Britannia Radio

Here is another batch of 'horror' stories from across the media on 
Brown's personal character and behaviour.  What he gets here is just 
a tithe of what he hoped to inflict on totally innocent people and 
nothing like as vicious as he has dished out conrtinuously to 
competing politicians in his own party.  Have you never thought 
'Where are all the big beasts of the Labour Party now?'  - The 
Clarkes the Reeds, and the rest!  We're left with the Rottweilers 
trained by Brown to attack.
XXXXXXXXXXXX CS
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BBC "BREAKFAST" 14.4.09
(via Politics Home)
Dorries: PM's letter not an apology to me, about saving his skin

Nadine Dorries, Conservative MP

Ms Dorries said the letter of regret she received from Gordon Brown 
over the smear emails was about saving the Prime Minister's skin, not 
apologizing.

She said the personal letter she received from the Prime Minister, 
"expresses great regret for the damage to our politics. It's not an 
apology, it's not an apology to me.  [She had filth written about 
her. That's something organised by the "Son of the Manse" and he 
won't apologise to HER. It's not politics - it's morals - cs]

"What the Prime Minister has said is let's write a new code and 
therefore blame it on the code. That is not good enough.

"This is not about the Prime Minister apologising, it's about the 
Prime Minister saving his skin."

She said the emails reveal the culture within Downing Street to be 
"more about saving Gordon Brown and assassinating political opponents 
than saving the country".
===============================
TELEGRAPH   (Leader) 14.4.09
Gordon Brown can't pretend he did not know about the Damian McBride 
scandal
Many in Labour will have been sickened by the weekend's disclosures.

Telegraph View

It fell to Alan Johnson, the Health Secretary, to take to the 
airwaves yesterday to defend the indefensible, and a poor show he 
made of it. His brief was to spin the Downing Street line that in the 
wake of the resignation/sacking of Damian McBride for writing 
slanderous emails about leading Tories, Gordon Brown "has nothing to 
apologise for". According to Mr Johnson: "Gordon is not responsible 
for every single person who works for him, for what they did in their 
own time."

If this is the strongest defence Number 10 can muster, it does not 
augur well. How on earth does Mr Johnson - or anybody - know if Mr 
McBride peddled this poison "in his own time". The emails were sent 
from an official government email account, so let's just assume he 
was at his office desk when he wrote them, shall we? More important, 
to say that the Prime Minister is not responsible for "every single 
person who works for him" is pathetically disingenuous. It makes Mr 
McBride appear an inconsequential underling. He was in fact the Prime 
Minister's right-hand man, his director of communications when at the 
Treasury and subsequently, until his hasty departure, in charge of 
political strategy in Downing Street. Mr Brown was directly 
responsible for Mr McBride because he appointed him and promoted him.

The Prime Minister's attempt to distance himself from this scandal is 
further undermined by the revelation that the recipient of the 
emails, Derek Draper, was his lunch guest at Chequers a couple of 
weeks after the website for which this scurrilous material was 
apparently destined was set up. Of course, Mr Brown may have welcomed 
Mr Draper to his table to discuss economic theory or political 
philosophy, though somehow we doubt it.

David Cameron, one of the putative victims of these dirty tricks, has 
demanded an apology from the Prime Minister. Past form suggests this 
will not be forthcoming. However, it is not the Tories Mr Brown 
should be worrying about, but his own party. Many in Labour, who have 
for years felt uncomfortable about the news management techniques 
used by Downing Street, will have been sickened by the weekend's 
disclosures. It is not what they came into politics for. Tam Dalyell, 
one of the party's most distinguished backbenchers of recent times, 
yesterday described Number 10 as a "vipers' nest" and commented: "How 
do you employ a man like McBride in the first place? Do you think 
that Jim Callaghan would have given such a man the time of day? No. 
Or, for that matter, Harold Wilson? Or John Smith? Certainly not." 
And that is the question the Prime Minister has to answer.
===============================
INDEPENDENT 14.4.09
Leading article: A matter of character

Rather than basking in the afterglow of the G-20 summit, as he might 
have hoped, the Prime Minister has spent his Easter holiday writing 
letters. Some were personal, and properly contrite - to those, 
including the Conservative leader and the shadow Chancellor - who 
were slurred in the now notorious emails, sent by his media adviser, 
Damian McBride. One, to the Cabinet Secretary, Gus O'Donnell, was 
more of a gesture for public consumption, setting out how the code of 
conduct that applies to special advisers should, be tightened up.

Gordon Brown's letters are the closest he is going to come to the 
formal apology demanded by his opponents. He calls the offending 
emails "a matter of great regret", describes the allegations made as 
"unsubstantiated claims" and says he has "taken responsibility" by 
accepting Mr McBride's resignation and making clear that such actions 
do not belong in the political culture. This strikes a different tone 
from the self-righteous distancing coming from No 10 and Labour 
ministers since the story broke.

The harm, though, has been done - and a lot of it. Mr McBride was 
working for the Prime Minister. The emails were sent from his office. 
Who knows, if they had not come to light, whether they might not have 
been acted on for campaign purposes. The story may not be as damaging 
to politicians in voters' minds as the never-ending revelations about 
MPs' expenses - the public by and large probably regards politics as 
an even nastier business than it mostly is. But it personally wounds 
Mr Brown in a way that the expenses saga does not.

It is not only that he took office as Prime Minister with a promise 
to banish "spin". It is that his long association with Mr McBride 
casts aspersions on his remaining claims to public respect: the 
widespread belief that he takes a high-minded approach to politics 
and his reputation for common decency. Neither the adjustment to the 
code for special advisers - always an awkward presence in Whitehall - 
nor private letters of regret to the injured parties can undo what 
has been done. Character, deceptively perhaps, had been Mr Brown's 
strength. Now he looks like all the rest.
===============================
SHORTER REPORTS 14.4.09  [Extracts]
INDEPENDENT
I warned them that McBride was bad news
Andy McSmith recalls his dealings with the man who has plunged Labour 
into crisis

Warning signs that the political career of Damian McBride could end 
in disaster were already up and lit before he and his employer took 
up residence in 10 Downing Street.

His attack-dog style, blunt language, and fondness for drinking and 
talking late into the night were signs of a man who lacked the 
caution of a career civil servant.

McBride is a man of parts. When I dealt with him professionally, I 
was always impressed by how quickly and succinctly he replied to 
queries. And yet, though I do not normally consider it my business to 
intervene in the political process, I did attempt two years ago to 
convey a message to Gordon Brown, through one of his trustees, that 
it would be unwise to move McBride from the Treasury to the highly 
exposed position of official spokesman for the Prime Minister.
[- - - - - - - - -]
The trouble is that high-level politics these days practically 
excludes anyone who is not an obsessive. Anybody who spent just part 
of their life in the company of people outside politics would see at 
once what an appalling thing it is to be sitting in an office in 
Downing Street, using a government email account to purvey tittle-
tattle about the emotional state of a woman whose only offence is to 
be married to a rival politician.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
The Times
Brown's loyal attack dogs always bite to order
The McBride e-mail scandal follows a familiar pattern - the brutal 
and relentless undermining of opponents and rivals
Rachel Sylvester
By his friends shall you know him. Gordon Brown may not have been 
aware of the precise content of the e-mails sent from his head of 
strategy, Damian McBride, to a Labour blogger, Derek Draper. But he 
appointed the author of the smears as his chief media adviser, first 
at the Treasury and then at No 10. He encouraged the aggressive 
culture that allowed such nastiness to breed at the highest level in 
his Government. He honed the politics of negativity by concentrating 
on dividing lines with his opponents, whether Labour or Conservative.

The Prime Minister cannot just shrug this off as the act of a rogue 
agent. Spin doctors are like the daemons in Philip Pullman's His Dark 
Materials - not only do they sit loyally on their master's shoulder, 
they also reveal the character of the one they serve.
[- - - - - - - - -]
t's not just Mr McBride who is the problem. There is a laddish and 
bullying atmosphere to the cabal of advisers and MPs surrounding Mr 
Brown. Small talk revolves around football. Briefings take place in 
pubs and karaoke bars. The alleged coup against Tony Blair was 
planned over balti and beers. It is not surprising that Mr McBride 
begins his e-mail with the word "Gents" - the underlying misogyny of 
the rumours he was trying to spread is one of the most shocking 
aspects of the whole thing. "Gordon is from Mars and more than half 
the voters are from Venus," one female minister says.

There have for years been political assassinations, knee-cappings and 
punishment beatings for those who cross the godfather. I remember, 
during my first week as a lobby correspondent in 1996, hearing 
Charlie Whelan, Mr McBride's predecessor, telling another journalist 
that he would have "no stories for three weeks" because he had 
written something unhelpful to Mr Brown. I assumed he was joking. I 
quickly realised he was not.
[- - - - - - - - -]
The roll call of victims is long - and until now there have been more 
Labour names on it than Tory ones. When Mr Brown was at the Treasury, 
potential leadership rivals were taken out one by one: John Reid, 
Alan Milburn, David Blunkett, Charles Clarke all saw their ambitions 
sunk by anonymous briefings. Even Mr Blair was forced to leave early 
in the end.

When Mr Brown looked vulnerable last year, the young pretender David 
Miliband was accused by Downing Street sources of being disloyal and 
immature. Rumours have been spread that James Purnell is gay - 
something that is totally untrue. Alistair Darling has been 
reshuffled countless times by unnamed advisers. When the going gets 
tough, the Brownites even turn on each other. Douglas Alexander was 
hung out to dry over the election that never was. Stephen Carter, 
brought in to shake up No 10, was quickly seen off by Mr McBride, who 
briefed journalists that he was politically naive.

The Prime Minister is never personally involved in the dirty tricks, 
of course - as with all covert operations, there is plausible 
deniability. But Mr Brown cannot claim to be blameless when he 
continues to surround himself by attack dogs who bite on his behalf. 
Indeed, the Prime Minister is himself a naturally aggressive player 
on the political field. He has long argued that Labour should use the 
class card against David Cameron - something always resisted by Mr 
Blair.
[- - - - - - - - -]
A growing number of ministers are convinced that Mr McBride and Mr 
Whelan have in recent months been promoting the leadership ambitions 
of their old friend Ed Balls. They detect familiar tactics being 
deployed on behalf of the Schools Secretary, with a slow drip of 
negative stories about potential rivals such as Ed Miliband, Harriet 
Harman and Alan Johnson. This may be political paranoia but it says 
something about the state of the Labour Party that such speculation 
has taken hold.
[- - - - - - - - -]
Smear campaigns may fill a vacuum but in the end - as Mr Brown will 
almost certainly discover - they suck those who use them into an 
inescapable and utterly destructive black hole.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
TELEGRAPH
Brown should be judged by the company he keeps
Damian McBride and his friends made a strategic error: they embraced 
the politics of the playground, writes Robert Colvile.

By Robert Colvile

Your poll ratings are in the mire, the economy's unravelling, 
everything seems to be going wrong. So how do you get out of it? 
Simple - you start a blog.

I know, it's not a chain of thought that would strike most people. 
But within the Labour Party, there is apparently a belief that the 
main problem is not their cack-handed leader, nor the economy, nor 
what a friend calls "a general habit of ignoring everything the 
British public wants and says", but a few intemperate bloggers.

You see, people such as Paul Staines, aka Guido Fawkes, have this 
dreadful habit of pointing out when politicians act like idiots or 
hypocrites. Because Labour are in power, and because Staines is an 
anarchic, libertarian type, his targets tend to be toting red 
briefcases. Hence the perception in No 10 of a "gossip gap": the idea 
that the Tories, like the Soviets of old, have the potential to wipe 
out Labour's reputation with a first-strike salvo of innuendo.

Aside from their tactical errors - imagining Staines to be an agent 
of the Tories, and then entrusting the counter-operation to Derek 
Draper, whose flailing around the web has become something of an 
online spectator sport - Damian McBride and his friends made a 
strategic error: they embraced the politics of the playground. I 
don't just mean that they were immature. I mean that they believed, 
like a gang of nine-year-olds, that the best way to make David or 
Nadine unpopular was to make up a rumour that they had been kissing 
behind the bike sheds.

Internet gossip sites say some pretty nasty things - that's why 
they're fun. But at the same time, the kind of lies and cyber-
bullying envisaged by Draper and McBride tend to get exposed by a 
sort of communal cross-checking. [- - - - - - - - -]

. Gordon Brown has presented himself as a [- - - - - - - - -] high-
minded figure, guided by that famous "moral compass". Labour's leader 
should be judged by the company he keeps.