What Brown needs to do now

I wonder whose turn it will be today to ask the planted PMQs question so Brown can apologise to Labour, rather than the Tories, as he did last week over disc-gate. That was Hoon’s brainwave, but any brownie points he earned will have been destroyed by his disastrous Newsnight interview  where he exculpated Jon Mendelson, whom Brown personally appointed as Labour’s chief general election fundraiser. It is Mendelson who is now at the centre of the storm over his knowledge of these donations.

Brown needs to stand up today and announce that Mendelson has gone. But here’s what puzzles me. Did he demand absolute candour from Mendelson? As chancellor, Brown kept a distance from fundraising knowing it to be a dirty business. As Labour party leader, his main job would be paying a stream of creditors. It seems remarkable that this financial pedant didn’t want to know how his own party was dealing with this issue.