Papers focus on Hain fall-out

Friday's newspapers focus on the repercussions of Peter Hain's resignation from cabinet on Gordon Brown's leadership and the rest of the government.

Hain, who quit as work and pensions and Wales secretary, became the first minister to quit over funding irregularities.

According to the leading article in Friday's Times, Hain's resignation was to be expected, and should have occurred weeks ago, but he and the prime minister were the only ones oblivious to this inevitability.

"Mr Hain should have resigned without waiting for the announcement yesterday by the Electoral Commission that it had asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate his failures to declare political donations to his failed bid for the Labour Party deputy leadership within the legally required timeframe," the Times said.

Meanwhile, the Telegraph leader said: "Peter Hain's belated resignation encapsulates the fundamental weakness of this Labour administration - a sense of institutional dither."

And the paper added that "it was blindingly obvious that his continued presence in the cabinet was untenable and Mr Brown should have sacked him when he refused to offer his resignation".

Michael White of the Guardian, in an article entitled 'Brown back in the mud', believes that "the core of Brown’s weakness… may be an unlikely one; that the man whose heart remains Old Labour has insufficient grip on his beloved party".

Moving the attention away from Brown and onto Hain, the Independent's leading article states: "Mr Hain comes out of all this a sadly diminished figure. We say sadly not only because of his courageous past in confronting the apartheid regime in South Africa and many years fighting racism, but because Mr Hain, for all his faults, was the sort of politician who could occasionally break free from the chains of party discipline and speak his mind."

The Daily Mail's Quentin Letts wrote that Hain's resignation speech was "as close as we got to an Oscars weepie acceptance speech this year".

He went on to say that "the sheer fluency of the statement reminded us of the problem many voters always had with Hain: just a bit too darn smooth".

Both the Sun and the Mirror agree in their leading articles that Hain should have left his post two months ago, with the latter commenting on "regrettable dithering".

The Express concluded that "Mr Hain has many questions left to answer about the financing of his failed Labour deputy leadership bid.

"And a stronger prime minister would have dismissed him far sooner and replaced him with a more seasoned and impressive operator than James Purnell."