Spinning from beyond Downing Street

Andy Leeds

Well that's another one who needs therapy.

McPoison would be most ill-advised to take Guido on.

Flemingcrag

You get up in the morning with the fervent hope that the Guardian can sink no lower in the minds of fair minded people and you find that Polly Toynbee and Sir Michael White are now in competition with Damian McBride to see who can tell the biggest lie today.
Is their no depths this ghastly apology for Labour, masquerading as a newspaper, will sink to in its attempt to keep the Andy Coulson smeargate on their pages?

Jonathan

BBC headline: Brown aide reveals PM slur anger

The bit I don’t understand Peter, is why the BBC have given this odious man, a largely uncritical platform from which to broadcast his half-truth’s….

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8158483.stm

The above report is littered with whoppers. For example, we are told that when McBride ‘spoke to the prime minister about the messages Mr Brown "immediately agreed" he had to go’.

This might be McBride’s version of events, but it doesn’t tally with the facts. He did not resign immediately – but 24-48 hrs after the e-mails emerged; and for much of this time, Downing Street was claiming that the affair was a case of high jinks gone wrong – it was not they insisted a resigning matter.

Then there is this statement: “He [McBride] goes on to accuse former government ministers, such as North Tyneside MP Stephen Byers, of vitriolic briefings against Mr Brown. Mr McBride, who had a reputation for staunchly defending his boss, admits it was part of his job to respond to those attacks.”

So the BBC has allowed McBride to cast himself as some kind of innocent – a man who merely responded to ‘vitriolic’ attacks on his boss i.e. he was never the instigator of hostile briefings. Now the BBC must know that this is a distortion of the truth – but they report it without comment – why?

This is very poor journalism.

Major Plonquer

Sirs,

Just to remind you that 'Damian McBride' is actually a clever anagram of 'I Bad Mad Mincer'.

Damn clever the spoon doctors...

Kalvis Jansons

This was the reason I started this petition against Brown:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

Jonathan Cook

It seems very fashionable in Labour circles to bring up the memories of ones honest and dead dad as a tool to deflect criticism when caught either telling lies or smearing people.

Both McBride and Brown himself have been doing this.

Irene

Unbelievable!! - scathing comments from all the listeners who contacted the programme and one in particular said he hopes McBride wasn't paid for the interview - he wasn't - he sounded very like Draper, almost every sentence ended with "ya know" - it seems the big build up has begun for the Coulson interrogation tomorrow.

roadrunner

The Guardian came up with a non story about Coulson which was rubbish and now they have come up with another bummer of a story from McBride to try and get it running again, what a very sad outfit they have become.

Super Ville

With dismal polls and some commentators suggesting that Labour may never again form a majority government, then wheeling out old Brides-in-the-bath has a putrescent whiff to it.

Jeremy

"Whatever the vitriol that got thrown at me after I resigned..."

Hang on a second - wasn't this the bloke who resigned because he was caught preparing to fling filth at other people?

"I lost my dad three years ago. He was from a religious Scottish upbringing, very stern, and he would have hated reading those emails..."

Which emails were those, then? Do you mean your own? And can we drop the note of wronged piety, please? It really is not appropriate, in this particular case...

tenpin

Does anyone see the parallels with "I had a strict Scottish up-bringing" followed by lies, smear, and lies? From all of this I think McBride is desperate to return to his large salary in politics (I thought he was a civil servant?). If he does return I bet Draper isn't very far behind.

I just don't get it - is a strict Scottish up-bringing akin to some sort of purifying process - I was brought up south of the Scottish border so I guess I was brought up with no morals...

logdon

Kalvis Jansons
July 20th, 2009 10:03am

This was the reason I started this petition against Brown:

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/please-go/

I sent it. How many others share my disgust at the eventual wheedling reply?

Here it is....

You signed a petition asking the Prime Minister to "call a general election
immediately."

The Prime Minister's Office has responded to that petition and you can view
it here:

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page20043

Prime Minister's Office

Petition information - http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/GoToCountryNow/

If you would like to opt out of receiving further mail on this or any other
petitions you signed, please email optout@petitions.pm.gov.uk

logdon

Jonathan
July 20th, 2009 9:56am

BBC headline: Brown aide reveals PM slur anger

The bit I don’t understand Peter, is why the BBC have given this odious man, a largely uncritical platform from which to broadcast his half-truth’s….

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8158483.stm

Because they are a bunch of Labour toadying cnuts.

Blinky

Going for a job in a school now according to the BBC interview. Now then - who's in charge (in name if not in ability or interest) of schools at the moment. Ahh yes, the man who didn't know "Mr McBride"...

The Bellman

So Surrogate Daddy thinks McBride has done his time on the naughty step, and should be allowed to play with the other children again, as long as no one mention that Daddy made him do it.

Coming immediately after Jackboots' self-pitying interview in Total politics, more confirmation that in Westminster shame is related wholly to the news cycle and the attention span of news editors, and in the current climate has an expiry date of approximately two months.

Fred

Where's Dolly?

Chris lancashire

Kalvis Jansons: Very well done. Unfortunately Brown is as unlikely to listen to the 69,140 who signed your petition as of today. Fortunately he will have to listen to the general electorate shortly.

As for McBride, I have listened to his radio interview and the man is beneath contempt. Extremely puzzled however as to why he was given a virtually unchallenged platform for his unpleasantness.

The Laughing Cavalier

Westminster Village must be echoing with the sounds of hollow laughter. However, what is so very sad about all this is that some people will believe him. By Christmas he will have been "rehabilitated", by Easter 2010 back on the strength and spinning for No 10 in the pre-election campaign.

logdon

Let battle commence. This is war.

Guido's response.....

McBride : I’ll Get Guido

As Guido begins a month at Chateau Fawkes, Damian McBride surfaces to give his first interview. Speaking to the Guardian from a pub, they report

McBride has some unfinished business with “that bloke Fawkes”. “He sent me a text on the day I resigned saying: ‘You started it, I finished it’, he reveals. McBride, however, may not be finished yet.

Charming as ever.

You know Guido can’t be bothered to point to all the self-serving spin in the article. Suffice to say Smeargate wasn’t something put together in a few minutes as he claims, they had many planning meetings, including some at Unite’s HQ with Charlie Whelan in attendance. Lying again, that will be five Hail Marys Damian, what kind of example are you to Cathlic boys?

Anyway, if Guido was in Damian’s shoes, he’d be more worried about the wrath of Nadine than getting revenge. Now Damian has a job her lawyers will be able to serve her writ at his place of work. They had been unable to locate him until now…
Tags: Derek Draper

Nicholas

"This is very poor journalism."

Er, no. It's very good subversion, dissemination and propaganda. Exactly what you would expect from evil communists bent on the destruction of everything we hold dear. The wonder is that after nearly 50 years of Cold War, the revelations about Stalin, the fall of the Eastern Bloc, Cousesceau, Pol Pot and Tienanmen Square, not to mention our own experiences of socialist meddling and incompetence by former Labour governments, anyone still falls for this lying nonsense or still has the bare-faced audacity to promote any of it other than as a disgusting, reprehensible ideology (and that goes for the left-lite, luke warm, cuddly pretend bits that idiotic socialists in Britain espouse). Yes, that's right folks, Katyn was the work of the Nazis - my arse!

25% still believe in Brown and his gang of "former" Marxists? Incredible.

Olaf Rye

The Guardian will countenance someone like McBride because they feel that rehabilitating him somewhat, through providing a platform for him to present more lies, is good for the grand scheme of making sure some leftists carry on in office. McBride is a vile liar, and he will be taken care of by some leftist mob in recognition of his 'service' to the cause. I wonder what Orwell would have called this ?

Hawkeye

Two things:

1. Fraser Nelson goes off on his hols with a cut down mobile and the next day, out pops "The McBride Diaries". Typical!

2.Jonathan (9:56) asks "why the BBC have given this odious man, a largely uncritical platform from which to broadcast". For the same reason that the Guardian is doing interviews with him. It has finally dawned on the left that the game really is up - that they are going down, hard, to a massive defeat at the next election. Now they are closing ranks and gathering together trying to turn the tide.

We are in for a really nasty few months. As if swine flu isn't bad enough we now have the media swine preparing a good dose of bile.

Olaf Rye

Splendid posts from both Nicolas and Hawkeye--we must never let the leftists forget their adoration of the USSR and their apologies for systems that stripped people of individual freedom in favour of collective rights. However, I think we ought not to call it 'communism' but instead describe it as it really is: 'red fascism'.

David Ossitt

"'I lost my dad three years ago. He was from a religious Scottish upbringing, very stern, and he would have hated reading those emails. I remember thinking: 'Thank God my dad didn't have to see this', but the way Gordon reacted to me that day, it was as bad as telling my dad'..."

I want to vomit; these shit heads just do not get it.

We know them for what they are; low life, bottom feeding worms.

David Ossitt

Peter it is 7.14pm where are all of the posts since 3.15pm?

Kalvis Jansons

Even if the petition does not make Brown step down, it is getting a lot of people talking about the issues, so will help indirectly.

Andy

Lord save us from all those with a strict Scots Puritanical upbringing, I say! It seems to turn them into mendacious hypocrites.