Is sleaze in the eye of the beholder?

I see John Major was on Andrew Marr this morning with perhaps the most delayed repost in history. His point, that Labour are now mired in sleaze in the same way the Tories used to be, is open for debate. It does raise the question however of whether "sleaze" exists in any institutional sense, or if it only emerges when the public's tolerance for a particular party is running low.

If the Bernie Ecclestone scandal happened now, would it be a bigger deal than in 1997? I suspect so. This doesn't bode well for Brown, who will probably now think he's in a pretty unfair position. He didn't lose the child benefit data, and there probably isn't anything he could have done to stop it. Things go wrong and the problem with being a politician in charge is that you're responsible for things you never had any control over. Combine that with the public's lack of patience with the Labour party, and it all starts to build rather ominously.

If only the Tories had a proper leader, they'd be off and away.