Tag Archives: damian mcbride

PMQS: Cameron promised faster wheels amidst squeaky bums

By Paul Walter | Published 17th November 2010 - 4:52 pm

What a relief! For a change, Prime Minister’s Questions gave more cause for Tories to be uneasy than it did for LibDems. Don’t get me wrong, LibDems care passionately about frontline policing. Of course they do. But the Tories tend to see it as more of a cojones (or should I invent the adjective “cojonal” here?) measurement issue – it’s closer to the nerve with them. So I think there must have been a lot of uncomfortable shifting around on the benches behind David Cameron today. “Squeaky bum time”, as Sir Alex might put it.

For once there was a good …

Posted in PMQs | Also tagged alan johnson, alastair campbell, brian donohoe, bridget phillipson, david cameron, harriet harman, harry potter, malcolm bruce, policing, ruth mackenzie, short money, stephen gilbert, vince cable | 18 Comments

What ‘Smeargate’ tells us about media news reporting

By Stephen Tall | Published 21st April 2009 - 8:35 pm

The last couple of days have seen a flurry of new, post-Easter weekend polls. As LDV’s regular readers will know, we don’t cover individual polls, preferring to round them up on a monthly basis rather than become over-excited by any one dire/fantastic survey which turns out to be a rogue. Brushing to one side the usual caveats for a moment, though, it does seem that the political situation has been left largely untouched by last week’s ‘Smeargate’ row over Damian McBride emails.

The Times’s Sam Coates is not alone amongst the media in expressing some bafflement: ‘broadly Smeargate has …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged ipsos-mori, media, philip stephens, sam coates | 5 Comments

Paul Staines: not the Messiah, just a very naughty boy

By Stephen Tall | Published 18th April 2009 - 1:56 pm

A week ago, Damian McBride was still the Prime Minister’s chief media advisor, and LabourList’s Derek Draper was attempting to laugh off as blokeish banter the emails which implicated Number 10 in smears against senior Tories. But, then, we know what they say about a week in politics.

Paul Staines, sole author of the Guido Fawkes’ blog, has had a good week, given ample, respectable print space to repeat a central point he’s been making for years: that those political journalists who are part of the ‘lobby’ system have failed democracy:

Though the fourth estate may not have a formal

…

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged alice miles, blogging, guido fawkes, iain dale, media, paul linford, steve richards | 11 Comments

The Lib Dems’ ‘Smeargate’ silence: well-judged or a missed opportunity?

By Stephen Tall | Published 15th April 2009 - 9:48 pm

Like it or not, there’s no doubting that the political story of the past few days has been Damian McBride’s leaked emails touting various smear stories targeting Tories. Yet visit the Lib Dem website and you will find no mention; tune into the news, you will hear no comments from party spokespersons; read the papers you will find no quotes. The party has blanked the story.

I do not believe for a moment that this is an oversight – doubtless it was a deliberate decision by the Lib Dem leadership and the new director of communications Chris Fox to steer …

Posted in News | Also tagged chris fox, nick clegg | 26 Comments

Opinion: Some legal aspects of the McBride Affair

By Antony Hook | Published 14th April 2009 - 7:20 pm

Nadine Dorries, the Tory MP for Mid Bedfordshire, is threatening to sue for libel over what was written about her in the McBride-Draper emails. I expect she may struggle because to succeed in court she will have to prove that damage has been actually caused (rather than a mere intent to cause damage) to her reputation. Politically, her threats to sue seem naive. Threatening to sue but then not doing so invites speculation as to why not.

The criminal law is, however, likely to be relevant. There is a statutory offence of defamatory libel …

Posted in News, Op-eds | Also tagged labour party, libel, nadine dorries | 14 Comments

When should a politician say sorry?

By Stephen Tall | Published 14th April 2009 - 4:22 pm

Damian McBride’s indefensibly puerile emails seeking to smear senior Tories (and Nadine Dorries) have left David Cameron understandably livid:

David Cameron is demanding a personal apology from Prime Minister Gordon Brown over e-mails sent by an adviser discussing smearing the Tories. The Tory leader is “absolutely furious” and is calling on Mr Brown to give a guarantee that such messages will not be sent again, a spokeswoman said.

Many will argue – no matter which party they support – that this is the very least Mr Brown should do. It does not matter that he is not personally …

Posted in Op-eds, Opposition watch | Also tagged conservative party, david cameron, ian oakley, sara bedford, watford | 2 Comments

‘Smeargate’: That Was The Easter Weekend That Was

By Stephen Tall | Published 14th April 2009 - 1:53 pm

I know it’s the Westminster Village story de jour, but I’m finding it very hard to work up motivation to blog on what is being portentously dubbed ‘Smeargate’, Labour’s cretinous attempts to stick the boot into the Tories.

Damian McBride, the author of the emails slurring his opponents, has deservedly lost his job (hard to believe, by the way, he’s 34 – if ever there were a walking advertisement for not becoming Gordon Brown’s media-bitch, it’s Damian). Derek Draper limps on as the public face of LabourList.org, reduced to empty exhortations for “the whole blogosphere, right and left, to …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged alastair campbell, derek draper, LabourList, mps expenses | 5 Comments

Opinion: A new challenge for people wanting to clear up public life

By Mark Pack | Published 13th April 2009 - 5:50 pm

What do Bob Quick, Damian McBride and Den Dover MEP all have in common? They have all been caught up in a public scandal (security lapse, smears, expense claims). They all have or are being booted out (Quick has resigned, as has McBride; Dover was expelled from the Conservatives and is stepping down as an MEP in June). But they all also may well do rather well financially after their departure.

Bob Quick is getting a generous pension (£110,000 a year according to Paul Waugh). Damian McBride, as – technically, if not in his day-to-day behaviour – a civil servant …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged bob quick, chris davies, den dover, iain dale, norman baker | 1 Comment

Michael White on the McBride affair

By Mark Pack | Published 13th April 2009 - 10:01 am

Michael White writes:

The murky underworld of sleaze and gossip which permeates the backdoor politics – and most walks of life where power, money, or the lack of it, matter – existed before the internet was invented or McBride got involved.

It will continue to thrive in his absence, only much faster than generations ago. Then a prime minister of the day (Harold Macmillan) could be cuckolded by a Tory colleague for decades or another prime minister’s (Harold Wilson) political secretary could have two children (by a political journalist) without most of us knowing anything about it.

The net has changed all that.

…

Posted in News, Online politics, Opposition watch | Also tagged derek draper | 3 Comments

Damian McBride, Derek Draper and the smears against Tories

By Mark Pack | Published 11th April 2009 - 9:55 am

The Telegraph has reported:

Row as Number 10 emails ‘smear Tories’
The emails, which made a number of unfounded, innuendo-laden suggestions about the private lives of David Cameron, George Osborne and other Conservative MPs, came into the possession of Paul Staines, who writes the Guido Fawkes political blog…

The prospect of publication [of the emails] alarmed ministers, who feared that they would be accused of orchestrating a smear campaign against senior Tory figures. Some of the emails made lurid claims about Mr Cameron, the Tory leader, and Mr Osborne, the shadow chancellor.

However, there appears to be a degree of trying to spike …

Posted in News | Also tagged daily telegraph, derek draper, iain dale, ian tomlinson | 8 Comments

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