Draper apologises but won't quit LabourList

Ctesibius

Since he is an obsessive, compusive liar this is of limited value. What is interesting, though, is his apology to Samantha Cameron. Because she has not been slandered in the released emails. What is Derek hiding?

I wonder

There is an open secret in Westminster about the close relation of a senior Tory. Why was that story - which is true - not in the McBride-Draper correspondence? Everyone on the Spec knows what and whom I'm talking about - and you can comment on this without breaking the omerta.

Prodicus

Keep digging, boys.

Aristophanes

No, please keep on.

AndyLeeds

Dolly and McPoison are just a symptom of the evil minded nature of Gordon Brown and the Labour Party. I hope someone mentioned in these emails sues them for libel.

Mark, Yorkshire

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/conservative/5135492/William-Hague-interview-Gordon-Brown-could-be-forced-into-European-referendum.html

James,

I'm surprised no one has made more of William Hague's interview in yesterday's Telegraph. Hague outlined some interesting points about the EU and referendums.

Any chance of an article on this ????

Silent Hunter

Draper! You're a L I A R !

Short the UK

Keep it pumping. Let us know why the Telegraph went out of it's way to support Team Brown.

Grunt

Call this an apology? He can't even get his math right - it should be 0.01%.

Interesting also to read an old blog post by Tom Watson back in February where he discusses Web 2.0:

"Groups can come together around shared values, issues and concerns with very low barriers to entry."

The point that needs to be hammered home again and again is the amount of support Draper and McBride received from the Labour Party hierarchy - not only for new blogging technologies, but its use in black hat operations. Ok, the latter remains unsupported by evidence, but it is an assumption one may be tempted to make.

A. Upton-Ogood.

Clearly, as you point out, the Draper apology and his original response to McBride are completely at odds.
Let's have more of this and related items as I (and others?) think that it hasn't yet reached its peak.

Dave H

Move on? Are you kidding? This is the most fun I've had since Dolly appeared alongside Guido on TV and lied through his teeth.

golfwidow

Speaker Martin's multiple homes and latest £8000 junket?

ludwig von mises

Draper's apologies are meaningless. Listening to him over the past few weeks it appears that when his lips are moving he's lying. He's inarticulate I lost count of his "you know what I mean" after 15 in one 3 minute interview

Tiberius

It's not boring yet, James, and I would say that I have found it difficult to articulate a suitable response to the sub-sewer level to which Draper and McBride have sunk. However nothing that derives from the Nulab creed surprises me.

On Easter Day, resurrection occupies the mind of many. The trouble with these two is that, I suspect, they don't actually think they've done anything for which they deserve to be crucified.

Publius

No, I'm not in the least bored. On the contrary, I think this affair goes to the heart of why government has become so detached from the governed.

The sincerity, the "unreserved apologies" when finally caught, the "caring", the "moral compass", and all the rest of the spin have been exposed for what they are.

Maybe now at last - just maybe - someone will have the courage to clear out this stinking Augean stable.

I think the politically astute can see that this has well and truly done for Brown. His whole bogus media persona is in tatters.

Marin

Some of us can't help lapping it up. Keep up the good work.

tenpin

I think Draper has got to go now (it has come close a few times - with him labeling everyone a racist or a facist who doesn't agree with him on LaboreList). LaboreList hasn't really made it and he is looked on as the Mr Magoo of the web. More concrning is that he is supposed to be a psychotherapist - god help his patients and god knows what they now think about him.

Better yet the whole rack of them should go. Gordon should call the election and the party that will clean up politics (expenses) and the streamline the civil service will get my vote - as my taxes are paying for this circus and it sickens me - I am thinking about writing to Brown and Darling and demanding a refund for the past 10 years.

Hysteria

How is this palying with the general public? My own view is that it will not resonate as loud a it does with the Village People......

PlatoSays

This is a once in a decade fest - do keep up the free online suicide note drama :)

kinglear

Definitely stick with it. This has far far far to go yet. I cannot believe Brown wasn't in on it.

TGF UKIP

James, given your previous post on the content of these e mails, is there any reason why their targets should not be sueing at least McBride. If the answer is no reason not to sue then it should be a test of just how serious in combat the Tories really are.

With regard to your PS, I don't think we Coffee Housers really matter James. We're just as much a bunch of political anoraks as you lot.

Far more relevant is the Joe Bloggs view which is, I suspect, they're at it again and all just as bad as each other.

Unless of course Dave really can emulate Blair and make it into a defining issue. Now that would be amazing - but somehow I reckon he'll choose not to, even if he could.

Steve

This subjest has a long way to run. The only reason McPoison went so fast is that Brown knows there is still more info to come and hopes that McPoison's resignation means the hacks won't dig. Keep digging, the assertion that Brown didn't know about this scandalous campaign in the making is plain ridiculous. This could-and should-bring him and his government down.

David

Surely the onus is on the various Labour ministers, such as Mandelson, and other apparatchiks to remove their association with Labour List until Draper resigns. Anything else is tacit approval of his tactics.

Tankus

best comedy ever

oldrightie

"But you Coffee Housers should let us know when we begin to bore you by going on about it."
I suggest that a very dubious character running this Country is not exactly boring. This whole affair is Brown as Brown can be.

Oscar

I'm hooked - keep the stories coming. Some questions. What precisely was McPoison's salary? We know it was in six figures but that covers a very wide range. Further questions. Who employs Draper? Is it the Labour party? How much is he paid?

David Ossitt

This Dolly creep is condemned by his own words; it is quite clear what the intention was.

"how we might set up a separate left wing “gossipy” site"

"We had been looking at the success of the right across the blogosphere and seen how effective their more scurrilous elements were"

"To be honest I think we were a bit dazzled by what they get up to"

So dazzled and so lacking in any basic decency that he could not see that they published truths that were uncomfortable for goverment; whilst he was happy to design a blog 'Red Rag' that would have but one purpose that was to publish nasty fiction as true facts.

A bit like New Labour then!

Susan Hill

James, I think you should keep a close watching brief on this and do not let anything slip past you but unless and until someone else resigns/is fired or there is more breaking news on it, then yes, time for something different methinks. And Iain Dale and Guido will be your eyes and ears in any case. Well done for keeping on at them though - the combo of every blogger and commentator doing that, exposing, revealing, and worrying away at it, meant the MSM couldn`t get off the hook any more than the tawdry, dirty little gang headed up by McBride.

Jonathan_T

James - this is an important story and deserves further coverage in my opinion.

A couple of angles that do not seem to have received much attention so far;

I) Further examination of the use of civil servants for party political purposes. (i.e. misuse of taxpayer money.)

Hardly a new issue, but worthy of reexamination, particularly in light of the the ongoing expenses mess.

Specifically, i) to what extent has Labour used and abused taxpayer funded civil servants?, and ii) how does the taxpayer receive value for money from 'special advisers'?

II) Further linkage to the lack of a Brown plan / stratagy / vision for the UK. (i.e. Pathetic false tribal attacks will not solve the debt crises.)

This seems to be a good opportunity for Conservatives to make the 'we are ready, Labour are a shambles' point.

III) Brown's judgement - why has he allowed his inner circle to brew up a cauldron of poison? (I think all Coffeehousers are well aware of the answers to this, but a few more editorials would not go amiss.)

As a final point, I don't think any further coverage of the influence of the blogosphere is needed. It is important, and will grow in importance - nothing else to say.

bachopfer

He's scumbag millionaire.

John Page

I'm finding it useful to have your guide to the multiplicity of comment about.

C Powell

There are 2 wider points you should focus on: (1) this is a government which has given itself the power to hack into our computers and intends keeping a database of all our emails, calls, web traffic and a host of other personal details; and (2) they also want to give thousands of people - civil servants - access to our medical histories via the NHS Database.

Given the absolutely despicable behaviour exhibited by people who were civil servants, we can have absolutely no confidence that our personal data, including - frighteningly - our medical histories - will not be misused by the state for its own purposes.

If this does not make the Tories realise why our right to privacy is an essential civil liberty and why the Tories should oppose - and seek to reverse - Labour's attacks on our civil liberties, then I despair. Labour has had form, in the past, in wanting to smear ordinary members of the public but it has now given itself immensely more powers to enable it to do so in a way which is simply not compatible with a free liberal democracy where the rule of law applies to all.

The Tories need to get real on this, fast.

Gawain

Dig deep and keep digging. This is the tip of the iceberg. ZanuLabour have spent 12 years using these tactics. The moment they start losing an argument they resort to buse and smear. They have targeted officials to protect politicians. Worst of all they have done it using the public purse. If we want to maintain our democratic traditions and above all a free, independent press it is vital that journalists do the hard drudgery of asking questions and shining the light of publicity on our political class in a professional and non partisan way. The web is becoming a great double check on official statements and the traditional press. Please keep it up.

RW

The Labour'sjustlostit.org thingy is effectively dead now in terms of credibility. Even Labour diehards are turning away from it. If Dolly "rededicates" himself to it, it'll be like kneeling by a grave.

Keep digging. Oh, and don't believe anything you read in your stablemate, the Dolly Labourgraph. There's more to come out.

Susan Hill

@ Jonathan_T... good point. The Civil Service used to be entirely impartial - as well as above reproach.

Alan Douglas

Bored ? Yes, with the whole corrupt mess that is NuLab. Don't you DARE stop digging at them, we need them skewered in the glare of publicity.

Alan Douglas

James

Continue, continue, continue. Help expose the mess that is the current polical 'elite' in control of our Country. And do us all a favour.

Chris Gilmour

Not so much bored, but this is trivial entertainment compared to learning that the BNP website gets more traffic than Guido and they're getting 20%+ in the polls.

Will M

No, no, please don't stop, keep digging a la Bernstein and Woodward. I'm loving this!

Bill F

Bored? Best Easter weekend for almost 2,000 years!

grannyblogs

Keep digging expose the rotton heart of it all. Nu Labour have been at this for years but it was allowed to go on because they were not the nasty party and they has too many friends in the media to keep it quite. The trouble is that when they came for the Tories no one was bothered but sooner or later no one was allowed any opinon or opposition whatsoever and now journalists et al have woken up. Shame on Gordon Brown he is at the heart of of this mess no matter what anyone says. If you own an attack dog and you let if off the lead you know sooner or later it will bite someone.