On Any Questions this week Peter Hain decided to condemn me for a speech I made 14 years ago, without clearly having bothered to read it.

Uncorrected by Jonathan Dimbleby - who is usually careful about panellists making false and disparaging remarks about others - Hain claimed I had made a savage attack on single mothers.

The speech was entitled “There aren’t many fathers around here”. It put the case for fathers to be asked to make a financial contribution where they were not living with their families, a policy which both the Conservative and Labour parties subsequently took up.

What did I say about single mothers? I said “Everyone would wish to help the young family that has suddenly lost their father through death,or if the mother has been badly abused or badly treated by the father and the relationship has broken down” - savage stuff, Mr Hain? I went to say that if no relationship between the mother and the father is being tried the state should pursue the father - not the mother! “It would be better for the child and better for the family and better for the state if more fathers assumed their natural responsibilities”. Doesn’t Peter Hain think exactly the same on that matter?

Come on BBC, do your job - be impartial for change - stand up to the appalling Labour spin machine which makes up myths about opponents and then never stops spinning them. The BBC allows endless comment on me about things I have never said or done which Labour

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