Hain and Osborne seperate cases, but both wrong on donations

For perspective, let's take the word of Learn Direct, and say the base salary for Westminster MP is £60,675. This is corroberated by Tim Loughton, member for East Worthing and Shoreham, who despite being a lovely chap I'm sure, could use some help with the photo on his website; his eyebrows are positively haunting. As I'm assuming that both MPs are not fiddling their own expenses, the total income should remain the same.

Now to the two cases. In Peter Hain's, he has been accused of failing to declare £103,000, towards his tilt at the deputy leadership of the party. Now, being slightly ignorant, I hadn't realised that leadership positions in the UK Labour Party were not just the premise of its parliamentary wing (PLP), but of the wider party, including trade unions.
Quoth wikipedia:

The election took place using Alternative Vote in an electoral college, with a third of the votes allocated to MPs and MEPs, a third to individual members of the Labour Party, and a third to individual members of affiliated organisations, mainly trade unions.

So there is lobbying to be done, rather than hitting the phones over the weekend. Publicity needs money and the need for it is now clear. However, Hain's donations are approaching double his base salary, not to mention that his own funding was twice that of the eventual winner; something to be said for a lack of effective, "grassroots" campaigning on his part.

Half the donations flowed from a think tank called Progressive Policies Forum, which as far as I can tell, is an empty tank. I haven’t found anything published from searches of academic and other journals, and the only web hits come from the recent scandal itself. The conclusion to draw is that his bid was funded through a front think-tank, because front companies just don’t cut it anymore.

Hain has slightly obfuscated when he emerged and read a statement :

“I reasonably believed that the arrangements in place for my deputy leader campaign would be sufficient to ensure compliance with reporting requirements, but as it transpired, due to administrative failings this was not the case after early May.”

The Times seems to disagree with Hain's explanation, asking him to resign in their leading article:

The departure of a Cabinet minister from office for his failure to treat the rules with the honour they deserve would send a strong if belated signal that they will not be treated with disregard in future. [...] The search for legal loopholes would be discouraged. In different circumstances, Mr Hain might have ended up as deputy prime minister last summer. He should not remain as the Work and Pensions Secretary this winter.

David Cameron was naturally eager to bring the blowtorch to bear on Hain, but had forgotten to check whether his own party was in order. It emerged that his shadow chancellor had himself received £500,000 from the Conservative Party Central office, but had not registered it in his House of Commons personal register. Seven times his base salary. Emails have now been released, that show George Osborne’s attempts to have the matter clarified, and in an administrative sense, he appears to have done the right thing. However, such a large donation should be declared as a matter of course in a Members’ Register, so that his transparency and accountability is untarnished. The motivation to seek clarification seems to only to have occurred after the funding scandals that had rocked the Labor party (Lord Levy & Co).

So, as is often the case in politics, the lesser of two evils principle must be applied. Is it worse to be less than honest when accepting and then clarifying a donation that was made with specific conditions beneficial to Osborne? Or is accepting money from a think tank whose reasonable sole purpose is the provision of deputy leadership contest money?
The worst is Hain, but not far behind is Osborne. The minister of the crown, particularly with as large a portfolio as work and pensions, must consider his position. Osborne, should lodge the donation immediately in his register.