Peter Hain: So That's Alright Then

Unpopular though Mr Hain is with his loyal constituents, including one of my sisters-in-law in South Wales, with the fenians and orangemen alike in "the province", and with Tories who don't like the jaunty cut of his jib, he could easily have found himself even more unpopular with the paid officer classes in the Labour Party.

Guido leaked a list purportedly of Hain's supporters including a number who are expected to be neutral, and Dale's friends had Hain defending his possible use of (apparently inept) SpAds in his campaign, in answering a dark parliamentary question.

But thankfully at Labour's NEC on Tuesday Peter was able to assert that none of the paid officials on the leaked list were in fact in league with him in any way whatsoever.

So that's alright then. All sorted in 30 seconds. I'll drink to that! Obviously none of those paid officials would do such a thing. Or take sides in any internal party matter. Ever. Quite so.

UPDATE: At Withington selection pre-hustings gathering today I am assured that members of staff have been getting very humble apologies from the tanned one. He was very amusing at regional Conference last year with the eyebrow work of Whippy Woolas as Hain went from off-message to off-message, in a good kinda way, remarkable to behold.