As events and the Metropolitan Police will doubtless demonstrate, Peter Hain is very probably a much-maligned man of stainless integrity. At the very worst, the former Work, Pensions and Wales Secretary may only have acquired the unfortunate habit of hiring dolts incapable of filling in a couple of forms. This could, as we all know, happen to anyone.

Mr Hain has resigned, however. In his circles, this counts as very decent and terribly honourable, not to say wholly predictable. He means to "clear his name", for the very good reason that he has "done nothing wrong". My first thought is "ho", my second "hum".

I'm bored with sleaze and with New Labour's money problems. This is, I think, perhaps the worst thing that anyone could say about Gordon Brown's attempts to reinvent his career and his government. When people begin to find the behaviour of the great and good unsurprising, when the latest avowal of innocence becomes merely tedious, the G&G are in trouble. Every word they utter is discounted.

Take Hain's case. I could manufacture an interest, on behalf of political obsessives, but the ensuing questions would not help the government much. Here's one, in any case. Since when did it cost (estimates vary) between £100,000 and £200,000 just to stand for the deputy leadership - the deputy leadership - of the Labour Party?

As best as I can gather, no-one has yet asked Mr Hain how those very sizeable sums were spent, if spent they were, in the effort to place fifth in a field of six. The famously thoughtless think-tank and the supportive diamond dealer may yet emerge as separate issues. But Hilary Benn, for one, spent pennies in comparison to Mr Hain's thousands. Who needs so much cash, in an election so trivial?

Then there is a question that applies both to the former Liberal and to Labour in general. Most of us can guess why property developers, diamond dealers and the like might discover a deep, compulsive devotion to the forward march of social semi-democracy. What happened to ordinary people?

The inquiry is relevant to all the parties, these days, but something is amiss when the people's party appears to run out of people. In Scotland, if we believe what we are told, Wendy Alexander never intended to do wrong, yet could not drum up a couple of dozen folk prepared to hold a whip-round for £950. In London, Harriet Harman found herself in receipt of cash from blameless individuals unaware that they were the MP's staunch supporters.

These stray facts offer a context, of sorts. Outside the Westminster village, who dares say that the taxpayer should fund political parties, and personal political ambition, when the ordinary taxpayer is so reluctant to pony up with a modest donation? The very complexity of Mr Hain's "paperwork issues" prove that Joe Public was not pressing fivers into the great man's hands. Joe Very Private accepted that burden instead.

Ho, then, and hum. We expect no better, we get no better. Many of us can remember what became of John Major's government. Few of us, I think, could actually name the various individuals with exciting private lives and uncommon financial arrangements who contributed to that administration's slow decay. They became a mere background odour.

Some of us can then call to mind Tony "whiter than white" Blair, that pretty straight kind of guy. We might also have certain opinions about the cash nexus and state honours. Even in government, or especially in government, Labour needed the money. But, if anything, Iraq excepted, made Blair's departure inevitable it was the simple, growing, commonplace opinion that he was damaged goods, tainted, and "just like all the rest".

My suspicion is that Mr Brown and his moral compass will head south in a like fashion when next we select a Commons. The significance of Mr Hain and his problem with receipts is that it provides the first serious evidence of Labour's vulnerability. Unlike the phoney election campaign of last autumn, ironically enough, David Cameron is in with a real shout, finally. I and the grit in my teeth think the Etonian can win.

That settled, of course, we can all then settle down to asking about the millions the noble, footloose Lord Ashcroft doles to the Tory party, and about where his lordship pays his many taxes. Democracy will have been renewed. Apparently.

Does it matter if "they're all the same"? At the very least, we would all know where we stood, or stand. We might cease to vote en masse, being rational, and then ask if anyone noticed a blind bit of difference. But corruption is not necessarily a bar to good government, history suggests. Stupidity is a different matter. Which brings us back to Mr Hain.

Why so complicated? No political scheme, innocent or otherwise, requires such elaboration, so many misdirections, so much gaudy scenery. To put it bluntly: if you really want to make a campaign seem dodgy, just invent a think tank that never issues so much as a press release. Then fail to report a ton of money.

In its early days, New Labour claimed the attention even of its opponents by flaunting cleverness. These were the extra-smart boys and girls, after all, the ones who never put a foot wrong. Yet Mr Hain looks remarkably dumb, at best, and he has made his former boss appear very stupid. Voters are liable to notice. Sleaze, stupidity and stupor: rebuild a government on those foundations.

Opponents should not get too carried away. Tory problems, with Lord Ashcroft and those 50K donors' "clubs", still lurk. The Liberals cannot or will not wash their hands of money provided by a convicted criminal. As it hunts Ms Alexander, meanwhile, the SNP has yet to remember the difference between what is legal and what is right. It's not my business, particularly, but I would want Brian Souter and Donald Trump off my CV before I lectured anyone about propriety.

I have yet to meet anyone much fussed, this week, over the fate now befalling Peter Hain. Such is the indictment. No-one cares, or even pretends to be surprised any more. The usual is the usual.

Conventionally, I should, therefore, add that a lack of trust, a belief that the political class deserves no faith, is bad for democracy. I'm not so sure. Society has a habit of evolving around failed institutions, of enveloping them like moss on a damp rock, and of persisting. Democracy and parliamentarians are not, after all, one and the same thing.

The state funding of parties? If you mean only to institutionalise corruption, and entrench power, that counts as an excellent idea. The alternative might be to give them nothing at all beyond the median wage. No more helicopter trips and glossy videos, no more very special press advisers and gold-plated pensions. It would count, I believe, as an interesting experiment.

Mr Hain sought only to serve the good people of a Welsh constituency, to run one of the biggest welfare spending departments of the Westminster state and to become the loyal deputy leader of a great political movement. Why on earth would I doubt such a paragon? Perhaps because I am bored with those fairy tales.