Harman compromised in the Mail

Harriet Harman is rather upset about her treatment in this morning's Mail.

The paper reports that the leader of the House feels so unsafe to walk her consituency that she has to wear a flak jacket.

It describes that

Despite being surrounded by a phalanx of police officers, Harriet Harman chose to wear a kevlar-reinforced jacket, proof against guns and knives.
The occasion - a death-defying tour of her own constituency.

But talkiing on the Today programme this morning,Harriet claims a set up saying that the police told her to put the jacket on

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.

The swingometers of the media

The Press commentators are looking at our new Pm's relations with the media.

Stephen Glover in the Indy tells us that

The two most important newspapers for Gordon Brown are
The Sun and the Daily Mail. They are by a wide margin the two highest-selling
daily titles, together accounting for nearly five-and-a-half million buyers, or
almost 15 million readers."

These are according to Stephen the swing papers and rather like a marginal constituency it is the readers of these that decide on the colour of the government.

And maybe this will work in Gordon's favour.

"Privately and publicly, Mr Murdoch has said some
pretty withering things about David Cameron. By contrast, he seems to get on
well personally with Gordon Brown and to respect him."

And

The Mail admires Mr Brown far more than it ever did his
predecessor. Its leader last Thursday praised his stewardship of the economy,
and was generally friendly. The paper is not inclined to blame Mr Brown by
association for the sins and omissions of Mr Blair. It is no secret that its
editor, Paul Dacre, admires the moral substance and seriousness of our new Prime
Minister as much as he deprecated what he saw as the triviality and moral
vacuity of Mr Blair. Nor does young David Cameron appear yet to be his favourite
pin-up boy.

Meanwhile in the Guardian,Peter Wilby looks at the "macho response to Harman's victory"

"The macho culture of newspapers dies hard, therefore.
Last week, it was on full display with Harriet Harman's election as Labour's
deputy leader. Unlike Tony Blair's departure and Gordon Brown's accession,
this
was genuine news and it was unexpected. Yet the Times preferred a
picture of
Brown with his wife Sarah for the front page. The Mirror printed
news of
"Harriet's shock win" beneath a giant Gordon-Sarah picture. Most
papers didn't
offer any analysis of the voting figures or explanation of how
Harman had won.
Most reported that Brown had immediately "snubbed" and
"sidelined" her by
denying her the deputy premiership."

So if we do get a snap election in the autumn,some interesting times in the Press