New Labour sleaze: Harriet Harman.

Here we go again, another New Labour sleaze story in the making....

HARRIET HARMAN, deputy leader of the Labour party, failed to declare thousands of pounds of donations to her deputy leadership campaign within the Electoral Commission deadline.

The gifts, believed to have been discovered after her campaign finished in June 2007, are being checked by the watchdog to see if they are permitted under electoral law.

The revelation follows the disclosure that Peter Hain failed to declare £100,000 of donations to his campaign. He resigned from the cabinet after the police were called in to investigate.

Sources say that Harman’s undisclosed gifts are “nowhere near the scale” of Hain’s and maintain that she is unlikely to face any action, beyond a reprimand for late reporting. She has so far declared £46,700.

Harman’s money was found after she had instructed staff to “painstakingly” check all the records, phone calls and incoming post. She is one of a number of MPs, including Alan Johnson, the health secretary, whose late donations are being checked.

A spokesman for Harman said: “Harriet has made all the required declarations in connection with the deputy leadership campaign to the Electoral Commission.”

She has already promised to return a £5,000 donation from David Abrahams, the property millionaire, which was given to her in the name of Janet Kidd. The police have been called in to investigate Abrahams’s use of proxy donors to fund the Labour party. Harman says she did not know the cash came from him.

**Thats her excuse and she is sticking to it, just like the money stuck to her fingers....

The Electoral Commission is also investigating whether she failed to declare a £22,000 extension on an overdraft she took out to help her fund her campaign. Her team said they did not know they needed to declare it.

**Did no one think to check? Although again its the same old story of one rule for Labour MP's and one for the rest of us, alas ignorance is sadly is no defense but that becomes a different matter when one becomes an MP on the Labour benches...

New Labour, New Sleaze more like.

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