Police are called in to find the “mole”

With the donations row continue to dominate politics both north and south of the border there’s a new development in the Scotsman this morning – a suggestion that someone inside the party’s Scottish HQ is leaking information about donations.

According to the paper’s main lead “..There is fury among senior Labour figures that someone with access to confidential information has been leaking it to the press and causing massive damage to the party..Two Labour peers, Lord Maxton and Baroness Adams, who both gave money to Wendy Alexander’s leadership campaign in the summer, notified the police about what they claimed were documents “stolen” from the Labour Party.”

Quite what to make of this I don’t know. It might reflect tensions in the party which is facing an uphill struggle against the SNP. Alternatively it could be a PR move to try to deflect attention from the growing pressure on the party’s Scottish leader who, like Brown, got her job with having the bother of facing a contested election, Wendy Alexander.

This afternoon Ms Alexander will attend a meeting of MSPs – it will be interesting to see if they back her. Certainly she cannot have been pleased by Brown’s less than ringing endorsement yesterday.

In an ICM poll for Newsnight 57% of those surveyed said they thought Brown was “tainted by sleaze” compared with 28% for Cameron and 15% for acting Lib Dem leader, Vince Cable. The same poll had Brown beating Cameron by 43% to 41% on the question who is best “cut out to be PM”. The Tory, however, beat Gord by 43%-42% on who was “a competent leader“.

I never pay much attention to such non-voting intention surveys.

Meanwhile there could be more coming from Westminster about the affair following a move by the Tories to get a commons debate on party funding reform.

Mike Smithson