Those words come from a Tory briefing from 1979 highlighted by Alistair Cooke on the BlueBlog. Nothing much changes, eh? Click here to read more of Alistair Cooke's post and scan through the archived documents.
I wondered this morning whether the words "I am sorry" would pass Gordon Brown's lips over the emails sent by his (now former) chief strategist Damian McBride, which planned to smear a number of Conservative politicians. Well, a good five days after the Conservatives first demanded such an apology, it appears to have been forthcoming. […]
Nadine Dorries has made clear her views about being a subject of the planned Labour smear operation and Gordon Brown's reaction to it over the last few days, as did David Cameron yesterday. The other named Conservative who was a subject of the McBride emails, George Osborne, has now broken his silence. He has seen […]
Yesterday, shadow Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude wrote this letter to Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell asking a number of questions raised by the Damian McBride "Smear-gate" affair. I am seeking a full text of the letter. The full text of the scanned letter is at the bottom of this post, but fails to give direct […]
Labour's painting of the Conservatives as "Tory Toffs" spectacularly backfired at the Crewe and Nantwich by-election last year. Yet just last week – pre-"Smeargate" – there was speculation that Labour was planning a series of attacks for the general election campaign which would depict David Cameron and George Osborne as "rich toffs who haven’t a […]
Shadow Cabinet Office Minister, Francis Maude MP, has written a letter to the Cabinet Secretary Gus O'Donnell asking eight questions relating to the Damian McBride revelations. The letter is published in full below:
Downing Street will be furious that Guido Fawkes' huge scoop – that started to emerge on Saturday – has still not been closed down. It is still leading this morning's broadcast bulletins and newspapers. Any advantage that Brown may have hoped to gain from the G20 summit has been sunk in Damian McBride's sludge of […]
Boris Johnson on McBride: "This McBride has been in charge, since September, of government strategy. He is meant to be coming up with ways of helping people through the recession. And what do we have? A load of pathetic and invented smears, with McBride egging on the blogs to mount false attacks not just on […]
The BBC also reports that the Prime Minister has requested that the code of conduct for advisers be tightened up to prevent any similar incident. Nadine Dorries MP, one of the Tories targeted by Damian McBride's smear operation, told the Radio 4 PM programme that she would be pleased to receive a letter of apology […]
LOSER: GORDON BROWNThe Prime Minister cannot escape responsibility for the McBride emails. As Jonathan blogged yesterday, the politics of spin and smear aren't a bolt on extra to the Brown-Blair years but have been in their DNA. In The Sun Trevor Kavanagh blames McBride's master for his behaviour: "There's no such thing as a badly […]
It has now been 24 hours since shadow home secretary Chris Grayling first demanded an explanation from Gordon Brown about the McBride affair, which became a fully-blown demand for an apology once the extent of the content of the emails was known. Shadow foreign secretary William Hague has now weighed in, reiterating the call for […]
No surprise that one political story dominates today's newspapers and that is the resignation of Damian McBride as political and communications adviser to Gordon Brown. After some impressive groundwork from Guido Fawkes, who brought the story to the attention of the mainstream media, it became apparent that civil servant Mr McBride had written emails from […]
Following Damian McBride's resignation late this afternoon, a Downing Street spokesman made the following statement: "The Prime Minister has accepted Mr McBride's resignation. Neither the Prime Minister, nor anybody else in Downing St, had knowledge of these emails. It is the Prime Minister's view that there is no place in politics for the dissemination or […]
Many congratulations to Guido Fawkes. The Prime Minister has apparently said that there is no place in politics for dissemination or publication of material of this kind but he has presided over a staff team long associated with these smear tactics. We'll get the grisly details in the Sunday newspapers and they will be grisly. […]
I suggest you keep a close eye on Guido Fawkes' blog this weekend. Guido alleges that a Downing Street operation, co-ordinated by Damian McBride – the Prime Minister's political and press adviser – has attempted to smear Conservative MPs, including George Osborne (and possibly David Cameron himself). Iain Dale describes the operation as "Nixonian". In […]