Labour sleaze

Edward Gibbon would recognise it: the air of decadence, the smell of death which hangs over the New Labour empire this week. The impotence of Emperor Blair is a pitiful sight. His protestations of the innocence of Senator Blunkett — which once would have swung the public behind him and turned the condemnation upon Blunkett’s accusers — now inspire contempt. Another who would recognise the position of the government this week is John Major. Several times in the dying months of his government he found himself similarly overwhelmed by charges of sleaze; he would defend his minister to the death, then the minister would be forced to resign anyway. The inevitable question then was: and how long before you, too, fall on your sword?

No doubt the Prime Minister will view the resignation of the Work and Pensions Secretary as a minor matter. Under New Labour the disgrace of resignation from public office, for which John Profumo had to atone with a lifetime of charitable works, has been reduced to a few months in a sin-bin from which, like a basketball player caught treading on an opponent’s toes, a minister can soon return to the action.