He’s incompetent. So sack him

It must come as something of a relief to Peter Mandelson that when Labour sources now refer to ‘the Peter Problem’ they mean Peter Hain, the beleaguered Work and Pensions Secretary. Mr Mandelson’s conduct came to be seen by many as an emblem of all that was wrong with the Blair era. The Hain saga, in contrast, symbolises what is wrong with the Brown era (assuming it lasts long enough to be called an ‘era’).

Mr Hain’s failure to register £103,000 of donations to his disastrous deputy leadership campaign last year chimes with the impression of shambolic mismanagement that now clings to this government, from its handling of the Northern Rock debacle to the loss of 25 million benefit claimant records. Indeed, the Prime Minister himself spoke of Mr Hain’s ‘incompetence’ in an interview with ITN on Tuesday.

The Pensions Secretary’s nonchalance about the registration of these sums — compounded by his arrogant and evasive manner in the past two weeks — captures a much deeper problem afflicting Labour, after a decade in power: its disconnection from public feeling and its indifference to the very rules it created to enhance trust in public life.