(U) HAIN RESIGNATION TRIGGERS LIMITED CABINET

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 LONDON 000240 SIPDIS NOFORN SIPDIS STATE FOR EUR/WE, INR/EU E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/25/2018 TAGS: PGOV PINR UK SUBJECT: (U) HAIN RESIGNATION TRIGGERS LIMITED CABINET RESHUFFLE Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Maura Connelly for reasons 1.4 (b, d) ¶1. (C/NF) Summary: Peter Hain resigned on January 24 as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and for Wales after SIPDIS the Electoral Commission referred to the police his failure to report donations to his 2007 campaign for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. The Hain resignation came on the same day that Downing Street announced the appointment of a new chief of staff for Brown, Jeremy Heywood, to replace Tom Scholar, who moved over to a senior position at Treasury. Hain vowed to clear his name, insisting it had all been an innocent mistake. His departure triggered a limited Government reshuffle (see para. 7 below) that produced the first-ever married couple in the Cabinet, as Yvette Cooper joins her husband Ed Balls. Paul Murphy comes back into the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales. The timing of this reshuffle SIPDIS was imposed on Prime Minister Brown by events beyond his control and most of the UK media and Brown's political opponents saw it as another blow to Brown's political standing. Brown's supporters argued that the decisive nature of his cabinet reshuffle can help him regain some initiative and limit the damage from what Brown himself described as "an incompetence" by Hain. End Summary. An Expected Resignation -------------- ¶2. (C/NF) On January 24, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and for Wales Peter Hain became the first minister to resign from Gordon Brown's Cabinet. Hain had stood firm against calls for his resignation as long as the matter was before the Electoral Commission and not a subject of police investigation, but once the Commission referred the matter to Scotland Yard, Hain said he felt he had "no alternative" but to step down. It was a personal decision by Hain -- there was no legal requirement that he step down, none of Tony Blair's government who were under criminal investigation in 2007's cash for honors affair stepped down at the time -- but the media and internal Labour drumbeats on the need for Hain to go had been increasing so his resignation was not unexpected. Much of the political and media reaction to the resignation criticized Brown for not forcing Hain to step down earlier, but no doubt Downing Street was aware of the precedent it would set if any non-criminal investigation into funding irregularities required a cabinet resignation - especially for the current Labour party, which has been hit by a wave of such investigations over the past several years. What Hain Did or Didn't Do -------------- ¶3. (C/NF) Hain has admitted that his summer 2007 campaign for Deputy Leader of the Labour Party failed to make a timely declaration of donations totaling GBP 103,000 (about USD 205,000). He has consistently said it was an innocent mistake, blaming poor administration and pointing out that he himself reported the matter to the authorities once he became aware of it. In announcing his resignation, Hain said "I severely and seriously regret the mistake in declaring the donations late," and insisted he would clear his name. Unlike in parliamentary campaigns, where the legal responsibility for financial reporting lies with the candidate's agent, in party contests the candidate him/herself is legally responsible. The Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards is conducting a separate inquiry into why Hain failed to declare the donations on the Register of Members' Interests. ¶4. (C/NF) From the available information, it is not/not clear that Hain was guilty of anything more than an administrative failing in not reporting the donations within 30 days; there had been an important change in Hain's campaign staff just before the problem of non-reporting began. Nonetheless, two facts are seen as troubling: - The large sums of money involved (the amount not reported on time was twice the total raised by the winning candidate, Harriet Harman; Hain still finished fifth out of six candidates for the Deputy Leadership). - The fact that some money was channeled through a think-tank, the Progressive Policies Forum, that has apparently done no work at all since being set up in December 2006 by a close contact of Hain's. The concern is that the shell think-tank may have been used as a way of concealing the identity of donors. LONDON 00000240 002 OF 003 The Political Response -------------- ¶5. (C/NF) PM Brown reacted to Hain's departure by saying he had done the right and honorable thing. The PM had earlier characterized Hain's failing as "an incompetence" - a damning turn of phrase in what was ostensibly a supportive statement in which Brown strongly rejected the notion that there was any taint of sleaze in Hain's failure to report the donations or to the Labour party itself. Upon learning of the resignation, Deputy Party Leader Harman praised Hain before the House of Commons as "an excellent colleague and good friend" who has been doing "important work for people in this country." Health Secretary Alan Johnson, runner-up to Harman in the race for Deputy Leader, said he was "really sad" to see Hain go, "because it's a big loss for us." ¶6. (C/NF) Comments from the opposition were more critical: Conservative leader David Cameron said the resignation was weeks overdue, and Conservative Shadow Secretary for Work and Pensions Chris Grayling said it was "inevitable," adding "nobody could understand how it was possible to get those donations so far wrong." Liberal Democrat spokesman for Work and Pensions Danny Alexander suggested this was symptomatic of a more general collapse of the Labour Government, saying "the transition from Blair to Brown feels increasingly like the transition from Thatcher to Major." ¶7. (C/NF) Hain's resignation triggered a limited Government reshuffle: ¶A. CABINET: - James Purnell moves over to Work and Pensions from being Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sports. SIPDIS - Andy Burnham takes over at Culture, Media and Sports; he was Chief Secretary to the Treasury. - Yvette Cooper becomes Chief Secretary to the Treasury; she had been housing minister with the right to attend Cabinet but without being a full member. Her promotion is seen as reinforcing Brown's direct influence at Treasury. She and her husband Ed Balls, already Secretary of State for Children, Families and Schools, become the first-ever married couple to serve in the British Cabinet at the same time. - Paul Murphy returns to the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Wales (after serving in that position 1999-2002). ¶B. JUNIOR MINISTERS: - Caroline Flint replaces Cooper as housing minister, also attending Cabinet. She had been welfare minister in the Work and Pensions Department. - Stephen Timms moves from the business department to replace Flint. - Liam Byrne, the immigration minister in the Home Office, adds a Treasury portfolio with responsibility for revenue protection at the UK's borders. - Baroness Vadera moves from the Department for International Development (DFID) to a similar junior-minister position at the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform. - Gillian Merron moves from the Cabinet Office to Vadera's former position at DFID. - Tom Watson moves from the Whips office to the Cabinet Office. - Phil Hope stays at the Cabinet Office but replaces Merron as minister for the East Midlands. - Lord Grocott steps down as chief whip in the House of Lords, replaced by Baroness Royall, a former personal assistant and press officer to ex-leader of the Labour Party Neil (now Lord) Kinnock. - Lord Triesman leaves the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills, having been selected as the new chairman of the Football Association. He is replaced by Baroness Morgan, a former chief executive of Breakthrough Breast Cancer. LONDON 00000240 003 OF 003 Comment: A Plus or Minus for Brown? -------------- ¶8. (C/NF) Hain's departure will have no effect on Brown Government policies nor does it remove from cabinet a close confidante of Brown's whose departure will result in shifts in policy. It is, however, one more political and media blow at a time when the Prime Minister remains politically weak and stalled in efforts to reclaim the momentum of his post-election honeymoon period. The timing of this reshuffle was imposed on Brown by events beyond his control and most of the UK media and his political opponents saw it as another blow to Brown's general political standing and the Labour party's growing reputation for sleaze. Brown's supporters took to the airwaves to argue in rebuttal that the decisive nature of his cabinet reshuffle will help Brown regain some initiative and limit the damage from what he himself has described as "an incompetence" by Hain. We doubt that the latter view is the one really believed inside Downing Street. ¶9. (C/NF) The Hain resignation came on the same day that Downing Street announced the appointment of a new chief of staff for Brown, Jeremy Heywood, to replace Tom Scholar, who moved over to a senior position at Treasury. Heywood will report directly to Brown and Sir Gus O'Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary. Heywood's appointment, following last month's SIPDIS appointment of a new communications and strategy advisor at Downing Street, was another sign of Brown's determination to make personnel and managerial fixes to his Downing Street operations; fixes that one Labour party insider called partial solutions that fail to address the fundamental problem -- Brown's own personality. Visit London's Classified Website: http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/london/index. cfm LeBaron