The Tories fight back

jon dee

Mandelsons damning of Civil Servant Mr Galley brought back memories of the hounding of Dr David Kelly by Labour and their sleazy spin-doctors.
What a sick bunch they are.

strapworld

Typical Mandleson. Attempting to throw people off the real culprit...GORDON BROWN.

Ivy Eileen

"I'm not sure how much the Tories should push this issue at the moment" - true, up to a point. Yes, agree that shouldn't let him orchestrate the agenda - it's classic obfuscation. But a short, sharp response like this is all that is required to correct the narrative. In this individual's case, you can play the man ... and the ball will follow.

Mrs Campbell

Don't worry - they won't

TrevorsDen

Just seen a clip of state opening. Brown pretending to be nattering away to Cameron on their walk. Cameron quite rightly ignoring him.

As they entered the Lords Cameron clearly nodded whilst Brown clearly did not. Brown indeed was giving an impression of only being a green donkey jacket short of a passable impersonation of Michael Foot.

Good to see all our MPs keeping well wrapped up in this age of alleged 'global warming'.

dont like the whinging rich

Just remind me,

this civil servant who broke the Civil Service Code and who thinks he is best placed to judge what is in the national interest is a would be Tory candidate who applied for jobs at Central Office

Mark

Dominic Grieve is a man of integrity. I'd back him against Mandelson any day.

mac

@ dont like the whinging rich

"Just remind me"

Sure. You're myopic.

Mike, Brighton

dont like the whinging rich:

Just remind me,

which pre-1997 shadow cabinet treasury spokesman and then shadow chancellor forged his parliamentary career by embarrassing the Conservative government through a series of "leaks"?

Hypocrisy :
hy•poc•ri•sy
–noun, plural -sies.
1. a pretence of having a virtuous character, moral or religious beliefs or principles, etc., that one does not really possess.
2. a pretence of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude.

Nick Kaplan

The Torries should have made alot more of Mandy's return to office, the man has had to resign twice (on both occasions with a very good settlement paid for by the tax payer) on account of his own coruption. It is a disgrace that such a person should be allowed to return to government, why don't the media make more of this??

Liz Brown

@nickKaplan - hadn't you noticed that each time attention was turning towards Mandelbum that is was clevely diverted away - eg Osborne's Not accepting funds became a BIG story and all subsequent obfuscations. Remember too, that Murdoch needs Mandlebum on aide over the links between ITN and Sky. However, what depresses me is why the meeja (inc Speccie columnists) give to much attention to the oily snakeoil salesman

dont like the whinging rich

Mike

So no difference then between recieving and using information and

seeking information from some wee political careerist who betrays the concept of civil service neutrality for his own political advancement?

Henry Rogers

Don't like (the rest of humanity except NuLab it would seem),

I've seen a few TV clips this last few days of a wee political careerist buiding his career on leaks from disgruntled civil servants. And now he has risen to be First Lord of the Treasury.

Back in your box, Sir or Madam!

John Moss

dltwr.

Like the guy who fed information on German re-armament to Churchill?

Galley leaked information that was in the public interest as it exposed incompetence in Government and caused action to be taken to improve our security.

Of course, incompetent, lying, lazy Civil Servants don't want their failures to be exposed. Neither do social workers who fail to protect Children, or Policemen who take bribes or Builder's who fiddle their taxes.

Thgeir failures may not be crimes, but many of them cost us far more than those "crimes" which are pursued so vigorously by the Police and Government when we commit them, like parking in the wrong place and working out how, legally, to pay less tax!

Nicholas

I think Grieve's feisty response and attack on Mandelson is just what is needed. It's about time the Tories started some unequivocal slagging off of the whole bunch of petty socialist charlatans and their devious, manipulative ways. They should start giving Labour's lapdog BBC short shrift too.

I think they will find that some plain, no holds barred speaking against the Labour deceit machine and its creepy operatives will put the majority of the country firmly behind them.

And "dltwr", no lectures on civil service neutrality please after nearly 12 years of Labour's politicisation programme. People in glass houses and all that, eh? I think Mike of Brighton just about has it - hypocrisy - something Labour has always been very good at. Right up there with spin and deceit. Pity their skills do not extend to governing the country properly or displaying some honesty and integrity.

dont like the whinging rich

I did not vote Labour, Henry, so I would be careful about jumping to conclusions.

Your 26 year old Tory boy on the make wants to use his access to priveleged information to facilitate his political career and, it would seem, has a rather restricted view of his duty to the British taxpayer in the matters of discretion and impartiality.

Of course the "modern" conservative party uses people like that. After all, it's full of them.

dont like the whinging rich

John
This is risible.

No central British national interest was involved in anything this wee chancer leaked.

Comparing his grubby little activities to acting to defend the country from a real threat from a foreign power is pathetic.

You seem to imagine the only avenue for redress in each of the slightly crazed instances you cite is to run off to some self serving Tory toff in Parliament.

Really?

George Laird

Dear All

I have never been a fan of Dominic Grieve, he is a Tory.

However, I have to say that on a personal level, he has gone up a notch in my opinion.

He stated;

“I don't trust Peter Mandelson. I don't think he should be in political office, I don't think he's fit for it."

So say we all.

I can see why Mandelson wants to draw heat on himself; it is to take it away from Labour’s Stooge in the Speaker’s chair, Michael Martin.

Sorry, Mandelson, if you want to get your face in the papers to get on Strictly Come Dancing, this is not the way.

Just see them a C.V. and pick out an outfit.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University

dont like the whinging rich

Nicholas

I abhor the politicisation of the civil service and agree that Labour are guilty of that, as indeed are the Tories.

I would have the same view of this if the party political positions were reversed.

Henry Rogers

Don't like etc,

Whether you do or do not vote Labour matters not a jot to me, but you do seem quite happy with their party line. None of which is jumping to a conclusion.

Civil servants who leak are breaking the rules and certainly earn themselves the sack whether their motives are pure or impure. We can be sure that material damaging to the country's interests, as opposed to making ministers look shifty and generally useless, were not involved in this case. We'd have been told at once and with great glee if that had been so!

Politicians always have used leaked material to embarrass governments and our Gordon built his early career on doing just that. In my book he had a perfect right to do so and I'm not going to get excited about the possible political affiliations of his mole or moles. They doubtless had their reasons. I can't even remeber whether Gordon's moles were caught or not. The Belgrano and the cruise missile episodes were a bit before his time I think.

What is outrageous is the sequence of events which even now is still being revealed. If you really want to live in a dictatorship, this would be a good route to follow.

However, the more their mole-whacking plot unravels the more shifty and useless Ministers are looking, including our Gordon.

The threat of oppressive government is real enough but the sight of Ministers making fools of themselves is quite funny really.

Charlie T

dont like the whinging rich You are a slimy Zanulabour party hack. Your silly ramblings make that abundantly clear. The mock outrage, the inverted snobbery, the superiority complex, the base sentiments of hatred for anyone who has the temerity to disagree with you (and the party),the disdain for anyone who maybe one of those hated Tories.

Will Jones

Could someone who knows these things please clarify – was either Green or his mole acting against the law, and if so which law? It seems that the mole was in breach of some civil service code and therefore committed a sackable offence (I assume this is an official code?). But has a law actually been broken?