Bob Piper has been a Labour Councillor for the Abbey
Ward in Sandwell, West Midlands, for nine years. He is a lifelong supporter of Aston Villa Football Club and a follower of Yorkshire County Cricket Club.
The views expressed here are mine in a personal capacity, not those of the Labour Party, Sandwell MBC, Aston Villa or Yorkshire County Cricket Club. Get it! Mine... just mine!
One frontbencher skulked behind a third party and failed to register donations running into six figures while the other frontbencher skulked behind a third party and failed to register donations running into six figures.
For Peter Hain and the Progressive Policies Forum read George Osborne and the Tory Party, for a diamond dealer read a city tycoon and for 103,000 pounds read 487,000 pounds.
Voters will spot the striking similarities between the slippery Work and Pensions Secretary and the slippery Shadow Chancellor before concluding another couple of politicians have been up to know good.
David Cameron tried hard yet unconvincingly at another of his press conferences to distinguish between George Hain and Peter Osborne.
I believe Hain's in deeper water but it's a pond muddied by Osborne and will become murkier still if one or more of his Tory colleagues admit they too failed to register financial support. From The Times today...
David Cameron admitted today that several more of his most senior front bench spokesmen may have been supported by donations that were not declared to the Commons authorities for more than a year and half.
The Tory leader told a news conference that other members of his Shadow Cabinet had used the same method to support their work as George Osborne, who has been criticised since it emerged yesterday that he had failed to register 500,000 pounds given by party donors to support his work as Shadow Chancellor. No doubt the Tory boy bloggers will be working overtime complaining of New Labour spin, but as someone who placed Peter Hain in the deputy Leadership contest in exactly the same position as he finished (for many of us Hazel Blears' candidacy ensured Hain wouldn't finish last) then frankly, whether he stays or goes is of little consequence to me. But if wee Gideon Osborne could take a kicking for hiding funds, it would be all the sweeter.
