Scotland's Scot Free!

Baroness Scotland, The Attorney General, has come in for a lot of scrutiny in recent days.

There are two main points taken up in the criticisms of her: The first is that as a representative of the people she is a law-maker and therefore may not be a law-breaker. The potentially more embarrassing gaffe was that the law she broke was one which she was personally responsible for designing and should therefore have known exactly what that entailed.

So a £5,000 fine for her and deportation for the 27-yr-old Tongan maid and all's right with the world again, isn't it?

Except Baroness Scotland's PPC didn't think the slap on the wrist was appropriate and resigned on principle.

Now Labour are doing the rounds and claiming it was an administrative error, that she is a good person and shouldn't lose her job over this minor detail!

Excuse me, but they form the national administration and they set the standards for administration in this country. Not only that, but for the maid deportation was a much more serious sanction and they had no hesitation or qualms over that.

If their example is not to be followed then it is a case of "do as I say, not do as I do," - which is wholly and completely unacceptable.

If they are happy to make the argument that it is fine to make policy on the basis of flawed information and in the face of strong warnings to the contrary, as the Attorney General's predecessor did (although Lord Goldsmith denied he knew it was flawed) and as small businesses had (criticising this particular regulation for being excessive and overburdensome), how will similar unnecessary and avoidable situations (be they civil procedures or wars) ever be prevented in the future?

Frankly this episode is symptomatic of the wider illness which infects Labour and how they have betrayed principles they may once have defended - punishment is not a cure and it certainly doesn't address the causes of the problem!

So Gordon Brown was at the UN trying to grab a photo opportunity with Barack Obama... now the mere appearance of any national Labour figure on TV or radio makes me so physically nauseous I have to leave the room.