Following the screening tonight of the Politicians for Hire episode of Dispatches, three former Labour ministers - Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoff Hoon - have all been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party. Margaret Moran MP has also been suspended, the Daily Telegraph reports.
The move has apparently come as a result of a decision by Labour's Chief Whip Nick Brown and General Secretary Ray Collins.
The Independent tells us: "Backbench MPs demanded action against the former ministers in angry scenes at last night's weekly meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party."
Whoever it is in the Labour Party who has made this decision has realised the gravity of the scandal in the court of public opinion.
It contrasts strongly with the Unelected Prime Minister, Gordon Brown's attitude.
All day long, rolling news has told us: "The Prime Minister [...] is satisfied that there is no impropriety."
At the time, this blogger thought: 'He might be, but the British public aren't satisfied'.
What is clear now is that there are some people in the Labour Party who have the good sense to realise what a scandal this is.
However, the fact that Gordon Brown could not or would not see it tells you lots about the man.
As David Cameron said at PMQs last week, Gordon Brown never admits to anything. And he would have hated to have to admit that he presides over a very tainted and tarnished political party... and we say that without even starting in on their policies.
Yet what can you expect when the leader of the party and the Prime Minister of the country misleads Parliament and the Chilcot inquiry, who is alleged by all and sundry to be a control freak and a bully, and who is only Prime Minister by virtue of a deal in dark places that have never been exposed to the sunlight of genuine democracy.
The Labour Party is rotten... but the source of the decay is right at the top.
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A Daily Mail investigation has found that "at least ten former ministers are employed by firms with interests in their former areas of Government. The figures, from the Commons' Register of Members' Financial Interests, show that between them they earned £1,394,169 from jobs closely related to the ministerial positions they left."
Meanwhile, "[h]undreds of breaches of parliamentary rules by MPs who accepted free overseas trips from foreign governments have been uncovered by a BBC investigation."
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