Emails show that Charlie Whelan was copied into Draper and McBride's exchange about Red Rag

James

Absolutely Disgusting. And you paid for this folks , to be eminated from No 10 Downing Street. Nothing more to be said.

Salvatore

The initial Labour response was to the effect that this matter is a trivial adolescent joke.

That is obviously wrong.
So what are we supposed to believe?
Is it that Labour and Brown are just too arrogant to care what people might think about their schemes, or that they think the public are too thick to take notice?

And, when they try to limit the damage to McBride alone, will they really have any right to imagine anyone will believe them?

Perhaps their judgement and style in this matter simply reflect the absence of shame and excess of cynicism which is Labours signature stain across public affairs.

Susan Hill

Keep at it young James, burn that midnight o. Excellent stuff, you do us proud.

George Laird

Dear James

Derek Draper;

"I could do it and say LabouLlist had been sent the link anonymously".

A lying bar steward.

What a load of creeps Brown has drawn into his inner circle to attempt to keep power.

Bring on the election Brown, the country demands vengeance.

Yours sincerely

George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow Univerity

michael m

I note that the Labour hacks Pound and Bryne are out on the media trying to dismiss all this. the BB C News did not make one mention that MCBride is a Cival Servant and that the taxpayer pays his salary- clearly they have fallen for the Labour excuses

Helen Wright

I just read some of the "gossip" they were going to spread. I feel physically sick. Sick that they could try and drive a woman to the brink of suicide and sick that Brown will have been in the loop about their smear campaign and did nothing to stop it.
Every person in England should be ashamed of the British government. The British Parliament needs levelling and replacing with an English Parliament. Shameful and disgusting. I just can't get over it. That poor woman. I feel sorry for the men of course, but she never did put herself forward for this disgusting kind of treatment.

Nicholas

The enthusiastic comment by Draper seems to contradict this devious statement from Brown's bunker:-

"It is the Prime Minister's view that there is no place in politics for the dissemination or publication of material of this kind, which is why it is right that Mr McBride and Mr Draper took the decision not to publish this material and regrettable that others are choosing to do so."

Notice the way the statement tries to put McBride and Draper in the right (deciding not to publish) and those who have revealed the conspiracy in the wrong. This is consistent with New Labour attempts to stigmatise whistleblowers. It is not their transgressions which are wrong but the fact that somebody dares to expose them.

The Labour logic here is like that of a murderer who complains that had his crime not been detected everything would have been OK. The degree of pomposity and priggishness in the statement is remarkable given the very nasty sleaze in which the top Labour people, including Brown himself, are implicated.

Adam

'Red Rag' is a good example of Labour initiatives of late.
It never actually got up and running and has ended up damaging Labour.

Martin Keegan

Well, removing the email address stops us from seeing whether this was an email from McBride's work address or his personal private address.

JohnAnt

Martin, even if it was McBride's private address, even if he was doing it at 2am, he was engaging in an activity clearly contravening the T&Cs of his civil service contract of employment.
And as Nicholas has pointed out, the PM has implicated himself by pretending that Draper was not going to publish the smears in these emails when in fact Draper's CLEARLY EXPRESSED INTENTION in his reply was to ensure the information was published.
How does that make the Prime Minister look?
This is Watergate +++

The Huntsman

1. McBride was a Civil Servant
2. On any view and as the Prime Minister has conceded)McBride's conduct amounts to gross misconduct
3. Tom Watson MP was a Cc recipient of the emails which set out the details of the smear plot
4. Tom Watson is Minister for the Civil Service
5. At best he failed to prevent or punish gross misconduct by a civil servant. At worst he was actively conspiring with McBride and is therefore guilty of gross misconduct himself.
5. His position is surely untenable.

Grytpype-thynne

McBride's very first word is revealing of his nature: "Gents"

Ken

@Adam: "Red Rag"

Dirty Draper and his mendacious right-thing-to-do brigade might have been advised to Google search before registering their website.

See: http://www.redrag.co.nz/

Jeff Swanson

Derek Draper has insisted that this was a light-hearted email exchange between mates. That is absolutely not how the emails read.

They read like a senior person giving orders to a sycophant junior, and the junior clicking his heels and saying 'right away sir'.

It shows how Draper's enduring flaw is his desire to be close and useful to the powerful. Remember the line that got him in trouble last time 'There are 17 powerful people in this country, and to say im close to all of them is the understatement of the century'.

Stephen Gash

Spin is a four-letter word meaning lying, smearing, hypocrisy and bullying.
It is no surprise to me that Whelan and Draper are involved with 'spin' because, in my view, that's the kind of people they are.
The self-styled 'left' resort to 'spin' at the earliest opportunity because they always lose the real argument.

Fergus Pickering

This Draper is a bit of a Walter Mitty character, wouldn't you say? Except that Walter Mitty used to shave and wear a decent suit.

pauline

there is no smoke without fire, most people belive that the eaton mob like to pleasure each other so why all the fuss over an e- mail

Heather

What more do you expect? Alastair Campbell trained them all!!

victor heap

gordon brown should resign asap and give the country a chance to recover from his incompetence