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So ’smear-gate’ enters another day and - although the public are slowly getting tired of the story - it shows little sign of slowing down. Round two has begun, the attack - with the mainstream media - on bloggers (see here, here and here for starters). Tim Montgomerie writes a reply here. This follows the green with envy attacks on Dan Hannan, by Michael White in particular.

Labour, caught out smearing the Conservatives, has moved on to bloggers in an attempt to shoot the messenger (how ironic they are smearing blogs when it is their blogging smear plans that got them in trouble - they know all about lying on blogs). They are of course joined by their regular newspaper cheerleaders such as Kevin McGuire (who used his blog to state most people wanted to know what Cameron’s illness was - backing up my fears some believe the smears), and the newly allied media fearful of bloggers.

In The Times Stephen Pollard writes “the difference between quality newspapers and even serious blogs is that your default reaction to a newspaper piece should be that it is true, whereas your default reaction to a blog post should be that it might be true, but it might equally well be a pack of lies.” He must be delusional, whoever trusted what they read in the papers? And who is he to tell us what our default reaction to anything should be?

Dan Hannan believes he was one of McBride and Draper’s targets. I don’t think he was, as we’d have heard about it from the emails, but I do think he was a target for Labour smears and spin. The sheer amount of dirt digging, word twisting and “dark arts” by Labour and their journalistic lackys (see here, here, here, here and here) as well as the “Lima suit lie” were all grossly disproportionate given Hannan is an MEP! Labour seems determined to shoot down every rising star because they don’t have any.

It seems smears are all Labour has left.

Annoying, immature, the sort of person you avoid…the signs were all there. Then it hit me. “These are absolutely totally brilliant,” wrote Derek Draper in response to McPoison’s lies. Haven’t we heard that phrase “totally brilliant” before (well almost)?

So that explains the gaps in his C.V., Derek Draper is secretly Timmy Mallet?

Well maybe not, but he may as well be. Maybe we’ll see him eating bugs in the Jungle, not that would be worth watching.

Today we see the extent of the unfounded and disgusting smears propagated by McBride and emailed to Draper and Tom Watson MP (along with Brown’s previous spin chief Charlie Whelan and Unite union press officer Andrew Dodgshon), as The Sunday Times and its ugly step-sister News Of The World publishes extracts. They really are the work of juvenile schoolboys passing notes around class behind the teacher’s back, and not very bright schoolboys at that!

All of the smears are of course unfounded - some are downright sick, others simply ludicrous, all hurtful and untrue - but I am concerned that some people actually believe them, in part at least. Today’s top search term for people arriving at this blog is “david cameron’s embarrassing illness” followed by the rather telling search of “what is david cameron’s embarrassing illness?” All typed it seems as a matter of fact!

With the public opinion of politicians so low, is there a risk people take the view - as one person I know has despite my attempts to change their view - that it’s “six to one, a half dozen to the other” and “an elaboration but there’s no smoke without fire”? In Harriet Harman’s Court of Public Opinion, everyone is guilty until proven innocent it seems. An apology from Downing Street is vital.

Further to the McBride/Draper smear plot, Iain Dale is carrying a News Of The World “teaser”.

Tomorrow the News of the World will reveal the sensational details in the shocking email smears sent by Gordon Brown’s top aide. The PM’s spin-doctor, Damian McBride, and Derek Draper, who heads Labour’s internet campaigning, outlined a dirty tricks war of highly personal stories about top Tories. (These’s that phrase again, why is everyone called a “top Tory”?).

The plan was far more sophisticated than McBride or Draper have claimed and was close to completion.

Emails seen by the News of the World show McBride and Draper schemed to spread false malicious stories that:

o Opposition leader David Cameron had an embarrassing illness
o Shadow Chancellor George Osborne’s wife was “emotionally fragile” just because she appeared upset at parties
o A Tory MP used his position to get publicity for lover’s business
o Involved allegations about female Tory MP Nadine Dorries and another named MP.

In the emails, McBride says: “We’ve got to keep up the momentum.”

But in the theme of spin, had they not been thankfully caught out, maybe they could have been spun back?

Opposition leader David Cameron had an embarrassing illness - get the sympathy vote, the votes of fellow sufferers, lots of press; remember the fictional illness in Absolute Power? Electoral goldmine.
Shadow Chancellor George Osborne’s wife was “emotionally fragile” just because she appeared upset at parties - she’s upset about climate change, poverty and the economy because she cares passionately, lots of votes there.
A Tory MP used his position to get publicity for lover’s business - as part of a commitment to helping small business during the recession?
Involved allegations about female Tory MP Nadine Dorries and another named MP - just deny that one, no publicity is bad publicity?

Just a thought.

So for one morning I don’t look at the newspapers - “hey, it’s an Easter Saturday,” I thought, “what can possibly happen on an Easter Saturday” - and it seems the Guido-Draper blog war goes nuclear.

Guido and Derek Draper - with his “independent” LabourList website - have been trading blows for some time, but suddenly it seems there’s far more to it.

The Telegraph reports that emails sent to Draper from an “unnamed” senior advisor to Gordon Brown, “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 paper attempts to make more of an issue of the security breach and Guido-Draper spat but in reality the unnamed advisor was Damien McBride - Brown’s chief political advisor, a “close friend” of Peter Mandelson and a taxpayer paid civil servant! The emails were to appear on Draper’s LabourList site to smear a wide range of Tory MPs and bloggers, including Iain Dale, Guido and Nadine Dorries. Also involved somewhere is Tom Watson MP, who was copied into all the emails from McBride (who has now resigned) and lists Mudslinging: The 25 Dirtiest Campaigns of All Time among the top books to have influenced him!

But with all of these three spinning the dark arts where is the Slime Minister himself, Peter Mandelson? It all just seems to have his DNA all over it. Was he involved? We know he is good friends with McBride. He somehow feels conspicuous by his absence to me.