As Guido suspected they would, Steve Morgan and Phil Taylor are blaming each other for the non-reporting of donations to Hain’s campaign. Guido has had run-ins with Hain’s ex-SpAd Phil Taylor before. The betting is that Phil is the one telling the truth, Morgan has a history with funding irregularities. Sleazy lobbyist Steve Morgan claims that when he took over in the middle of Hain’s campaign it was “complete chaos”. Phil Taylor denies this emphatically, “Not on my watch” he says “by the time I left we’d received legally and had declared £37,000 of donations and we hadn’t received a single penny in donations that was not declared at the time I left, so there was no chaos of any kind.” So that leaves a lot of unaccounted for cash raised by Morgan.

“Morgan the Organ”, as he was know in his days as George Galloway’s membership secretary and henchmen at War on Want in the late 80s, has had brushes with campaign funding irregularities in the past. Gorgeous George’s tenure at the left-wing campaigning charity led to a subsequent investigation by the Charity Commission over funding irregularities that were a foretaste of scandals to come.

His expenses and parking tickets were paid for out of WoW charity fundraising sources rather than his own pocket – and he regularly parked on the double yellow lines outside WoW’s Great Guilldford Street offices. Lefties who gave money to combat poverty in the Third World would not have been pleased to know their donations were going to offset Morgan’s anti-social laziness.

Guido wonders if some of the donors to Hain’s campaign might be just a little bit too embarrassing for a campaign that was positioned on the left. If it turns out to be case that say, a private equity baron or a hedge fund trader were donors, people will wonder if it really was incompetence or political embarrassment that was the reason for non-declaration of donations.

Morgan is currently helping on Hillary’s campaign so Guido feels it to be his duty to warn young impressionable American interns. He was known as “Morgan the Organ” for obvious reasons and to this day has an eye for young ladies…

Brown has “expressed anger and disappointment at Peter Hain’s failure to disclose the full extent of donations to his deputy leadership campaign” according to the Guardian.

Gordon gave Hain a telephonic bollocking for ruining Brown’s New Year re-launch and blunting the intended counter-attack to Cameron’s welfare reform plans as announced by Chris Grayling. Grayling stingingly responded to Hain’s “Tory sums don’t add up” line with “Someone in Peter Hain’s position should be very careful about accusing anyone else of getting their sums wrong.”

Hain’s prospects in any cabinet reshuffle now look bleak. His department is obviously suffering from having a distracted Minister, a press release put out by the Department for Work and Pensions today has the headline “Brits struggle to make ends meet in the New Year”. The release contains their own polling figures showing that more than half of people in the UK (55%) spend more than they can afford and are “struggling”. Hardly the official message Brown and Darling are spinning of national economic strength. Perhaps if more Britons took out a loan from Picture Financial Services plc, sponsors of Peter Hain…

Peter Hain’s sleazy lobbyist fundraiser, Steve Morgan, told Radio Wales this morning that he had been brought in to the campaign to “bring order to chaos”. A source retorts “bollocks”. Every donation, they insist firmly, was properly accounted for up until the moment Phil Taylor walked out after falling out with Morgan. The documentation Guido got hold of in May seemed very precise and backs this up.

Hain’s allies are furious at Morgan’s audacity. Guido hears so many bad things about Mr Morgan. Do email more to Guido.Fawkes@Order-Order.com.

Carol Vorderman charges a fortune to advertise debt consolidation company FirstPlus. Peter Hain got a donation of £5,000 from rival debt consolidaton company boss, Neville Allport, his Picture Financial Services plc offers easy credit – “You can even borrow up to 125% of the value of your home” says the website “something that traditional lenders won’t consider.” They won’t consider such gearing because it is financially reckless.

Prominently displayed all over the company website is Hain’s ringing commerical endorsement. Guido can’t recall a serving minister’s endorsement ever being used to advertise a company in this way. Guido is sure that Hain’s endorsements and the £5,000 donation are entirely coincidental.

The 10.9% APR charged to credit maxed out debtors is very profitable, which probably explains why Ronnie Cohen’s Apax Private Equity is the biggest investor in Picture Financial Services plc. Remind Guido again where Hain stood on the Private Equity issue during the deputy-leadership campaign…

UPDATE : Looks like Hencke and Wintour on the Guardian are joining the chase this morning, with a front-page splash on Hain’s missing declarations. They are (rightly) fingering sleazy lobbyist Steven Morgan, identified by Guido in May 2007 as responsible for raising the cash.

The story points vaguely to an undeclared circa £10,000 from “City or business people”. Hain is said to be personally auditing the figures. Don’t forget the benefits-in-kind Peter…

The new Register of Members Interests for Peter Hain shows a £5,000 donation belatedly registered on December 18 from Bill Bottriell. Hain registered it with the Electoral Commission as well on the December 12. However he still hasn’t registered Mendolsohn’s donation with the Electoral Commission but has put it on the Register. Incompetent or deceptive?

Guido has asked Hain’s office what is going on to no avail. The Electoral Commission says only that it is still in contact with Hain’s office, could that be because they are now being a little bit more rigorous? So the issue remains unresolved and incomplete to put it kindly. Is there a problem? Guido thinks so…

UPDATE 23:30 : The Pink ‘Un’s George Parker re-hashed Guido’s story and got a quote this evening from Hain’s office. Hain will provide the information “very shortly” but “aides have refused to explain why it was taking him so long, other than to say he wanted to be sure he got the facts straight. They said it was “ludicrous” to suggest he had something to hide.”

On the morning of December 3 earlier this month Guido called up one of Hain’s (until that day) undeclared financial backers to make enquiries. By that afternoon Hain had made a dash across to the Electoral Commission, allegedly entirely unrelated, to clear up a few omissions.

Sky’s Joey Jones wonders why Hain’s team is taking so long to get the information out into the open. Joey asks

So why the delay? – Is there a bigger can of worms than we had thought?

Hain’s team say they want to get their submission absolutely right. I know it may sound a bit cynical for this time of year, but I wouldn’t be entirely surprised if the information got sneaked out once everyone’s headed off for the holidays…

Guido has his own suspicions. Don’t worry Peter, Guido will break away from his holidays to make sure it doesn’t go unreported. Don’t forget anything this time Peter, it would not look good if Guido had to point out an omission again…

It seems that Hain decided to pay the Electoral Commission a visit rather quickly only after he realised that Guido and the Western Mail were on his tail. Amazing how a few pointed questions can prompt a minister into action. The “shit they are on to me, I was just about to make a full confession, really” ploy.

Guido seems to better informed about Hain’s budget than he now claims to be. Back in May Guido ran this story detailing his expenditure, yet he claims to have been unaware of the figures until yesterday. Guido even helpfully uploaded the campaign’s expenditure summary for co-conspirators to download here. So how come Guido knew in May and he didn’t until yesterday. Why the under-reporting? Is it because of dodgy embarrassing donors like Mendelsohn?

Labour party rules on the leadership campaign require 15% of funds raised to go to the National Labour Party, and on September 9 this year Hain duly paid over £ 11,550.

In reality he should have paid over £13,335. He cheated his own party out of £1,785.60. Now if he worked for a private company and effectively defrauded them of commission, what would you do? Prosecute for fraudulent accounting or under the good old Theft Act?

How come Guido knew from his own campaign’s documents these figures and he didn’t? Even the most charitable interpretation is that he is recklessly incompetent. Is he really fit to be in charge of the billions allocated by the Department for Work and Pensions. Is he really the best person to be in charge of your pension?

UPDATE 20.30 : For the record Guido made his first phone-call to Huw Roberts at 12.57 today. Guido called repeatedly his office, mobile and home numbers. Huw returned the call around 15.30. The story was up on the blog by 16.07, Joe Carberry, Hain’s SpAd, told Guido at around 16.30 that the story was untrue.

Hain released a self-serving statement this evening, just in time for the 6pm news shows, saying he went to see the Electoral Commission “this afternoon”. Guido would like to know if this was arranged in advance or was it impromptu? Funny coincidence of timing.

Guido has been running up his phone bill trying to get hold of Labour fundraisers. Peter Hain’s fundraiser, Huw Roberts was kind enough to call back.

HR There is a small problem with my donation. It is not my fault. He has to declare the donations, not me.

The conversation got a bit confused and fraught at this point, Huw would only concede that he had made a donation, yet despite having held fundraising dinners for Peter Hain, he would not confirm any other donations were undeclared. No donation of any kind is recorded from Huw Roberts…

UPDATE : Have just got off the phone with Joe Carberry, Hain’s SpAd, “what you have written on the blog is not true”. So is Huw Roberts lying? “I am going to put the phone down” said Carberry. Guido gets through a lot of Hain SpAds per annum, so it is understandable.

Hain can’t seem to hold a SpAd down since Phil Taylor’s departure. Robert Philpot has gone back to Progress. Who are Hain’s SpAds nowadays? Why did Philpot leave so soon? Hain could get a Basher Davis type reputation for staff turnover at this rate…