Another Question Derek Draper Can't Answer

Another Question Derek Draper Can't Answer

Iain Dale 12:22 AM

An interesting snippet from Victoria Macdonald's report on Channel 4 News tonight...

When Derek Draper was asked by Channel 4 News tonight if he had discussed the Red Rag website with the Prime Minister at their lunch at Chequers, he referred us to the Downing Street Press Office.

Now why would he do that, I wonder?

Red Rag Was Registered to the House of Commons

Iain Dale 12:17 AM

The Times has a potential scoop HERE. They have discovered that the Red Rag website, planned by Derek Draper, Derek McBride, Charlie Whelan and Kevin Maguire, was registered to the House of Commons. I wonder which MP's office it was registered to. No, stop it.

Well, I guess it keeps the story going for another day, as the hacks try to sniff out which MP will be fingered for it. Of course, the only way of tracking the person down would be for the registration company, Easily, to release the credit card details of the person who purchased the domain name, or Nominet to release their contact details. And they would never do that, would they? Well would they?

One thing you can bet though is that whoever Ollie Cromwell is, he or she will have found it irresistible to gossip about what they had done. "Now you can't tell anyone this, but..." And then the other person will share the secret and in the end someone will share it with a journalist or a blogger.

The truth will out.

Alice Miles: We Journalists Are to Blame

Iain Dale 10:00 PM

Got. It. In. One. Alice Miles writes in tomorrow's Times that journalists are to blame for going along with the smears.

On the one hand, as one victim of hostile Downing Street briefings puts it: “If somebody at No 10 is saying that Harriet Harman is having a mental breakdown, journalists are justified in running it.” On the other hand, as another victim of Mr McBride’s sees it: “It takes two to tango – you need McBride and you need the flopsy-bunny journalists who will just take the line.” I think they should be clearer about where the line is coming from, and why.

Do you see what I did just then? I placed in your head the creeping falsehood that perhaps Ms Harman might be having a mental breakdown; because if someone has suggested that No 10 might be saying it, then perhaps No 10 is saying it, and perhaps it is saying it because it might be true?

And you will remember, long after you forget everything else in this article, that someone once told you that Harriet Harman was mentally ill. And that is precisely how the poisoners operate.

Read her article HERE.