More Sleaze,more problems for Brown and for Jacqui Smith

Another Sunday morning and more problems for Gordon Brown.Many of the papers saying that he will plunged into crisis over the resignatio of Wendy Alexander and the forhcoming by election in Glasgow East but it doesn't end there.

The Sunday Times carries a report on its front page that Labour's Donors are falling out of favour with the party,according to the paper

Key donors who bankrolled new Labour are now reluctant to support Brown, claiming he lacks the qualities required to salvage the party’s fortunes.
— The millionaire businessman Sir Maurice Hatter, who has donated more than £176,000 to the party since 2001, said it was time for a change of leader.
“He hasn’t got the charisma,” he said. “He was a good number two, but he is not a number one. I just don’t think he is a prime minister.”

The Observer meanwhile focuses on problems for the Home Secretary

The home secretary is at the centre of the worst race row to engulf the police service for almost a decade as chief constables stand accused of blocking an inquiry into discrimination against Muslim officers.
Jacqui Smith will be asked to intervene tomorrow after the damning revelation that at least 20 police forces refused to co-operate with the first audit into the treatment of Muslim and black officers. Information from those forces that did take part suggested there was routine racial discrimination against them.

The Mail meanwhile discovers another political sleaze story claiming that

More than 100 MPs are using their expenses to commit a multi-million-pound tax dodge, it was claimed last night.
They are accused of using huge sums in parliamentary allowances to fund a second home while telling HM Revenue & Customs that it is in fact their main home.
Because MPs' second homes are usually in London, where property is more expensive, they can avoid massive capital gains tax bills by nominating the second home as their main home, because main homes are exempt from the tax.

So farewell then Wendy Alexander

Having spent the last week and a half in Scotland,it was difficult to avoid the news over Wendy Alexander,but her resignation today took many people by surprise.

As late as last night,it appeared to be business as usual,the whole thing packaged as a conspiracy instigated by the Scottish nationalists.Her one day suspension was hardly going to lead to any long lasting problems and it was highly unlikely that the measure would have been passed on a full vote in the Scottish parliament.

Alexander's own resignation statement emphisies the role of the SNP.

"The process of successive SNP inspired complaints and investigations has been unrelenting and will continue well into the autumn almost a year after the initial complaint.
"My pursuers have sought the prize of political victory with little thought to the standing of parliament.
"Some may feel they have achieved a political victory but wiser head will ask at what price?
"It is clear that vexatious complaints will continue and dominate the headlines as long as I remain Labour's Scottish parliamentary leader

However was there more behind the resignation.Her stance on the referendum issue has clearly irked colleagues in London,twice suggesting that the nationalists should bring forward the vote,believing that the Scottish people would reject any such measures

Fraser Nelson is in Scotland and sums up the issue quite well

She’s not corrupt, or dodgy. Her £950 is paltry compared to other sums. I certainly heard sexist abuse about her (even Salmond would refer to her meetings with female Labour MSPs as a “coven”). But in the last analysis she was not up to the job – and it way well be that no one else in the Scottish Labour Party is up to the job either.

What was she thinking of?

I can agree with Alan Cochrane's comments over at Three Line Whip that

It is difficult to imagine that Wendy Alexander can last as leader of the Scottish Labour Party after Gordon Brown's devastating denial at Prime Minister's Question Time of her plan for an immediate referendum on the break up of the United Kingdom.

What was she thinking off? It has been known that her views have always been pro referendum but to air them publically over a weekend when the Prime Minister was already being atttacked from all sides may well a step too far.

Over at Comment is Free,Ewan Crawford describes Labour's announcement as the biggest miscalculation in history

the calculation is that the SNP would lose a popular vote on the constitution, putting to bed any debate over independence for a generation and skewering Alex Salmond into the bargain. It's also precisely the opposite of what Alexander has been arguing ever since she assumed the leadership.

Moreover where does it leave her Brother Douglas.A while ago after the debacle of the Autumn election he was being tipped as the first fall guy in Brown's cabinet.Perhaps now his time will come?