Hain to the rescue

Welsh Questions today, and the return of Peter Hain to the dispatch box as Secretary of State.

Nothing had changed; he was his old, combative self, abrasive almost to the point of rudeness.  Almost every answer contained a swipe at the Tories, with dire warnings of the “spending cuts” that will ensue if the wicked Tories are elected to power – a theme developed later by Gordon Brown at PMQs.  Clearly, this is the new, last-throw-of-the-dice, Labour strategy of despair.

The Daily Post carried an interesting interview with Hain a few days ago. In it, he was remarkably frank about the dog’s breakfast Labour have made of running the country:

“We haven’t been governing well for too long. The Gurkhas issue was symptomatic of that.

“I’m not going to blame an individual for that; it was the government as a whole.”

Awfully good of Peter not to point a finger at any particular colleague, but to say, rather, that all of them are incompetent.  But why stop at the Gurkhas?  There are raftloads of ways in which Labour have fouled up.  Readers may, for a bit of fun, care to suggest a few.

Anyway, Peter has decided things can’t go on this way; magnanimously and self-sacrificingly, he has decided to intervene and shake the whole dozy shower up:

“It was clearly a big mistake and we can’t afford to repeat it. That’s why I have come back to government.”

Well done, Peter; it’s so good to see a man putting country before self.  And I’ve no doubt that the country is duly, sincerely grateful.