Peter Hain, the work and pensions secretary, admitted in an interview with the Guardian yesterday that he had solicited most of the 17 donations totalling £103,155 which his deputy leadership campaign had failed to register with the Electoral Commission. He said he knew about the controversial donations, but not the precise point at which they came in.
He added that no one in his campaign team was able to explain why they had not been declared before.
He was speaking to the Guardian after providing the Electoral Commission with a new list of his donations. The extra donations mean he spent £185,000 on his campaign, and not the £82,000 he had declared previously.
He issued an apology to his party and to the prime minister, but rejected the view he should resign from the government, saying he had made a mistake "inadvertently and not wilfully".
Oh well, as it was inadvertent, that's all right then.
Incidentally, how does one go about making a wilful mistake? If it is wilful, can it be a mistake?
No comments:
Post a Comment