Downing Street staff contacted National Bullying Helpline

The National Bullying Helpline has just put rocket boosters under the allegations about Gordon Brown’s behaviour with a statement saying that Downing Street staffers have contacted it with complaints about the Prime Minister’s behaviour. Here’s the most significant passage from it:

“Over recent months we have had several inquiries from staff within Gordon Brown’s office.

“Some have downloaded information; some have actually called our helpline directly and I have spoken to staff in his office.”
I suspect this means that the story is now going to run and run. Certainly, every media organisation will now be trying to find those in Brown’s office who contacted the helpline. 

Peter Mandelson’s performance on Marr this morning was generally effective. But his comment that ‘I would like to think that I took my medicine like a man’ was a strategic misjudgement as it is the kind of language that is bound to infuriate people who work in the anti-bullying field.