Jan 10 2008
Peter Hain and those donations
Originally when it was disclosed that Peter Hain had failed to declare a donation to his deputy leadership campaign, in common with most people I thought that here is a human error ( we all make them) and I thought he would move swiftly to put matters right.
That has not happened and today’s Guardian on its front page declares that he has failed to disclose £100,000 of donations.This is scarcely credible–why has he failed to do so? This goes beyond human oversight and the long and continuing delay to make a clean breast of it seems curious in the extreme.
It is true that this is a large campaign sum (the largest by far and at around £200,000 dwarfing the £4,000 of Hilary Benn), but as my colleague Cheryl Gillan has said this is scarcely rocket science and the longer the continuing delay the more there will be speculation as to why.
The rules were put there for a purpose and Peter owes it to us all to obey those rules and disclose the full true picture now
