Johnny Innes
For a while now I've been getting the LunchtimeLists from this site. Although I hardly post comments, and have only posted one other blog here before, I enjoy reading all the great stuff on the site and appreciate the work Derek Draper does for the online Left community.
After first hearing about these stories of recent events, I was a tad worried about the effect it could have not only on LabourList, but on the Labour party as a whole. However, reading into it (and please don't take this as me being insensitive to those involved), is there really much of a story in this, or is it just Easter?
Two guys, okay one working for the government at the time, sending emails about a possible, I did put possible in bold, idea of setting up a "gossip" site to combat what was already in place for the right wing, and then scrapping that idea. I must ask, where is the story exactly?
Fair enough it was a stupid idea, but if I wanted this kind of thing I could pick up a selection of tabloid newspapers or go on other more right wing sites via the internet. So why is the news coverage continuing on from their initial "story" from the Sunday papers and criticising other parts of the media or others blogs?
Deary me, the boy holding two fish on the front of the Observer (Scottish version) seemed to have more potential of being an interesting article than this main story. "Boy Catches Fish" should have been in big letters across the front of the paper instead, as it had the possibility of keeping me awake if that were on page five instead of this snooze piece!
Am I just being miserable perhaps and want to moan?
I realy should put a conclusion...
NON STORY NON STORY NON STORY NON STORY NON STORY MEGALolZ1!!!!!!!111
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It's news because it looks like the PM has been lieing to keep his job come next June. Although in keeping with your headlines can I suggest:
"Electorate smell something fishy about Brown"
- lead news item on both BBC and ITV news tonight
- friends & family (from all 3 political sides) saying Brown should go and they think he knew all along
Good job I haven't got Draper's ego though as keep getting asked how I knew all this was brewing. Now having to email said friends and family links to various blogs, including this one (hello Mum).
Oh and before anyone comments, I have seen my birth certificate ;-)
What about Jo Moore? She had exquisite timing and, not unlike McBride & Co.,was found out too.
Oh, and one last thing I'd like you to answer... Despite being asked by many people, both on this site and in the MSM, Draper has so far been unable to produce copies of the emails where he or his chums decided not to go through with the idea. Why is that? The whole episode in now in the public domain. If it is indeed true that these were just ideas, and they decided to knock the idea on the head, why not produce the email evidence that will back them up?
If this was the other way around, and it was the Tories that were responsible, your conclusion would have read "nasty tories nasty tories nasti tories"
McBride could have been offed a couple of years ago, or if not then after his 3AM press briefing at conference in September.
All parties have these people among their number.
What makes you so confident about that?
Because Damian McBride has assured you in writing - no body language to read there - that that's the case? Catch yourself on! Because Derek Draper has assured you with hardly any loss of eye contact, squirming or mumbling that that's the case? Catch yourself on again! Because any other person - assured by these dissembling chancers - have repeated this line? Catch yourself on yet one more time!
Even Gordon Brown, who knows McBride is a bit of a sleazebag if he knows nothing else, has had to cover himself by saying "I have been assured" rather than "I am certain".
He's not sure of some of the other characters he has in his bodyguard. He should call on all his staff to come clean to him immediately on any ticking time bombs they are aware of. And he should move EVERY ONE OF THEM whose underlying honesty and integrity and human judgement he is unsure of.
I don't think for one moment that all this poison would have seen the light of day without Guido's assist. Frances Osborne in particular is a non-combatant. Lines about her would surely not have been used? Surely not?? Even if Tories and Guido have continued with mental health lines related to Blair and Brown and Booth. We're better than that.
But I do think that some of the rest of this would have been used, at some strategic moment. McBride may have been using some of it in his day to day jollies with the sleazier hacks he liked to hang out with. They'll "protect their sources" but they'll still know. And some of them will develop ways and means of letting such things out. Their next pay cheque depends on filling those pages up.
Some of it, almost all of it - according to John Torode of The Spectator speaking on BBC TV on Saturday night - was old hat tea room, lobby gossip. McBride hadn't even made most of it up. He'd just assembled it. Tweaked it. Selected the most outstanding attack lines, in his opinion.
In an "if there were no limits" thought experiment. Set up by Draper. Who emailed McBride at work. And incredibly they stuck all this in an email. And incredibly an email from his work address too. Layer upon layer of foolishness and incompetence.
As Alistair Campbell said it is not only the wrong family of attack lines altogether when there is an existential political battle to be had, but also so incredibly clumsy.
I believe that David Cameron's tragic family bereavement *might* have been the moment when the harm of all this finally dawned on drunken Damian and stumblebum Draper. This may be at the centre of the next instalment from Mister GuF.
Finally I believe that there is bound to be far more to come from Guido. Whatever we may feel about the way he works no-one can deny that he is persistent and resilient when he's pursuing leads. He has some.
This is less of a story if this dark arts operation really was stood down. It seemed to be like Dog Doesn't Bite Man. But even at that it's become a pretty toxic story. I've been surprised. But then again the papers may be privy to more than the rest of us at this stage. They may have had a better idea where this was going all along.
Many folk outside the village will not be interested in the slightest. More concerned about potential Hospital Cuts under Tories, and whether there will be help for the Jobless, than whether some foul mouthed bad boys were plotting to do tell some fibs.
It has got to be policy differences that we concentrate on. And the fact that as incumbents we have a track record and we can do things.
Next time you send a silly email at work will you be handing in your resignation?
Cameron and the Tories started a fight but are they big enough to finish it?
Meanwhile the rest of this live in the real world where these vile obnoxious activities have just screwed a personal apology (of sorts) from the PM
Allow me to rephrase that for the hard of thinking...
"A civil servant who is paid from our taxes was caught out plotting to spread (possibly libelous) rumours about opposition MPs in order to influence the way the public perceives that party."
Whereas, the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers states...
"Special Advisers should not use official resources for Party political activity. They should avoid anything which might reasonably lead to the criticism that people paid from public funds are being used for party political purposes."
I'm sorry to sound dramatic, but what we are talking about here is nothing less than the subversion of our democracy by an employee of government. It is fundamental to our political system that the civil service stays out of party politics.
Why is it that the Left acts like a maiden aunt, desperately lifting its skirts in an attempt to keep clean while traipsing through the mud bath that is practical politics? Why, when faced with the avalanche of right wing unregulated filth in the blogosphere, do we have to thumb our 'bibles' and fight the good fight, when what we should be doing is wearing large boots and kicking the crap out of hyenas like Guido? Yep, I see the argument about taking the high road... and it is undoubtedly the case that this is a squalid game... but if the school bully hits you, you hit him back - harder, and, if possible, in the balls.
Err, Mr Draper seems to working very hard, and very successfully, for the Conservative Party and Mr Cameron.
Make of that what you will.
I suppose it doesn't sit well with
The rules were already clear that advisers should avoid personal attacks