Cameron demands personal apology from PM over Labour smear emails

[Albus]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/apr/12/labour-conservatives-smear-emails

• Conservative leader is 'furious'
• Damian McBride quit over emails to blogger Derek Draper
• Charles Clarke says Draper's position 'should be looked at'

David Cameron is demanding a personal apology from Gordon Brown over emails sent by a senior Downing Street adviser proposing a smear campaign against senior Tories.

Damian McBride, one of the prime minister's closest advisers, quit over his email exchange with the Labour blogger Derek Draper in which the two discussed setting up a website to publish scurrilous allegations about opponents, including the Conservative party leader, David Cameron, and the shadow chancellor, George Osborne. The idea was still being actively discussed until a fortnight ago, the Observer has learned.

A Tory spokeswoman said Cameron wanted a personal apology from the prime minister. "David Cameron is furious about this... Gordon Brown owes an apology and he should give a guarantee that this will never happen agian. Damian McBride and Derek Draper should not have anything to do with the Labour party again."

As the government scrambled to limit the political damage, the cabinet office minister, Tom Watson, who was said to have been copied in on the emails, denied any involvement in the attempts at character assassination.

"I do not in any way condone the content of the email conversation – indeed I regard it as completely inappropriate," he said in a statement.

In a mea culpa on LabourList, a website for grassroots Labour supporters, Draper said of the emails: "They were destined for the trash can. But we should never really have considered the idea and I am sorry we did. We got ourselves drawn into the most negative part of the blogosphere when we should have been concentrating exclusively on the more positive aspects as a model for LabourList."

As Tories demanded a personal apology from the prime minister, the former home secretary Charles Clarke said the position of Draper should be "looked at" along with that of Charlie Whelan, once a key Brown adviser, who was copied in on the email exchange.

Clarke told Sky News: "I think there had been a pattern of behaviour with Damian over a long period, and I am glad that the prime minister has been decisive and got rid of him yesterday when this evidence came into the open.

"I think it is the case that Charlie Whelan and Derek Draper have been involved in this particular set of emails and their positions need to be looked at."

Clarke said the Conservatives, too, needed to drive the "black arts" out of politics.

"You have got to look at the fact that David Cameron took on Andy Coulson, the former editor of the News of the World, who was responsible for bugging the Royals illegally, to be his key media adviser," he said. "So I think it is a question across politics."

One of the smears was the false rumour that Cameron suffers from an embarrassing health problem. In another smear on George Osborne, the two claim the shadow chancellor's ex-girlfriend had photographs from his university days variously showing him dressed in women's underwear and with his face blacked up.

Tom Watson, the Cabinet Office minister, was also facing questions after it emerged that McBride referred in one of the emails to Watson "looking at other stories for LabourList", Draper's website. Downing Street sources insisted Watson had been discussing an entirely separate story about Labour party staffing to be posted on Draper's conventional website, rather than being involved in the secret gossip project known as RedRag.

Brown yesterday moved rapidly to distance himself from the affair, saying there was "no place in politics for the dissemination or publication of material of this kind". Downing Street insisted that neither the prime minister "nor anybody else in Downing Street" knew about the emails.

Senior Tories have demanded a public apology and assurances that Watson was not involved in dirty tricks, while the shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, accused Downing Street of descending "into the gutter".

Stories proposed by the two men in their emails include false rumours that David Cameron had an embarrassing medical condition, suggestions that George Osborne took drugs with a prostitute – an old allegation in the public domain that Osborne has flatly denied – and a final allegation involving the Tory backbencher Nadine Dorries and a fellow MP which the Observer understands is without foundation. Another supposed story involved a Tory MP allegedly getting publicity for a firm run by his partner. There is no evidence that any of the claims are true.

Dorries said yesterday that she had consulted a lawyer and was prepared to sue. "I am incensed. I wonder how Gordon Brown would feel if a Conservative Central Office employee sent emails with slanderous 100% lies about Sarah Brown?" she said.

When the existence of the emails emerged on Friday, Downing Street dismissed them as "juvenile and inappropriate", the result of two friends messing around with a subsequently abandoned idea for a gossipy blog rivalling that of Guido Fawkes, the Westminster blogger whose real name is Paul Staines.

In a statement last night, McBride said he was "shocked and appalled" that Staines had obtained the emails and handed them to newspapers, insisting that he and Draper had already decided "Derek should not take his online efforts down to the level of Guido Fawkes" and that their ideas would not be used. Draper said yesterday McBride had paid a "high price" for an idea that never happened.

But RedRag was registered and set up last November, and while the leaked emails date from January, the Observer understands the plan was only placed on ice this month. McBride's emails even set out the format in which the stories could be written up, suggesting pictures to accompany them.

Senior Tories are particularly furious that Samantha Cameron and Frances Osborne, the wives of the leader and shadow chancellor respectively, are believed to have been targeted. McBride confessed in the emails that most of the stories were "gossipy and intended to destabilised the Tories", according to the News of World, and admitted using "a bit of poetic licence".

The plan is understood to have been discussed with at least two other people including Brown's former spin doctor Charlie Whelan.

Draper suggested last night that his computer may have been hacked to get the emails. No breach of security at Downing Street was found.

[Albus]

1. We can't spin our way out of this

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/apr/12/labour-conservatives


My party has screwed up big time. It's insulting to try and portray Derek Draper as the victim of this sordid little mess


Tom Harris

guardian.co.uk, Sunday 12 April 2009 15.35 BST

I think it's important that Labour people make clear — and are seen to make clear — that this whole McBride/Draper episode (must we call it "Smeargate"?) is as inexcusable to us as it is to the rest of the world. There is absolutely no point in anyone in the party trying to spin such an odious sequence of events, in trying to suggest that it's less serious than the media are trying to make out.

To those comrades who might feel tempted to downplay this episode, to dismiss it simply as "two friends exchanging not very serious emails", I would pose a question: how would Labour have reacted if this smear had been aimed at the partners of Labour politicians and had been perpetrated by a senior civil servant in a Conservative administration? Go on, think about that before trying to dismiss this as a storm in a teacup.

And there's no point in talking up the question of how these emails found their way into Guido's possession. Do you imagine for even a moment that the electorate could possibly care less about that? It's insulting to imagine that this can be turned into a "process" story with Derek Draper's email account, or Derek himself, portrayed as the "victim".

Of course, McBride had to go — that was obvious to everyone with an ounce of judgment from the second this story broke. How could No 10 have even tried to recover from this fiasco while the perpetrator was safely ensconced? Which brings me to my next point: I can understand why the Tories might privately have hoped McBride would survive. After all, what could be more damaging to the government and to the prime minister himself than to be seen to endorse such behaviour by taking no action against him? The Tories were handed an enormous propaganda gift this weekend; to have protected McBride's position in No 10 would have made it the gift that keeps on giving.

So, yes, I can understand why the Tories would have preferred McBride to remain in post. But what on earth was Draper thinking when he told various media outlets yesterday that he didn't think McBride should have had to resign?

But this isn't about positioning or spinning or misdirection or whatever. This is about standards of political activity, standards that have fallen far, far below what is remotely acceptable, especially for someone working at the very heart of government.

We screwed up, big time. We have no one – absolutely no one – to blame for this but ourselves. The damage the Labour party and the government have sustained this last 48 hours has been entirely self-inflicted.

And the people behind this sordid little mess owe everyone named in these emails a very public apology.

This blog originally appeared on Tom Harris's blog, And Another Thing, and is reproduced here with his permission

[non sociopath skin]

2. Came to post that he's back ...

... but he beat me to it!

http://freebritannia.6.forumer.com/viewtopic.php?t=11922

Welcome back, BD. How was Andorra?

The Skin

[B Whale]

3. Derek Draper, McBride and Guido fawkes come to think of it

are pernicious little pea brained fuckers.

I think this whole thing is just... well shit.

(For the record i also think Cameron is a pernisious pea brained fucker but i don't think you should set out to lie about people just because they're pernicious pea brained fuckers)

aaah politics!

[non sociopath skin]

4. They don't deserve your silvery-tongued eloquence, BW!

:evilgrin:

The Skin