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Denis MacShane is MP for Rotherham and was a minister at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. In the latest edition of the New Statesman he writes:
The Peter Hain affair is in its own way as serious as the Damian Green business.
Hain is no push-over and like any top-rank politician has his faults. But no-one had ever doubted his probity, his integrity, his work-rate and his core decent intelligence. The idea that his ministerial career should come to an end by fiat of some anonymous public official in one of the most useless quangos set up by any government is a travesty of democratic politics.
The Electoral Commission has destroyed Peter Hain's government career on the basis of allegations against Peter that cannot and never could have stood up in court.
Peter Hain will not be the last minister who is forced to step down as a result of a flawed Electoral Commission investigation. Peter has had long and distinguished service as one of the most hard-working, diligent, and honest ministers in the Labour government since 1997.
For the Electoral Commission to have the power to destroy Peter's career raises questions about its purpose and functioning. I amuse myself by asking MPs of all parties, local councillors, party workers and political journalists if any can name a single thing the Electoral Commission has done since it was set up. They look at me in blank indifference as the public confidence in democratic politics has gone down in exact ratio to the amount of money the Electoral Commission has been given. Now the Electoral Commission will be known for having ended Peter Hain’s ministerial career. Something the quangorats can be proud of.
To read the full version click on the link below.
www.newstatesman.com
Peter Hain, 5 December
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Shadow Health Secretary Andrew Lansley, writing on the Conservatives' own Blue Blog, stated that "recessions can be good for us". He added: "On many counts, recession can be good for us. People tend to smoke less, drink less alcohol, eat less rich food and spend more time at home with their families."
Peter Hain, November 2008
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The Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price tried to derail an important conference in Neath on 14 November 2008 with a series of specious smears and fabricated falsities. They were greeted with the contempt they deserved as the conference went ahead regardless.
Printed in the Western Mail, it quickly spread into the vicious right wing, anti-Labour, website order-order.com run by a reactionary character who used to sport 'Hang Nelson Mandela badges' when he was a Conservative student.
One of website's nastiest smears in the middle of all this was that 'Hain had a conviction'. True, though not what he implied. It was for sitting down peacefully on a tennis court in an anti-apartheid protest against an all-white South African team in Bristol on 17 July 1969.
For the record, the Conference was called to discuss the common experiences of Wales and the German region of North Rhine Westphalia.
All costs for the conference were born by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES), a German Think Tank linked to the German socialist party the SPD which has funded similar conferences and events in Britain and around the world for decades.
Adam Price made all sorts of malicious allegations of rule breaking which need answering.
The conference was not a Labour Party event, indeed it was not authorised or organised by any section of the Party, from Neath CLP upwards. Nowhere in the literature was anybody invited to support Labour or vote for Labour, merely to discuss common lessons from North Rhine Westphalia and Wales for the left and our respective socialist movements. No funds from the event went to the Labour Party in any form. Nor was there a Labour logo on the literature.
All parliamentary rules were complied with and no public funds were involved. The FES is not a foreign donor to the Labour Party because there was no donation to the Party, cash or non-cash.
The Conference made no stipulation as to party membership affiliation for delegates and he could have come if he had liked.
The FES funded in exactly the same way a conference in Neath organised in exactly the same way and for which Adam Price co-wrote the main document in September 1992. All the platform speakers there were Labour MPs, members or supporters, and he spoke from the floor as maybe the only Plaid person there.
By the way, Price loves slinging mud, but he knows all about rule breaking. He was one of the three Plaid MPs found guilty of wrongfully using taxpayers money from Parliament to advertise his Party during the 2007 Assembly election campaign in areas where Plaid made gains.
When will he stop such nasty, gutter tactics that only play into the hands of extreme right wingers in the blogosphere and elsewhere, and realise that all of politics is degraded by such malicious and ill-founded attacks?
Peter Hain 10 November
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What a fantastic win for Labour in the Glenrothes by-election showing people believe that Gordon Brown as the right man to lead us through these global economic troubles.
The honeymoon period with Scottish Nationalists is truly over. Even using the Obama catchphrase "Yes We Can" could not help them.
It was a resounding victory for Labour winning over 50% of the vote with David Cameron's Tories firmly beaten into 3rd place.
Peter Hain 7th November
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Barack Obama's momentous win has lifted the spirits of the entire world. There has been nothing like it since Nelson Mandela came from prison to win the South African Presidency.
Obama will deliver much needed hope and change, inspiring as he has generations of young and old, black and white, who had given up on
politics, that his new politics really can make a difference again to build a better world.
His is the new face of all that was always, and still is, best in America, living proof that the US has thankfully escaped from the ugly grip of red-neck right wingers.
Peter Hain 5th November
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Congratulations to Noir James for his marvellous victory in the Ystalyfera by-election. It's the first time Labour have won a seat from Plaid Cymru in Ystalyfera in a long time and it is down to the hard work of Noir, Jackie Myers and the rest of the party in Ystalyfera. Well done
everyone.
Voters clearly believe that part time County Councillor Alun Llewelyn who is one of the worst attenders at County Council meetings, is not representing their interests. They want a full timer like Noir.
Peter Hain October 2008
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Neat is it not? George Osborne is part of a Tory attempt to channel a
foreign donation from a Russian billionaire to his Party and the
Electoral Commission immediately dismisses a request to investigate
evidence of a clear breach of the law they are in charge of. Peter
Hain goes straight to the Commission and tells them immediately he finds
those he trusted to run his Labour Party Deputy Leader campaign had
failed to register legal British donations within the required 30 days
and the Commission refer him to the police. One law for a Tory another
for Labour? No wonder many of us are so cynical.
Karen Price
Guardian, 24 October
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The silly season story in August that I was to stand for the Assembly in a by-election in Neath was pure fabrication. Neither I nor Labour MEP Eluned Morgan who was also reported as being 'parachuted' in after a mythical by-election ever had any intention of doing this. I was on holiday at the time and was astonished to hear about it later. Sadly it comes as no surprise that Plaid representatives choose to repeat something everyone knew was preposterous.
I will happily take on Plaid and allcomers at the next general election where I plan to stand again on a record of nearly twenty years of proud service as a Neath's MP, helping tens of thousands of constituents and fighting for Neath and our Valley towns and villages.
Peter Hain
Neath Guardian, 2nd October
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