Lies, damned lies, and emails

18 April 2009

The Spectator on Smeargate

On Tuesday’s Newsnight, Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, and a former adviser to Mr Brown, denied the PM’s involvement, tacit or otherwise, declaring that ‘it’s not the Gordon I know’. This suggests that Mr Miliband doesn’t know his boss that well. He further suggested that it was time ‘to draw a line under this, and say “let’s get back to the issues that people really care about”’. Was the minister deliberately trying to sound detached from reality — or does it just come naturally? What the voters are indeed wondering is why, given the state of the economy, Number 10 has been busying itself with savage personal attacks on senior Tories and their families.

What will Mr Darling announce on Wednesday? The Chancellor knows his Conservative opponents are no more keen than he is to commit to painful tax and spending decisions ahead of an election. He may therefore do surprisingly little — some tinkering reliefs for small business, a belated ‘scrappage’ allowance to breathe life into the motor trade, a token tax attack on ‘the rich’ and their bonuses — in the vague hope that clearer signals of recovery will allow him to do more in the autumn.

Much firmer action now, particularly to control spending, is urgently needed — but we are not likely to get it from a government with its back so firmly pressed to the wall. The inner wiring of this regime has been laid bare and it is not a pretty sight: desperate men, resorting to desperate measures, with nothing left in the locker than a ready supply of poison and a pathetic pack of lies.

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Mike Tranter

April 17th, 2009 7:00pm Report this comment

"Mr McBride, who earned a six-figure salary paid for by the taxpayer"...how much is a nurse worth if the mendacious earn this much?

JohnAnt

April 18th, 2009 2:01am Report this comment

‘I am assured that no minister and no political adviser other than the person involved had any knowledge of or involvement in these private emails that are the subject of current discussion.’
Brown issued that statement so quickly that he could not possibly have had time to ask all his ministers and receive such an 'assurance' from each one. I suggest he did not do so. What he meant by 'I am assured' was 'I know who was behind it, and their complicity cannot be proved. And Whelan and Draper (who were sent the email) were not officially Spads, and if Watson - a junior minister - is proved to have direct knowledge, Brown can just say he didn't think to ask him.

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