Hain Who?

Where does someone start writing a blog? This is my first blog so the honest answer is I don't know. But I guess I should start with a bit of colour - how does orange suit you?

If you do not recognise Mr Permatan above, then I suggest you switch blogs, I doubt you'll find this one interesting enough - I hear there's an endless supply of blogs regarding the Rhydian vote controversy for you to pore over.

Yes, this is Peter Hain, the (unless already sacked/resigned) Secretary of State for Wales and chief of the Department of Works and Pensions. Not only does this guy run a whole country (or at least, thinks he runs a whole country) he also has control of the biggest budget around. Big job. Big responsibility - but not enough for Mr Permatan. He wanted a bigger job, he wanted to be Gordie Brown's second in command. Unfortunately for him, to get that job he had to have people vote for him. Needless to say, he didn't get it. In fact he came 5th, out of 6!

That should have been the end of this story. Mr Orange lives happily ever after, his burning ambition for power being fulfilled by cabinet roles of ever increasing responsibility. Unluckily for Hain, his Labour friends got stuck in some sticky waters regarding illegal donations.

Hain was a side story in the whole pre-Christmas fracas - his minor failure to register a £5,000 donation hardly registering when compared to Wendy Alexander and Harriet Harman. By now though, it seems that what Hain explains as administrative errors amounts to a bit more than £5,000 - the full sum was actually £103,156.75.

Seeing as how the amount he HAD legally registered was about £80,000, the extra £100k is a pretty big omission! What's more, two of the guys who were listed as donating to Hain didn't actually know they'd donated! They'd given their cash to some think tank (one that no-one knows about and mysteriously appeared just in time for Hain's campaign!) and had no idea it eventually went to Hain.

So, what the hell is going on?