Incompetence,incredible,unbelievable

Once again the papers make grim reading for Gordon Brown this morning,with words sucha s scandal,crisis,sleaze all dominant.

In for particular critisism is deputy leader Harriet Harman who according to the Times

was under growing pressure in the sleaze row engulfing Labour last night as she was forced to pay back £5,000 given to her by a property developer who has secretly bankrolled her party to the tune of £600,000.

and

was in further difficulties after she refused repeatedly to say if she had in fact solicited the money from the intermediary, Janet Kidd, rather than having had it offered to her. The Times has learnt from other donors to Ms Harman’s campaign that her team actively sought funding from them because they were on a list of people giving to Labour.

The front page of the Mail asks

HOW MUCH WORSE IT WILL GET citing

• Prime Minister admits donations broke the law
• He orders £600,000 to be repaid to secret donor
• His No.2 Harriet Harman is left clinging to her job

And the paper's opinion columns are not generous

Tainted cash says the Sun

Harman was apparently so desperate for cash to pay off her campaign debts that she threw caution to the wind.
The funding fiasco is going to cost cash-strapped Labour £650,000 in repaid donations.
It may yet cost Harriet Harman her job.

So much for Labour's pledge of honesty says the Mail

Isn't it hard to avoid the conclusion that Labour is corrupt to the core?

A control freak leader is beginning to look as if he's not in charge says the Times

Does the Labour Party take us all for fools? asks the Telegraph

incredibly, this was happening at the very time the Metropolitan Police were crawling all over the Labour Party, pursuing their ultimately fruitless investigation into the cash for honours scandal.

The Guardian asks

What bit of doing things by the rules does the Labour party not understand? Party funding has not exactly been out of the political news these last few years. Every elected politician and every party official knows that the subject has become super-sensitive. Parliament tightened up the law very significantly in 2000. Part IV of that new law set out detailed rules about who can make donations to political parties and how parties must deal with them. These include a ban, in section 54 of the 2000 Act, on the concealment of a donor's identity, and a requirement, in section 56, for parties to take all reasonable steps to check out their donors. Lest there should be any doubt, the Electoral Commission has issued regular advice and guidance to the parties on the subject.

A similar theme in the Independent

Is it not extraordinary that, after Mr Blair got into so much trouble, a senior Labour official appears to have tolerated other ways in which a donor could retain his anonymity? Not surprisingly, the resignation of the party's general secretary has prompted questions about whether others also knew what was happening

Only the Mirror stands up for Gord

We have just one message for Gordon Brown - stay strong.

A wave of unrelated, if cumulatively damaging events beyond the Prime Minister's control, are testing his mettle.
But we should never forget the dreadful Labour funding row is not his fault - in fact, he rejected a donation to his leadership campaign fund.