A bit late to the Baroness Scotland party, I’m afraid, but because it’s a perfect opportunity to be able to say, “bang to rights” I thought I’d get involved. Better late than never.

If you don’t already know, the woman who passed a law forcing everyone to check that prospective employees have been authorised by the state to work was found to be employing an unauthorised worker. She’s been fined £5k, and everyone except Gordon Brown and his cabinet seem to think that breaking your own law is something that should cost you your job. Political nerds watch incredulously as Brown hopes the story will just go away.

Yesterday, on the radio, a well rehearsed and typically monotone Prime Minister told 5 Live’s listeners that resignation for Baroness Scotland would be inappropriate because all she’d done is forget to take some photocopies.

Then, tonight, Harriet Harman drags herself onto Question Time? and parrots exactly the same well rehearsed line.

Funnily enough I rehearsed my own line on this particular subject, and it’s very simple:

The reason you need the photocopies is to prove you’ve looked at the documents in the first place. No photocopies, no proof you’ve followed the rules. That’s why she’s been fined £5k, and that’s why she needs to be sacked.

The law considers failure to provide photocopies to be as bad as not looking in the first place for that very reason, so as not to create an incentive for people to have a lassez faire ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy regarding unauthorised employment.

It, once again, comes down to trust in politics and trust in politicians. One rule for them and another for us? The public just won’t tolerate it, if they ever really did.

Brown seems incapable of understanding just how much damage he’s doing by continuing to stick to Campbell’s stupid 12 days rule (if you’re still in the papers after 12 days, says Campbell, you have to resign… ergo, if it’s less than 12 days, wait and see what happens) in order to protect his team rather than doing the obvious and decent thing.

He has good grounds for thinking the story will go away before the 12 days are up – It’s Labour’s Conference after all, so it’s almost inevitable that the Baroness will drop off the news agenda very soon.

An end to spin? Not quite there yet, I’m afraid. Baroness Scotland’s resignation isn’t on Brown’s Media Grid, so it’s not going to happen.