Looks like when I said Peter Hain had four problems at the moment, I should have said five.
His website – www.peterhain.org – says at the bottom, “This website is funded by the Communications Allowance”. Now that’s ok in itself – MPs are allowed to use the funds they receive to communicate online. However, what they’re not allowed to do is to use the money for party politics.
So it’s a bit of a problem, that the site says “please use this site to join the debate about Labour’s future.” (Click thumbnail to see screenshot higlightining the relevant text from the site’s frontpage).
That’d be party politics methinks. Oops.
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10 Comments
Does anyone care about this sort of pettifogging transgression? I mean, well done for spotting it, but really, in a world ravaged by genocide, war, famine and death, does one link on a website really matter?
Have to admit Mark I’m with David on that one, it’s half a line on the site—the comms allowance has a lot of gray areas around it (and I really need to read up on the regs properly sometime soon) but any MP who completely removes all mention of party from their site is a little weird IMHO.
The other stuff, yes, agree, but this is something I reckon most MPs would do without worrying about.
I too find this story a little petty – the political use of taxpayers’ money angle is certainly very weak.
With that said, I’m intrigued that the wording on the site has been changed already (someone’s clearly been paying attention) and that not only have they removed the reference to Labour but also the line “I have tried to make it possible for you to add your own views.” The latter is amusing because as an exercise in extolling the virtues of Web 2.0, this ain’t it. If this is Hain “trying” it does rather suggest a lack of a “can do” attitude! 🙂
I’d be most interested to discover how much of his Communications Allowance has been spent on it. For a website that preaches about “dialogue” it doesn’t seem to do very much. I have a horrible feeling that the relatively new Communications Allowance is making a few web designers very rich by rolling out unimaginative websites like this at the inflated expense of the taxpayer.
I’ve personally never really understood why MPs think this is a better way of communicating with their constituents compared to freely available software such as blogger and wordpress.
Mat: the rules do allow you to mention your party (so there’s no suggestion that you have to remove all mention of your party) but this is something rather different than that. And yes, it’s perhaps not quite in the league of the £100,000+ donation problem, but it does all add up to a picture that isn’t that complementary…
Yeah we DO care – why? Because the rest of the nation has been hit my a blizzard of legislation courtesy of ZaNu Labour PF, with some 3000 new crime son the statute books, and with ever-increasing power to intrude into our private lives. OBEY THE LAW is the prime message of ZaNu. Unless, that is, you are one of us.
Regardless of the above, had Harman, Woozy Alexander or Hain a shred of personal honour, they would have resigned. But they have worked so hard for their pensions.
Hold on – it’s US who are paying their pensions. Whilst losing ours.
Bring back the 60s
[Note: language moderated; please keep postings polite. Thanks :-)]
As we’re on the subject of pettiness, I’m sure Mark meant complimentary. I saw the opposite mistake yesterday in a blog comment where someone wrote “full compliment”.
Petty I know, but these aren’t typographic errors. And we have the gall to criticise today’s students.
Okay, what I said, somewhat bowdlerised, was
“Up against the wall, Oedipals”
OK ? 🙂
Just another point on this. I’ve just looked at the Hain web-site. Is it appropriate for him to use the communications allowance to advertise his books?
It’s a small point I know but I am sick to death of seeing politicians use every trick they can to gain the maximum personal benefit from the taxpayers money.
It’s about time they stopped extracting the urine!
He’s finished. Grayling’s got his teeth into him and when that happens he tends not to let go until there’s blood. Either Hain will be sacked now, if further problems emerge for him, or he will be quietly demoted to Europe minister (a job he’s had before), or equivalent level of Minister of State. I’m afraid his cabinet career will be over soon enough. Brown’s next reshuffle (summer 08) will remove some bodies he never really wanted in there in the first place (Hain, Woodward (unfortunately). I don’t think he’ll be able to get rid of Hutton, who might get vindictive. Best to keep him on board. With two ministers out of the cabinet he can bring in one or two of Yvette Cooper, Liam Byrne, Caroline Flint, or Dawn Primarolo.
I will be glad when hain loses his seat in neath, he talkes a good story but he don’t deliver the sooner he goes the better for neath .