The Prime Minister of England. But he seems a decent enough bloke. I find it difficult to believe he would ever have countenanced the kind of deliberate and malicious smearing of poltical opponents that one of his advisors seems to have suggested to another Labour figure.
Damian McBride, who has now resigned as one of Brown’s senior advisors, sent emails containing gossip and fabricated stories to Derek Draper. Draper is a Labour party publicist and blogger, who had proposed setting up a website called ‘Red Rag’ dedicated to gossip about Conservative MPs. Draper originally described McBride’s ideas as ‘brilliant.’
But the idea came to nothing. It was, as Draper points out, a few juvenile ideas tossed about by a couple of mates. They decided, after a few laughs, that it would be wrong to proceed in that way, and they didn’t.
The harm seems to have been done by British blogger Guido Fawkes, who somehow got hold of those emails and made them public, causing embarrassment not only to McBride, Draper, and now to Gordon Brown, but to the people mentioned in the stories. Without Guido, those bits of gossip and baseless stories would never have become public knowledge.
Guido’s allegations about Brown’s likely knowledge and approval of the plan seem to me to be just as baseless and malicious as any of the ideas McBride and Draper emailed to each other.
The difference is that McBride and Draper told no one else about their silly stories. Guido did. And now he’s making up some of his own, with the intention of doing exactly what McBride and Draper talked about doing. But didn’t.
Guido’s a right-winger and so am I. And as I said, I am no supporter of Brown or Labour. But fair is fair.
