The Labour party is oozing away to defeat with the crucial question
unresolved . D'Ancona examines the entrails!
The second piece tidies up the McBride affair. What The Guardian
forgets to mention was that Draper had lunch with Brown at Chequeurs
after the McBriude story became public when they discussed Draper's
planned appointment to run a competing blog - "RedRag" - to the
somewhat scurrilous guido Fawkes blog! Guardian at the bias bottle
again?
===============================
THE SPECTATOR 6.5.09
The Labour leadership plot is brewing
MATTHEW D'ANCONA
Bits of plaster are already falling off the ceiling over tomorrow's
cover story in the magazine, in which (amongst other things) I reveal
a plan to launch a leadership challenge to Gordon Brown if Labour's
performance in the local and European elections is as terrible as the
party's strategists fear.
The idea, as I explain, is for a former Cabinet minister - "probably
Charles Clarke" - to test the water and see if he can secure 30 or so
signatures from Labour MPs. The plotters are understandably uncertain
of their chances and fear (as I make clear) that such a dramatic
intervention might be counter-productive, as indeed it might. Nothing
is certain, as I say in the piece. But there is absolutely no doubt
that such ideas are being actively discussed by senior Labour
figures. Of this I am 100 per cent confident.
Mr Clarke has, I learn, denied everything and complained that I did
not speak to him. True - and let me explain to CoffeeHousers why: in
February 2007, I was tipped off that Mr Clarke was about to make a
significant announcement. I called him and he denied the story
outright. So I was rather taken aback a few days later when he and
Alan Milburn very theatrically launched their 2020 Vision campaign to
define Labour's future.
The lesson I learned from that was that it was scarcely worth asking
Mr Clarke whether a story was true or not. He will have to forgive
me for not taking his denials too seriously ever since - and for
coping with his outrage this evening with equanimity. The air at
Westminster is thick with fear and loathing, rumour and denial. Who
is telling the truth? You be the judge.
The point is: the party has not yet been forced fully and
systematically to confront these questions. They have been, in the
language of Labour conferences, 'remitted' to a later date. The
closest the party has come to a probing and honest debate on its
future post-Blair was the race two years ago for the deputy
leadership, which was a pretty uninspiring business (from which Ms
Harman emerged triumphant). In truth, it suited Labour
psychologically to submit in 2007 to what amounted to monarchical
succession, just as - in the end - it suited Labour last year to
stick with Mr Brown.
His rise to the leadership by acclamation and his survival in the top
job have excused the party the philosophical inquest it knows it must
sooner or later conduct but which it would much rather postpone. A
horrible fork in the road lies ahead. Labour knows it must decide
eventually. But - for now - the slab-like obstacle of the Prime
Minister stands between the party and the moment of decision.
For Brown keeps the really searching questions about Labour's future
identity at bay. And they are indeed huge and forbidding questions.
Which is why, for all the sound and fury we can expect over the
summer, the PM will still survive and fight the general election; and
why, if Gordon did not exist, his party would have to invent him.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=- and the next day 7.5.09 d'Ancona's long main article
The Plotters Mean Business. But The Gordonator Will Survive ends - - -
[- - - - - - - - -]
The point is: the party has not yet been forced fully and
systematically to confront these questions. They have been, in the
language of Labour conferences, 'remitted' to a later date. The
closest the party has come to a probing and honest debate on its
future post-Blair was the race two years ago for the deputy
leadership, which was a pretty uninspiring business (from which Ms
Harman emerged triumphant). In truth, it suited Labour
psychologically to submit in 2007 to what amounted to monarchical
succession, just as - in the end - it suited Labour last year to
stick with Mr Brown.
His rise to the leadership by acclamation and his survival in the top
job have excused the party the philosophical inquest it knows it must
sooner or later conduct but which it would much rather postpone. A
horrible fork in the road lies ahead. Labour knows it must decide
eventually. But - for now - the slab-like obstacle of the Prime
Minister stands between the party and the moment of decision.
For Brown keeps the really searching questions about Labour's future
identity at bay. And they are indeed huge and forbidding questions.
Which is why, for all the sound and fury we can expect over the
summer, the PM will still survive and fight the general election; and
why, if Gordon did not exist, his party would have to invent him.
==============================
THE GUARDIAN 7.5.09
Derek Draper steps down in wake of No 10 smears scandal
. Patrick Wintour, political editor
The career of Labour insider Derek Draper has lurched from the
heights of power to disgrace and exile - then back again. Tonight, he
seemed set for another spell in the wilderness when he stepped down
as editor of the LabourList website in the wake of the No 10 smears
scandal. [He was the closest of all to McBride, Brown's disgusting
choice of confidant already reparted in ignominy (see my
"Journalists! - Doncha love 'em ?" of 4/5/09]-cs]
Draper, who was notorious in the 90s as a New Labour spin doctor, was
drawn into the furore after receiving an email from Gordon Brown's
aide, Damian McBride, outlining scurrilous plans to spread malicious
gossip about leading Tories, including George Osborne and David
Cameron, on a new maverick blog called RedRag.
Draper initially praised the ideas as "absolutely, totally
brilliant". But tonight he conceded that he had to go from
LabourList, a serious minded political site he founded as a rival to
Conservative- Home, after admitting he should "have made clear the
email was unacceptable from the beginning."
In his resignation statement given to the Guardian, Draper said: " I
regret ever receiving the infamous email and I regret my stupid,
hasty reply. I should have said straight away that the idea was wrong."
Friends of Draper said he had consulted widely over past the two
weeks on whether to remain editor, and the bulk of the advice was to
resign. But they insisted "he jumped and was not pushed".
Ministers had boycotted the site for the past fortnight, and the
party had cut Draper loose after the episode which engulfed Brown and
left No 10 mired in claims of dirty tricks and sleaze.
Draper said: "I do ask people to remember that its contents were
never published by me, or anyone else, involved in the Labour party
and they would never have seen the light of day were it not for
someone hacking into my emails and placing them into the public
domain. Because of that, a silly idea ultimately destined for the
trash can became a national scandal."
He also admitted he got the tone of LabourList wrong sometimes "being
too strident, aggressive and obsessed with the blogosphere." Draper
got embroiled in furious rows with other bloggers. He said it had
become clear "my continued editorship can only detract from what
LabourList needs to do now".
Draper will concentrate on his therapy practice and limit his
politics to delivering leaflets for his local party. It is the second
time he has had to quit frontline Labour politics. In 1998 he was
embroiled in controversy over lobbying.
The LabourList site is being taken over by deputy editor Alex Smith.
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