Welcome to my blog. I am a former local journalist who now works in PR and a Conservative and community activist in Woking and Horsell. This blog will keep updated on local issues as well as my interests and quirky news stories.
It is good news that Nadine Dorries has been paid an undisclosed damages by Damian McBride for the disgusting smears that he tried to perpetrate against her. It’s a bit surprising to me that it hasn’t attracted more media attention but they probably want to give it a wide berth for fear of accidentally repeating the libel.
Nadine, who is great to follow on Twitter as @NadineDorriesMP, has two more cases against McBride, who also resigned as editor of the ever-optimistic LabourList website. It’s also fair to say that other Labour figures, some of them involved in the online world, were “in on the joke” as well and it gives an idea of just how hollow the “no more spin” mantra from the PM was.
The truth is that Labour is spinning more and more heavily as the PM gets more and more desperate. Mandelson, Whelan, Draper, Campbell and Blair are all back on the scene – differences put aside – as the see the end of the tracks up ahead. Privately, all apart from Brown probably believe the situation is hopeless; and that’s fine as they all have plenty of other things to do. But that one last challenge – to keep DC and the Tories out – is irresistable. If they fail, that will only be as expected and if they succeed, they will have pulled off the greatest political escape act in British history.
The process of trying to achieve that goal is going to include some heavy hitting from Labour, backed by the government machine and a compliant BBC that fears being pulled apart by the Conservatives as the price of 15 years cosying up to Labour. There’s going to be a lot of dirt, a lot of scheming and a fight to the end. And that’s before you put the Liberal Democrats into the equation.
Election 2010 will be the most keenly fought, bare-knuckled political slug-out certainly since 1992 and probably ever. Technology has made the process of electioneering as underhand and sly as the art of hacking itself. The disgraceful smearing of Nadine, George Osborne and DC was just the beginning and I hope that Tory high command is ready for the onslaught.
