Hain had to resign – and he won’t be missed

Gordon Brown will be kicking himself that he didn't listen to his friends when he first became PM. Almost unanimously, they urged him to get rid of Peter Hain. They were so confident he would take their advice that the word around Westminster on Hain was: "He's toast".

But Brown went his own way and the rest is history. Today Hain, 56, had to quit the Cabinet after it was announced that the Electoral Commission had referred to the Metropolitan Police the little matter of the late declaration of £103,000 to Hain's deputy leadership campaign last year.

He announced his departure as Work and Pensions secretary within minutes. He had no choice: a Cabinet minister cannot possibly remain in place if the police are investigating him.

Hain has stuck by his story that the non-declaration was down to poor administration among his staff and that any

suggestion that he had tried to hide anything was "absurd". Earlier this month Brown pointed up his colleague's "incompetence" - hardly an endorsement - but didn't demand his resignation.

The police involvement, whatever they find, is another serious setback for Brown, whose premiership has developed into a series of stop-start lurches. He already has 'Abrahamsgate' to contend with - the scandal over the Northern property developer using proxies to donate money to Labour.

And today he had to suffer another humiliation as Alistair Darling rowed back on the Capital Gains Tax plans announced in the unpopular October pre-budget report.

Hain will not be missed. The fact that despite all that cash he only managed to come fifth in the deputy leadership stakes says it all. While he may have a reputation as a young radical to fall back on - making his name as an anti-apartheid protest leader in the 1970s - he was a Liberal, which among Labour stalwarts means he was never "one of us".