Brown says sorry very well and one wonders if the media narrative may now shift from savaging to pity. Personally, I would let the dogs lose. Mea culpa and apologising may deflect blame. After all, the doctor of spin defined the 'masochist strategy' as an escape when there was no other excuse. When we can see this, the appearance of apology stems from a government that ran out of excuses.
The latest revelation over party funding is not surprising. Like the case of Customs and Revenue, the narrative of incompetence is informed by a history of systemic failure. Party funding by Labour is permeated with practices that avoided the strict rules on transparency that they promoted. Brown's major motivation is to shovel the toxic waste of such revelations onto the shoulders of his predecessor. We have seen some attempts from sympathetic ears in the media to downplay powerful evidence of lawbreaking and argue that these are the coda of the Blair years.
For the general populace, discs and data are more important that man in a van and Identity theft. The Tories can link the problems of identity, since Labour seem unable to identify their own donors, let alone those on child benefit. Perhaps that is why they need ID cards: to make sure that they stick to the rules.