Gotcha! MP Peter Hain Resigns

In a massive blow to the credibility of the Labour Party it has been announced that Works and Pensions Secretary (and part time Welsh Secretary) Peter Hain has resigned from the Labour cabinet with immediate affect.  It seems that the referral of his funding case by the Independent Electoral Committee to the Metropolitan Police was the final straw.  So what now?

However the government wrap this resignation up, spin it or otherwise try to play down Mr Hain’s departure, it is a massive blow for Gordon Brown both personally and on a government level.  It was only yesterday that Mr Brown confirmed that Peter Hain had his full backing and support in his high level role with the government.  Then, less than 24 hours later he is hit with the bombshell news that Hain is on his way out!

This is the third time the Labour Party has been investigated by the Police within the last two years, a record that no other political party has come anywhere near to.  Gordon Brown’s cry of a more transparent and public led government approach has been blown out of the water and he is definitely holed below the water line.  His decision to call off a much rumoured election last year has turned out to be his worst move yet, turning the whole voting public against his style of premiership. 

Under the cover of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown was able to exclude an air of confidence which saw him instated as the Prime Minister with no competition.   Now when he is forced into making difficult decisions himself and unable to hide behind anyone else he has been left wanting in a big way.  While he may still have a couple of years before he needs to call an election, Mr Brown has lost the confidence of the vast majority of the electorate and he is falling further and further into the so called “political sleaze pit” which he has accused the Tory Party of for so many years. 

How he must wish for those calm days in the fiefdom which was his own Treasury Department!