Peter Hain was forced to resign from his double post of Work and Pensions and Wales Secretaries after failing to declare financial donations from his failed campaign for the deputy leadership of the Labour party.
The police are will soon be looking into claims that he failed to declare around £100,000 in donations. Hain decided to wait until the investigation was started before he jumped ship. This is yet another scandal that had been brewing for weeks. If he had stayed, then the allegations would have dogged him for weeks up to a point that Prime Minister Gordon Brown would have no alternative but to sack him.
It’s not just Hain who is in a spot of bother over donations. Several high-ranking Labour ministers have been caught repeatedly breaking their own rules. There is a desperate need to reform the way that political parties are funded, but there is a question over where to start. Negotiations over a simple policy have often collapsed with all the parties blaming each other. Surely something must be done to stop the rot before it gets terminal.
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