Steve Morgan, who ran Peter Hain’s deputy leadership campaign, spoke today on BBC Radio Wales of arriving half way through and discovering scenes of "absolute chaos".
This tallies. After all, Mr Hain is still trying to work out who gave money to his campaign – and how much – almost six months after he was legally obliged to do so.
His office is being coy about the scale of his under-declaration of donations to the campaign, which are required under electoral law.
Few in Westminster believe Mr Hain is guilty of anything more than chaotic organisation. But the episode is worrying, not least because he is in charge of by far the biggest budget of any Whitehall department.
Some Labour MPs are asking whether a minister who is so cavalier about accounting for his own campaign finances be expected to be taking a keen interest in rooting out wrongdoing in the massive benefits budget?
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey