The stench is becoming overpowering.

Political sleaze scandals are raining down upon us like the unstoppable effluent from a burst sewage pipe.

The leader of the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament, Wendy Alexander, resigned at the weekend over failing to declare donations to her leadership campaign, following a ruling by the Scottish Parliament’s Standards Committee that she should be suspended from Holyrood for one day.

At the same time, the Glasgow East Labour MP David Marshall also resigned his seat  -  ostensibly on health grounds, but amid allegations that he wrongly used his Commons expenses to pay members of his family.

Both Edinburgh and Westminster are convulsed by these developments.

The loss of Gordon Brown’s close ally in Ms Alexander and the prospect of a possibly calamitous by-election in his own Scottish fiefdom are further, possibly terminal blows to an already punch-drunk Prime Minister.

Quite apart from the implications for Gordon Brown’s long-term political survival, however, these latest ructions surely tell us that something rather deeper in our political culture has gone badly rotten.

As a result of Ms Alexander’s resignation, the spotlight now falls again upon the Leader of the Commons Harriet Harman, who was forced to repay £5,000 in illegal donations made to her own deputy leadership campaign.

If Ms Alexander was forced to resign over such behaviour, why is Ms Harman still in office?

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