Reshuffle blues

Some quick points on the events of yesterday from a Welsh perspective:

Peter Hain is back. Who would have thought it? And once more we are being told that he was exonorated, that the Electoral Commission was wrong to report him to the police etc etc.

Let us not forget that it was Peter Hain who failed to declare over £100,000 of campaign donations, has admitted that he was not in control of his own campaign and was forced to apologise to the Commons for the oversight. Let us also acknowledge that it was legislation that Peter Hain supported that left the Electoral Commission with no choice but to refer him to the police. Their judgement was that it was impossible to identify any one person who might be responsible for the offences concerned. Hardly a clear cut verdict on the whole affair.

By all means the new Secretary of State should put the episode behind him and get on with his job, but please, he should not pretend to be blameless of the events that led to him leaving the cabinet the first time. There has been too much rewriting of history already for us to countenance yet more.

Meanwhile, we have another Kinnock in the House of Lords and she is Europe Minister. She replaces Caroline Flint who accused the Prime Minister of using her as window dressing. I was quite bemused by a twitter I saw yesterday, that I can no longer find and thus cannot credit the author, which asked how many Kinnocks need to go to the House of Lords before Dafydd Wigley gets his chance? Quite a few it seems. (Note to self: find out how many Kinnocks there actually are)

And then just when we thought they could not surprise us anymore Huw Lewis pops up and begs Rhodri Morgan to stay on as First Minister. Will these Labour people please make up their mind!

Related posts:

1. Welsh Liberal Democrat reshuffle
2. Reshuffle
3. The cracks in our democracy are growing