Your Lordships: it’s better for everyone, including yourselves, to come clean

By Derek Draper

The Lords scandal brings back unhappy memories for me, and others have not been slack in drawing parallels. Peter Oborne calls me a “sleazebag” and says I should not be allowed to campaign for Labour.

The truth is my own involvement in 1998’s lobbying scandal still makes me feel ashamed today. It was wrong to try and cash in on my Labour contacts and I will regret it all my life. I had hoped that ten years passing might allow me to be forgiven, but obviously not by Peter Oborne!

I particularly regret not being even clearer back then that what I did was wrong. That is why I would advise the Labour peers involved in this scandal to pause and search their own political souls. If they thought they were obeying the letter and spirit of the rules, then fine. But if they, deep down, now realise they made a mistake in tangling up their public duty and private activities they should admit it, and apologise.

There needs to be a full investigation, as Gordon Brown has made clear. Whatever the result we need to remember that these four men have served the Labour party well and that should be taken into account when we judge them. In time, despite the harshness of journalists like Peter Oborne, they would likely be forgiven. In the meantime the rules need to be tightened up so that nothing like it can ever happen again.