Byers behaves like a fool - but will it affect polls?

It is hard to judge emerging political scandals by normal standards in the run-up to a general election. Instead of asking what on earth Downing Street or the Commons are going to do about Stephen Byers, Patricia Hewitt and Geoffrey Hoon, the immediate question is: how will this latest shameful episode affect the opinion polls?

If the evidence of the past couple of months is anything to go by, probably not at all. Indeed, the Conservatives are more likely to get a boost from today's happy news of Samantha Cameron's pregnancy, than from another parliamentary 'cash for access' scandal.

According to a joint Sunday Times and Channel 4 Dispatches investigation, Byers, Hewitt and Hoon - all three of them recent Labour Cabinet ministers - appear to have offered themselves for hire to influence government policy on behalf of anyone who will pay them a decent whack to do so.

Stephen Byers is the shadowy arch-Blairite who was once transport secretary and trade and industry secretary and was even in the running for the party leadership - though no one could quite remember what he looked like until his mugshot was plastered across the Sunday papers. He actually described himself to an undercover reporter - posing as the representative of a US- based lobbying company - as a "bit like a sort of cab for hire". (He was never known for being articulate.)

Not only did he fall hook, line and sinker for the undercover reporter's offer of potential work, and fail to spot the hidden camera in the pot pourri sitting rather obviously in the centre of an otherwise bare table, he then started boasting about how effective a lobbyist he could be.

By apparently bending the ear of the current transport secretary Lord Adonis, he claimed he had been able to save hundreds of millions of pounds for National Express. And because he had Lord Mandelson's phone number, he had been able to do Tesco's a favour and get Mandy to soften proposals for "over-bureaucratic" food labeling, thus, presumably, saving the supermarket giant a potential fortune too.

Asked by the undercover reporter what this sort of service would cost his fictitious lobbying company, Byers responded: "It's usually between £3,000 and £5,000 a day, that's the sort of wage." Expenses would be on top of that. Naturally.

However, after all this boasting, Byers sent an email to the organisers of his interview the very next day saying that he had "overstated" his achievements at changing government policy. "This means that I have not spoken to Andrew Adonis... or Peter Mandelson about the matters I mentioned," he wrote.

Quite why he changed his mind so quickly is, of course, the subject of a guessing game in Westminster. Did he smell a rat, or did he simply realise he'd been an absolute fool for confiding this stuff - whether it was made up or not - to complete strangers.

Either way, he issued a statement on Sunday afternoon in which he said: "I am confident that any investigation from the standards commissioner will confirm that I have always fully complied with the MPs' code of conduct. I have never lobbied ministers on behalf of commercial organisations and have always fully disclosed my outside interests."

Patricia Hewitt, a former health secretary, told the undercover reporter that she, too, could help  influence legislation. "If you've got a client who needs a particular regulation removed, then we can often package that up [for a minister]," she said.

Asked for examples of the sort of magic she might be able to work, Hewitt told how she had arranged for a private mental health service provider called Partnerships in Care (PIC) to give evidence to the Bradley Report, a government study into the care of criminals with mental health problems. Until her interjection, she suggested, Lord Bradley was only hearing evidence from the public sector.

Geoff Hoon was less boastful than Byers and Hewitt, but then Geoff, never the sharpest axe in Labour's woodshed, probably had less to be boastful about. Like the other two, the former defence secretary is due to quit parliament at the general election. He said at his 'interview' with the undercover reporter that he was interested in "translating my knowledge and contacts about the international scene into something that frankly makes money".

He didn't really fancy being a lobbyist, he said, but he would be happy to be paid to give "strategic advice".

This, of course, has to be one of the biggest jokes in modern political history. Why any corporation would pay good money for strategic advice from "Buff" Hoon is beyond comprehension.

So, where does all this leave Gordon Brown's government, still trying to save its bacon in the upcoming election? It's not a total disaster because all three ex-ministers are Blairites, two of whom - Hoon and Hewitt - were even involved in the abortive coup to replace Brown with David Miliband back in January. Little wonder that Miliband was one of the more vociferous members of the government yesterday, telling Sky News he was appalled by the Sunday Times revelations.

As for the electorate, they're most likely to chalk this up to the same culture of sleaze and irresponsibility they blamed for the long-running expenses saga: "Politicians? They're all the bloody same. Only in it for themselves." (Needless to say, all three ex-ministers figured in last year's expenses story.)

The fact is that the various scandals that have popped up thus far during the general election run-in have made precious little difference to the opinion polls. Neither the Ashcroft tax disclosure nor the claim that Brown bullies his staff have had any noticeable effect.

David Cameron has demanded that Brown launch an immediate inquiry into the 'cash for access' allegations. It might do him some good in the polls, but the Mole's guess is that the cabin crew strikes at BA and the questions raised by the Unite union's close relationship with Labour will continue to serve him better.

As I wrote last week, this is an issue Cameron and his team can really get their teeth into. The first big change in party fortunes, according to the Sunday Times' weekly YouGov polls, came after last week's media coverage of the strike, with the Tories opening up a seven-point lead over Labour. A couple of weeks ago, it had closed to four points.

'Politicians for Hire', Dispatches, C4, 8.0 pm tonight. ·