Sauron speaks….Praised with faint damns.

The orange uber Orc (bank robber, convicted ‘criminal conspiritor’ and part time Work and Pensions Secretary) Peter Hain was guilty of "an incompetence" over donations during Labour's deputy leader race, the prime minister has said.

On ITN (probably chosen because no-one would see it) Mr Brown said he hoped Hain would escape serious punishment as a result of the investigation by the Electoral Commission into the late declaration of £103,000 in donations to Hain’s spectacularly unsuccessful campaign.

I don’t think I can recall another instance where a Prime Minister, in DEFENCE of one of his Ministers, has used a charge of incompetence. Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong about this point though.

Of course one would expect a resignation after such comments but as Hain had briefly apologised to colleagues at Cabinet on Tuesday for the "kerfuffle" surrounding his donations everything must be alright.

These aren’t the Droids we’re looking for, move along.