess that the scale of Mr Conway's arrogant plundering of the public purse has but an end to such a prospect.
Sad !
Posted by: Sean Shalor | Thursday, 31 January 2008 at 02:24 PM
Is not ...
"all politicians are on the make (which is untrue)"
a good example of an oxymoron?
Posted by: Ian McCulloch | Thursday, 31 January 2008 at 02:31 PM
If Conway had done this anywhere else but in the House of Commons, would he not be facing immediate sacking and possible criminal proceedings? It's outrageous he gets away with 10 days in the sin bin while Hain's career is ruined for what was really an oversight (albeit an incredibly clumsy one). Hain declared his problem, Conway didn't.
Posted by: Hob | Thursday, 31 January 2008 at 03:24 PM