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30 November 2007

Can it get any worse?

As Harriet Harman drags Gordon Brown deeper into the donor crisis I still wonder of the government h

By Martin Bright

So David Abrahams has met Gordon Brown as many times as he has had porridge in the morning. I have to say I have never met Mr Abrahams, but those who have met him find him difficult to forget, so why is Brown’s memory so poor. It was said of his great political heroine Margaret Thatcher that she had a brilliant recall of names and it is an extremely useful quality in a politician.

I wrote last week of the hypocrisy of a government which mercilessly pursues civil servants accused of leaking confidential documents, while taking a casual attitude to the personal information of the British public. My partner this week received confirmation that her details had indeed been lost on the two child benefit discs sent through the post, so yes this has become personal! I can only assume Sarah Brown also received her letter and I hope she had sharp words with her husband as a result.

Now the hypocrisy runs deeper as we find the extraordinary lengths the Labour Party went to in order to hide the true provenance of David Abrahams’s donation.

In terms of the loss of trust in the political class I really don’t think it could get any worse. But then I thought that last week too.

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