The recent furor over Damian McBride is revealing in two ways. Firstly it tells us a great deal about the operation of Downing Street. It is remarkable that the day before the government was to announce a £20 billion stimulus package that Number 10′s head of strategy and planning thought the best use of his afternoon was to spend it writing “gossipy” and unfounded e-mails about Tory ministers.
Looking at the content of those e-mails it seems that McBride was well worthy of his nickname “McPoison”. Having been exposed, his resignation statement was symptomatic of how the current Labour party operates: Try to deflect as much responsibility as possible. McBride expresses that he is “appalled that … these e-mails have been put into the public domain by Paul Staines [the blogger Guido Fawkes].” He then goes on to say that “Derek and I decided in the end that this website [where the e-mails were to be published] was the wrong thing to do, and that Derek should not take his online efforts down to the level of Guido Fawkes and his Tory backers.” All in all his statement appears to be a desperate attempt to blame Tories for the whole episode and have one last effort at smearing them.
McBride seems to completely miss the point that it is not the fact that these e-mails are in the public domain that is the scandal. What makes this so unacceptable is that the Prime Minister’s head of strategy and planning was using his time at work, paid for by the taxpayer, to make up obscene and unfounded allegations for party political reasons. This was done during a time when the whole of the government was, we were told, united in doing “whatever it takes” to tackle “a global financial crisis” the like of which no one had ever seen before. Had this not been made public it would have done little to mitigate McBride’s actions or make them more palatable. The episode reveals that Gordon Brown had appointed as an advisor a deeply unpleasant individual who was prepared to use our money to facilitate his unpleasant actions. It is revealing of Brown’s administration that he had such people so close to him and, at the very least the Prime Minister’s judgment is called into question.
The second point that arises is that of the role of blogs in undertaking the vital task of holding those in public office to account. Traditionally a scoop such as this would have been the preserve of tabloid journalists. For all the criticism the tabloids get, they have proved over the years that their ruthless investigatory journalists can be an extremely effective tool in exposing politicians. Guido Fawkes has now taken his second political scalp, the first being Peter Hain (the former Work and Pensions Secretary). It is reassuring that, should the trend of the decline in traditional print media continue to the point where many newspapers cease to exist or are drastically slimmed down, that the blogosphere can still provide the accountability that otherwise might be lost. Of less worry is the fact that blogs do not have the same editorial control as established newspapers. With so much choice available and with the easy accessibility of blogs, the ones that will be popular will be those that provide either sensible comment or make revelations that prove to be founded. On that measure at least, Guido Fawkes’ “level” is considerably higher than that of McBride’s in this instance.
