IT’S time to pose a once-unthinkable question.

Is Labour sleaze now more dirty and despicable than the scandals that helped drive John Major from office?

Many thought it could never be a contest, given the daunting height of the bar raised back in the 1990s by Jonathan Aitken, Jeffrey Archer, Neil Hamilton and all the others.

It may be a decade ago, but who can forget those envelopes stuffed with £20 notes and Aitken’s “simple sword of truth” smashed to pieces on the steps of Belmarsh Prison?

But now we have Home Secretary Jacqui Smith effectively buying adult films on the taxpayer and the Prime Minister’s closest aide emailing sexual smears about the Conservative leader from his Downing Street den.

This grubby cast of characters will make In The Loop – the film version of the outrageous political comedy The Thick Of It – seem positively tame in comparison, when it opens tomorrow.

And, even before the eye-popping events of the past fortnight, there was the Ecclestone affair, the death of David Kelly, cashfor- peerages and Cherie Blair buying property through a convicted conman.

So, a close contest. Those keen to award the sleaze gong to Labour point out that – unlike events that have shamed Messrs Blair and Brown – the stain never reached No 10 when Mr Major occupied it. Shaun Woodward, the current Northern Ireland Secretary, who switched to Labour after serving the Conservative prime minister, still describes him as decent man, brought low by others.

In stark contrast, Mr Blair personally accepted that £1m donation from Bernie Ecclestone – before changing policy in his favour – and set loose his “attack dog”, Alastair Campbell, in the Kelly affair.

Now, senior Labour figures are coming forward to back up Tory allegations that Mr Brown has a “dark side” exposed by the nownotorious emails sent by Damian McBride, Gordon’s “Alastair”.

On the other hand, much of the Labour sleaze is as old as the hills, but went unnoticed before Mr Blair’s welcome reforms and new technology revealed it to shocked voters.

Yes, Labour has effectively sold peerages to donors, but the corrupt foreigners who bribed and bankrolled the Tories before 1997 were kept secret and will never be known.

Similarly, Mr McBride’s mudslinging used to take the form of whispered asides to friendly journalists before the blogosphere’s advent meant it could, fatally, go global.

Furthermore, no recent scandal can match Aitken acting as a paid arms dealer for the despotic Saudi government from his seat at the Cabinet table. Perhaps this prize is impossible to award and it is better to compare the damage inflicted on the Major government and on a Brown administration facing a similar, disastrous end?

On that score, an angry public will remember the Brown years for the dirty films of Jacqui Smith’s husband and Damian’s dirty emails, just as much as they link Hamilton and Aitken to the Major era. It’s that bad.

DURHAM North MP Kevan Jones is keen to be reminded of the county he represents, judging by his choice of painting for his Ministry of Defence office.

The Armed Forces Minister glances up to see The Southwest Prospect of the City of Durham by Samuel and Nathaniel Buck, noted 18th Century painters from Richmond, North Yorkshire. But what about the view from the north, Kevan?