IF, between the lines, the call that Treasury chief secretary Alan Milburn is this week making to ministers for value-for-money action plans is really a message from the top telling them there is to be no high living at public expense, it will be a timely move for Labour.

For this latest round of sleaze claims - of ministers jetting off on Concorde, going on questionable trips overseas, staying in de-luxe hotels and enjoying extravagant entertaining - comes as too much tarnish has already tainted the squeaky-clean image the party offered to the electorate in contrast to the Tories.

Indeed, it is probable that Labour's election victory became a landslide on the strength of voters' anger at the sleaze that surrounded the Conservatives.

Certainly, Tony Blair seems to have recognised this in warning his team at the outset that they were not there to enjoy the trappings of power.

Yet, almost from the start, there has been a steady flow of sleaze allegations - the Formula One tobacco sponsorship row, Lord Irvine's ludicrously expensive wallpaper, Geoffrey Robinson's tax affairs and the home loan to Peter Mandelson and, now, the Concorde-class ministers - to spatter mudspots on Labour's whiter-than-white front.

It is remarkable that, in the opinion polls, Labour's rating has stood up so well against this damage, although dents have appeared lately and the party's immunity may also owe much to the Opposition's virtual anonymity.

But, as well as stretching the voters' tolerance too far already, Labour is risking a lot each time it allows itself to be accused of sleaze.

For it is not just that ordinary people may conclude that they are no different from the "other lot," as the contrite Mr Mandelson called the sleaze-sodden Tories in tacit recognition of how it had assisted their downfall.

Rather, it is that Labour sleaze is doubly-bad and hypocritical because it went out of its way to condemn the Tories for it and got elected as the party that people could trust.

Mr Blair must crack down on the champagne cork popping at public expense if the voters are not to deliver a backlash that takes away the power that the trappings go with.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.