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Either:

(a) We all need to wear a stab jacket when walking the street, even if flanked by three policemen,
(b) Only Harriet Harman needs to wear a stab jacket because she's more important than us, or
(c) We're all seeing things and Harman isn't really wearing a stab jacket.

Her excuse that it is like wearing a hard hat when on a construction site is utterly absurd. You wear a hard hat on a construction site because things might fall from above - and, well, it's the law. Wearing a stab jacket on the street, however, is certainly not on the same level.

Who stood in the election to become the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party last year?

• Harriet Harman [the eventual winner]
• Peter Hain
• Alan Johnson
• Hilary Benn
• Hazel Blears
• Jon Cruddas

Two of these have already been in big problems over donations to their campaigns - Harriet Harman accepting £5,000 from a proxy donor, and Peter Hain failing to declare £103,000 to the Electoral Commission, culminating in him having to quit his job over it.

And now yet another of the candidates is being accused of having donation problems over his campaign - Alan Johnson.
It does seem like the deputy leadership campaign has been marked more by donation scandals after it's completion than by the result itself, since now half of the candidates have been accused of scandal or corruption - especially since Harriet Harman will be interviewed by police over her illegal proxy donation.

It does seem however, that the Guardian has forgotten all about Harman's donation problems, since they start their article on Alan Johnson's problems today with:
And then go on only to mention Hain as the other person with donation issues.

Maybe the best thing for the rest of the deputy leader candidates would be for them to frantically double-check all of their donations, just in case they have amde a mistake as badly as the other three we have seen so far...

Sources: The Times, BBC, The Telegraph, The Guardian

Selling and buying sex has never been illegal in the UK. Yet Harriet Harman seems to think that that's simply not good enough, and that the precedents set by centuries of history - covering even the most prudest eras - isn't good enough for her. What she is attacking she says "just because something has always gone on, it doesn't mean you just wring your hands and say there's nothing we can do about it" she is ignoring the very foundation of British society, law and democracy - precedent and organic development, taking into account the past. Of course this doesn't mean that what has gone before is always right, but it certainly means that there needs to eb damn good reason before you even consider changing it.

Let's look at this from a rights perspective. I own my body, right? We all agree on that point. So I can do whatever the hell I like with it. After all, that is what manual labourers - the people Harman's party claims to represent - do when they sell their labour. And what we all do when we work - we sell our labour in whatever form. Thus, we can do what we want with out own bodies.

Then we have the fact that the money I earn, after I have paid my taxes to the State, are mine to dispose of as I wish. This money I can spend on anything I wish, as it is my money, that I have earned, and on which no-one else has any claim. Right?

So, why should I not be allowed to buy or sell sex if I so wish - wish my own body or my own money? It is right that some activities associated with prostitution - such as pimping and brothel-keeping - are illegal. But the simple activity of selling and buying sex certainly should not be. It is referred to as the "oldest profession" for a reason, and it will long outlive Harman and her ilk. After all, sex is a one of the basic needs of mankind - and not everyone can or wants to get it without paying.

Sources: BBC, The Telegraph, The Times, The Guardian

She says she hasn't, claiming that she and her campaign team "acted at all times within both the letter and the spirit of the law." Yet her leader, her Cabinet colleague and her husband have all said it is illegal to take undeclared donations from a third party. And that is precisely what Harriet did. Whether or not she or her campaign team knew that doesn't matter - ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking it.

Since the scandal has now been referred to the police by the Electoral Commission we can hope that the truth will out.

Well, we can hope anyway.

... and another for the rest of us.

So just because she's a minister she doesn't have to obey the law like everyone else? If she has broken the law, she's broken the law, and should be dealt with in exactly the same way as everyone else!

It is truly disgraceful that she should be allowed to get away with not paying any of the extra fine. The excuse that "she forgot to pay the fine because she was busy campaigning to become Gordon Brown's deputy at the time" is nowhere near good enough. Everyone has busy periods in their lives, and they get charged the extra fine for not paying within the 28 day time frame.

That she got away with this is truly disgraceful and stinks of hypocrisy. The law must apply to everyone equally, whoever they may be, or there is no point in having it at all.

via Guthrum
Source: Daily Mail

Harriet Harman has been elected the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, just pipping Alan Johnson to the post, and has been appointed party chairman [presumably she'd prefer "chairwoman" - or maybe even the non gender-specific term "chairperson"] by Gordon Brown. Presumably he had decisions on posts for all of the contenders, had they been the one to win. However, appointing the deputy leader party chairman is a good idea, as it again marks a difference between Blair's premiership and his own, when Prescott, as deputy leader, was Deputy Prime Minister as well.

Presumably Harman's new job will be to try and prevent Labour's decimation at the next general election and to prevent the hemorrhaging of Labour Party members. Will she do this? I doubt it, personally. A person who fought the election on the basic principle that she should be elected because she was a woman [and all the others, bar Blairite Hazel, weren't], is unlikely to be able to vote for the dour Scot.

That Harriet Harman won is quite a surprise to me, as I hadn't really considered her that serious a candidate. What was also a mild surprise, and quite a damning indictment of Blair's decade as PM, was the Hazel Blears was the first to be eliminated. It shows that the Labour Party has no attachment to Blairism, and little more attachment even to Tony Blair himself, anymore. Why anyone voted for Harriet Harman, I have no idea. I thought that Hazel Blears was a far mor interesting, and better, candidate!

Source: BBC, The Times, The Telegraph