Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

How Whelan & Co. exploit Britain’s libel laws

The Charlie Whelan problem is intensifying for Labour, with more revelations in the Mail on Sunday today taking on from our cover story in this week’s magazine. Whelan’s behaviour may be no worse than that of Ed Balls and Gordon Brown – but he is more careless. Like McBride, he was actually caught: and his tactics documented in a formal seven-page report. Not the sort of document you want surfacing during a campaign. So it’s little wonder why Whelan used Carter-Ruck to try and deter The Spectator from any further investigation in the bullying case: it threatens to expose Gordon Brown’s entire modus operandi and the methods which he uses to control the party. And, for that matter, run the country.

The Whelan-Balls-Brown alliance was lucky to be able to cut McBride adrift and pretend they were shocked at the smear tactics he was caught using. In fact, McBride was a civil servant groomed by Balls & Co for his job as a character assassin. Now, in Whelan, they have another praetorian caught out using bullying and intimidation.

“It’s all a pack of lies” Whelan tells the Mail on Sunday. “I have been completely vindicated.” Unite says the bullying allegations “are totally false and without any substance.” Yet in the newspaper report, we learn that Sarah Merrill (one of Whelan’s victims) was given a payout “estimated at nearly £100,000” to sign a compromise agreement. Why shell out so much money if she was telling lies? Might it have been because she wanted a full investigation into Whelan? Such an investigation threatened to blow the lid of a far more dangerous story: the way that Brown had – through Whelan – launched a personal takeover of Unite and make it into his personal power base.

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