Gordon Brown's hopes of a calm countdown to Christmas appeared slim this week as the row over party funding rumbled on. Peter Hain, the work and pensions secretary, had to apologise after he failed to declare some donations to his Labour deputy leadership campaign. Wendy Alexander, the Scottish Labour leader who is a key ally of Gordon Brown, was also fighting for her political life after accepting an unlawful donations from a Channel Island businessman for her leadership campaign.
In Politics Weekly I pick over these events with Vera Baird, the Labour MP for Redcar who is the Solicitor General; Matthew Taylor, the Chief Executive of the RSA, who was Tony Blair's adviser on strategy until last year; and Julian Glover, the Guardian's chief leader writer.
We discuss whether Gordon Brown can move on from the funding row. We also talk about whether we can all sleep soundly in our beds after hearing that Iran is not on the verge of producing a nuclear bomb. And finally we had our very own Vince Cable love-in as we marked the stunning parliamentary performances of the acting leader of the Liberal Democrats.
