It's Bean a Long Week

However, this was soon overshadowed by a donations scandal that began with more of a whimper than a bang on the pages of the Mail on Sunday.

It would appear that David Abrahams, a - er- colourful character from the north east, had been using members of his staff to channel money into the Labour Party coffers. This is a practice that is not allowed under election law, and the people that were most in the shite were Labour Party General Secretary Peter Watt (who resigned that evening) and Harriet Harman who took a shilling from Abrahams via one of his intermediaries.

Her defence was all "but I didn't know that this Janet Kidd woman was a Storm Trooper in the service of the Dark Lord," which may have saved her. However, Abrahams also - through someone else - attempted to shove a couple of crisp tenners down the g-string of Hilary Benn, who figured out what was going on and insisted that if he wanted to make a donation he could do it in his own name, dammit. Abrahams: miffed, but compliant.

At his monthly press conference, the Gord's endorsement of Harriet could hardly have been described as "ringing," and, the press pack scenting blood, were now in full flow.

None so much as Paxo, who had geared up his sneer to Level 5 for a Newsnight discussion of the events. But even he was shocked when the man himself (Abrahams) phoned in to claim that far from the Labour Party being unaware of his donations (apart from Watt who nobly fell on his sword) they actually knew all about it. In fact, he read out a letter from the Gord's fundraiser, former LLM boss Jon Mendelsohn, thanking Abrahams for everything he'd done and requesting a meeting that had been written but days before.

Prime Minister's Questions had the Conservative press faking orgasms over Cameron's performance, although the widely-acknowledge real star of the show was acting Liberal Democrat Leader Vince Cable, who cracked a gag about Brown going from "Stalin to Mr Bean" in a few short weeks. How we all laughed!

Not to be outdone, Liberal Democrat leadership hopeful Chris Huhne put his expression into Sanctimony Gear and wrote to the rozzers demanding a police inquiry, guaranteeing him lots of lovely coverage in the week before the results of the contest are announced. Hmmm. Given the choice between Cameron Lite (Clegg), and Look At My Expression of False Virtue (Huhne), we're hoping for a miracle here: that they both lose.

Thursday saw the crisis develop into hitherto unpenetrable levels of backbiting. Peter Hain, uh, remembered that Jon Mendelsohn had given him a donation of £5,000 that he'd forgotten to declare, and it was claimed that it was Chris Leslie (former MP, greasy pole climber, and aide to Brown in his leadership campaign) who put Harman's team in contact with Janet Kidd. Earlier in the day the Harperson had barely survived a mauling from Theresa May at the Business statement.  

By Friday everything had descended into chaos, and the week concluded with the spotlight being thrown on Wendy Alexander (leader of Labour in Scotland and brother of Douglas) who had - contrary to her protestations - been aware of an illegal donation to her campaign.

It was a long time in politics indeed, and the anticipated further revelations in the Sundays tomorrow might make next week longer still.

In other news:

BONG! Mr Cameron goes to Washington to meet George Bush, a visit which was rewarded with the column inches it deserved.

BONG! ComRes and YouGov polls confirm the Conservative lead.

BONG! Interminable debate about whether politicians should be allowed to be in the possession of ladybits. These are always unedifying spectacles, not least because the sight of women pundits weighing in with crashingly horrific "ooooh look, I'm one of the boys, me" statements always brings Westmonster out in a touch of the Andrea Dworkins.