But regardless of the individual culpability of some figures, this whole affair has highlighted the dangers of the waters into which our party has been steered since the 90s.

It is perhaps unfair of me to suggest that there ever was a golden age of internal party democracy for Labour, yet despite our faults, there was a time when the members set the policies of the party.

The development of the professional party, which in many ways is to be applauded, emerged alongside a centralisation of authority that is easily comparable with Vladimir Putin's rollback of democracy in Russia. And as the members have had less say in how the party is run, there has been a growing activation of apparatchiks prepared to promote unthinkingly the leadership's agenda.

I should admit at this point that I was once one of those apparatchiks and I have seen first hand the steps to which the the professional party will go to ensure the "right" people are elected to the most minor of party positions.

And so the notional "sovereignty" of the party has moved from the GC to the NEC and NPF to the MPs and then to No.10, with the professional party as their footsoldiers. No longer is the Chair of the Party considered to be the Chair of the NEC. No longer can party conference impact on policy.

But nevertheless, there is still that check that allows us to select our own candidates for elected office. Or so we think. It seems increasingly that parliamentary selections are "managed" by the party, even to the extent where the powerful stakeholders seem able to ensure safe Labour seats abandon AWS where there is a favoured son well positioned for a seat.

And within parliament MPs have independent thought virtually beaten out of them. So we are electing more clones, and very few of them have the sense of innovation or the confidence to prepare them for effective ministerial performance.

State funding of political parties would finally bury the idea that members can be any more than a supporters club for the centrally defined policies of the leadership. With the party even less dependent on the members financially than it is now, how long will it be before the party starts doing openly to selection shortlists what it already does openly in the selection of euro candidates? For the euros, a regional board selection committee - heavily influenced by the regional director, selects the candidates, with the members only influencing the order of those candidates on the party list.

The checks and balances supposedly available to the membership, the regional boards, NEC and NPF, are equally ineffective. I have seen NPF members whose election has been arranged so that there is someone available to be "on message" at NPF events. And after so many years of the NPF, how is it that so few members know who their delegates are, how to influence it or indeed how to get elected to the body?

The regional boards and NEC are equally lacking in transparency, with factional powerbuilding seemingly more important than providing oversight of the party's activities. Again, it seems like you have to be on some sort of inside track to even know how to stand for these bodies - when we should be encouraging all talented people to be standing for these posts.

If there is one person I will single out for criticism, it is Labour Party Treasurer Jack Dromey. It must surely be untenable that this man, who professed to have been kept in the dark once before, allowed it to happen to him a second time. It seems like he has valued the position on the executive committee of the NEC far more than the idea of providing some oversight of the party's financial arrangements.

This disdain for the views and contributions of ordinary party members seems sadly indicative of the general disdain for the public. Labour staff have been brainwashed to obey unthinkingly for so long that they have lost their love and faith in the "brand". That faith that would have led them to err on the side of caution on funding arrangements. How can we get that faith in the party back?

Though while this is framed as a criticism, it is also an opportunity to turn the tide back. If we restore party democracy - revel in it even - we will restore the teeth of our representative bodies and ensure party oversight grows accordingly.