The blogosphere can be fairly brutal. This weekend, it is busy consuming the political careers of two New Labour apparatchiks – Derek Draper, who runs the Labour website LabourList, and Damian McBride, a special advisor in Number 10.
In January, Draper set up LabourList, which calls itself ‘Labour’s biggest independent grassroots e-network’. It was designed to counter the popularity of Tory networks like Conservativehome and bloggers like Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes.
It was part of a Labour drive to harness the power of the net, as Obama’s campaign did last year. As John Prescott put it in comments posted by LabourList on YouTube: “whatever Iain Dale and them are saying, Derek Draper has put up a good network for the Labour Party, ‘LabourListens’ [sic], and we want as many communications as we can get. Iain Dale, Gui Fawkes [sic] – look out baby, coz we’re taking over!’
The Tory blogosphere mocked LabourList for its claim to independence, and suggested it was just a vehicle for the Labour party line.
Meanwhile, Draper was in discussions to set up yet another Labour website, called Red Rag.
The website was registered on November 4 2008, the same day that Draper met with Tim Allan (Alastair Campbell’s former deputy), Benjamin Wegg-Prosser (Peter Mandelson’s former special advisor) and David Prescott in Labour HQ, to discuss “how to take the fight to right-of-centre bloggers”.
Draper says on LabourList:
“I’ve wondered for ages why the right wing have a near monopoly on websites that feature tittle tattle and teasing of their political opponents. But I felt strongly that such gossip wasn´t suitable for LabourList and kicked around the idea of setting up another blog, Red Rag, where such stories might be published.”
The site was registered as being owned by ‘Ollie Cromwell’, which suggests it was intended to be an anonymous site (unlike LabourList) disseminating smears fed by Number 10 and other sources.
As part of this Red Rag project, McBride sent Draper emails in January, from Number 10, with a lot of lurid gossip about the sex lives of front bench Tories, particularly David Cameron and George Osborne, and their wives.
Oops. The emails then found their way to a Tory blogger, Guido Fawkes, and have also been offered to several newspapers. Apparently pages 1 to 3 of the Sunday Times tomorrow will be about the story, including the contents of the emails.
Fawkes’ writer, Paul Staines, says the emails show evidence of a concerted smear campaign run by Number 10 and senior Labour party figures. He is also taking aim at Tom Watson MP, the ‘minister for transformational government’ and Parliament’s first blogger, who sits next to McBride in Number 10, and who Iain Dale claims was CC’d on McBride’s smear emails to Draper.
Watson posted this afternoon on Twitter, ‘Has anyone got the phone number for Schillings?’. Schillings are a leading defamation lawyer. He has since blocked his Twitter feed to non-approved followers, ironically given he was the government figure most into opening government via the Net.
This isn’t the first time McBride has suggested an online smear attack to Draper.
During the scandal over Carol Thatcher’s ‘golliwog’ remarks on the BBC (which led to Thatcher being fired), Tory blogger Iain Dale defended her on his blog, whereupon Draper responded that he was indulging in the politics of racism.
This incensed Dale, particularly as Draper had asked his advice on how to set up LabourList. Dale then asked Draper if the racist smear on him had been suggested by McBride – and filed a freedom of information request for any emails from McBride referring to him.
Draper denied these accusations on the Daily Politics show, in a slanging match with Guido Fawkes two weeks ago. But he’s since admitted that McBride did, in fact, email him regarding how best to attack Dale on the issue.
Draper is now trying to downgrade his activities and his connections to the powerful: “The idea that [Red Rag and LabourList] was a big project orchestrated in Downing Street is ridiculous.”
Really? On the contrary, it seems like senior figures in the party were very much aware, and involved, in the LabourList and Red Rag projects – John Prescott, Alastair Campbell, Tom Watson, Damian McBride, Peter Mandelson, and others… Did Brown know of the Red Rag project?
Update: McBride has just resigned, which is a major blow for the Brown spin machine. The question is whether Tom Watson will also get drawn in. Not looking good for LabourList either – but if the plug is pulled, perhaps it will leave Draper more time to concentrate on his (actually worthwhile) psychotherapy work.
Draper writes: “the lesson is that we should leave tittle tattle and gossip to the right wing blogosphere. We on the left should concentrate on ideas, policy and campaigns, which is what LabourList, whatever is thrown at us, will continue to do”.
Yes, well…Perhaps the lesson is the government shouldn’t be taking a handful of Tory bloggers seriously, when the only people who read them are…other Tory bloggers.When Labour loses the next election, it won’t be because of Iain Dale and Guido Fawkes. It will be because the economy is in the worst state it’s been in since the Depression.
But when you’ve run out of ideas, all you have left are smears. The more I look at Brown’s face, the more Isee Richard Nixon’s.
