When Derek Draper was asked by Channel 4 News tonight if he had discussed the Red Rag website with the Prime Minister at their lunch at Chequers, he referred us to the Downing Street Press Office.
Now why would he do that, I wonder?
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Another Question Derek Draper Can't Answer
An interesting snippet from Victoria Macdonald's report on Channel 4 News tonight...
Now why would he do that, I wonder?
Now why would he do that, I wonder?
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35 comments:
That is quite telling.
Or just Draper warning GB that he'd better keep him in a job or else?
Yes Iain I noticed that in the interview with Mathew D'Anconna the fact that this was all intended for dissemination was somehow lost .We know there is more to this because we know his previous
Mc Bride is hardly a departure. The Brown attack dogs have been set on Milliband ,Bright at the New Statesman, and Douglas Alexander over the election that never was .Prior to that just about everyone that got in the old bastards way .John Reid ,Alan Milburn ,David Blunkett Frank Field and Charles Clarke, all felt the briefing cudgel on their neck.
We were asked in all seriousness to believe that Brown ,who ran Labour’s campaign ,knew nothing about cash for honours . Ridiculous of course ,but far more ridiculous to believe that his close confidant Mc Bride and recent lunch companion ( Draper) were not acting on Brown’s authority. They were .
I see Kate Garraway is hiding somewhere , I wonder how Draper`s marriage is going now she is likely to be loathed by well over half the population . Perhaps we should invent something and spread it around .
Hi Iain. When you've got a chance could you give us your view on James Purnell's nasty and sick attack on benefit claiming alcoholics? See HereSick. Disgusting. Repugnant.
Oho! I wonder whether he's now "acting under orders". I can imagine that, as a now-acknowledged liability, Draper might well have have the law laid down to him in terms of any media appearances.
What a flattering picture Channel 4 have chosen to use of the Dear Leader.
In this image, he looks like Charles Laughton, playing Captain William Bligh in "Mutiny on the Bounty."
Should we read anything into this, I wonder?
Interesting...
Very revealing.
One other observation to make about all this, however. In the past, when you wrote about Dolly Draper or LabourList on the blog, you would almost invariably receive a comment from Draper himself. Since this scandal has broken, he hasn't said anything. Rather uncharacteristic this silence, isn't it Dolly?
He's in a straight jacket.
It is still unraveling. A fair question, "Was Red Rag" discussed at Chequers?" Given Draper's penchant for blowing out of his own arse, I would say it was a certainty, in which case, Gordon is toast.
It will not take much digging to find out who Oliver Cromwell is either.
And, by the looks of it, all the papers are now engaged in a race to get the only story in town. The big one.
Any more deep throats out there?
Strange that he's allowed out himself to be on the telly. I bet he has a tag on his ankle.
"I wonder how Draper`s marriage is going"
The Moral High Ground Tourist Board thanks you for your visit and hopes to see you again soon.
Hyperbole. He essentially just said "ask them".
If someone asked me whether i'd discussed something with someone else, the sole purpose being to implicate that other person, i'd respond with "ask them" aswell.
Draper is a tosser, but this is just reaching. You have enough to beat him with without resorting to this Iain.
I bet if ollie cromwell is an MP, they claimed the purchase of the domain name on expenses... I
Jimmy and John, both your profiles are private... Are you members of the Rapid Rebuttal Unit?
"I bet if ollie cromwell is an MP, they claimed the purchase of the domain name on expenses..."
Rab, I hope they did!
Yes. I'm in a bunker underneath Downing St. as we speak.
Bunker? Like berlin in 1945?
Loved the tie on Sky this afternoon, Iain - where was it from?
Other than that, a plague on all their houses - may rectitude once more dominate, and may the liars be decimated.
Exactly. The budget wouldn't stretch to a hollowed out volcano. You'd probably recognise me from all those hilarious downfall videos
When I mentioned bunker/berlin/1945 I meant.... ach, never mind.
Mr Brown - you are guilty.
please make it stop .... time for a break from reading blogs I think. I'm off to Indymedia to read about Met. Officers bitch slapping people
The silence from a usual voice is deafening.
Where is Polly Toynbee
Draper, McBride, Byrne, Watson: any one of them can come out now and tell the entire truth.
There are others who probably know but will not tell, either from fear of their position or from the the advantage that knowledge currently gains them.
Brown will have to tread very carefully, the bodies are not buried very deep, and the grave diggers are disreputable men who would sell him for the right price.
How fitting he should end his career this way.
PS, I wonder if Ms Dorries MP would like to sue one of the above and call the others as witnesses. We all now what happened to Jonathan Aitken & Jeffrey Archer.
Why is the NO 10 Press Office being used as spokesperson for Mr Draper when he's nothing to do with the Government.
This is another misuse of public resources.
They still don't get it do they. They still don't see the line between what's public business and their own sordid affairs.
Quoted in the Times this morning, Draper on his lunch with Gordon Brown:
“I promise you we were not discussing websites,”
What on earth else would GB have been discussing with DD?
Is Gordon Brown related to Mr Wenger, The Woolwich Arsenal Football Club Manager?
I ask as Mr Wenger never sees anything his players do - and Mr Brown never knows anything?
Gordon Brown is not related to Wenger.
Wenger is a team builder who wins trophies in good years and finishes close to the top in bad years. If he was no good at his job he would have been fired years ago.
Gordon Brown is not a team builder and has won nothing. As for being good and his job and firing, see the next General Election results.
Tom Dexter @ 7.27 AM: Here's a run down on Polly's next article:
Now that the media have had their fun in a quiet news week Gordon must concentrate on what matters ... still time to increase taxes ... borrow more money ... vote Labour ... blah blah blah.
Draper's "taking a week to decide whether to quit Labourlist".
Mr Draper told the Guardian he was considering resigning from his role running LabourList, a Labour-supporting website.
"I know there are people saying I should go - but I think LabourList is a good idea and I hope to leave it a week before deciding whether to try to soldier on, which is what I think at the moment," he told the paper
Gordon Brown's letter to Gus O'D t'other day said that special advisers found spreading smears should be "summarily dismissed". Good. But does that also apply to Ministers? What about to MPs - say, a Select Ctee chairman for instance? Is it NOT ok for an adviser to smear but it IS ok for a Minister or an MP? Surely not.
I ask this in this context: Is time to revisit one of the egregious smearing operations of recent times, in which both Ministers & senior MPs were said by 'the smearee' herself to be involved. (Is that a word -smearee? Anyway, it is now).
I'm talking about the smearing in 2001 of Elizabeth Filkin, former Parliamentary Standards Commissioner who conducted rigorous investigations into allegations against - amongst others - Keith Vaz and Peter Mandelson. Mrs Filkin wrote to the Speaker in late 2001 to complain that MPs and ministers had conducted a "whispering campaign" against her. She said that she had faced "quite remarkable" pressure to go easy on MPs and that sometimes this was exerted directly by members "holding high office".
She was variously (and falsely it must be added) accused of being a former member of the International Marxist Group, a closet Lib Dem, of being partial against Keith Vaz due to the fact that her husband had had previous business dealings with him etc etc.
Moreover, then Labour MP Brian Sedgemore sketched some detail into the smearing operation in a HoC debate on 13 Feb 2002: "A member of the Standards and Privileges Committee once described Elizabeth Filkin to me as "mad". Some time later... ...a member of that Committee told me that Elizabeth Filkin had left not only a job at the Inland Revenue but a job at the London Docklands development corporation under a cloud. When I asked for more information, I was just told that "they"— the impersonal, unknown and unnamed "they"—were saying it." Mr Sedgemore, of course, repeated others' tittle-tattle under Parliamentary privilege but unfortunately didn't use that same privilege to identify Mrs Filkin's accusers.
Mrs Filkin did not ever, as far as I'm aware, name those Ministers & MPs she felt were orchestrating the "whispering campaign" against her during her investigations of MPs such as Keith Vaz and Peter Mandelson. Maybe Mrs Filkin might feel that - in the current atmosphere - it is a conducive time to be more explicit. And I'm sure that Mr Sedgemore could be prevailed on to be more specific with his recollections too.
I should add to the very long comment above (sorry) concerning Elizabeth Filkin that Peter Oborne in his book 'The Triumph of Political Class' reports Mrs Filkin as saying about Peter Mandelson that he spoke to her during her investigation of him:
"[He] hinted that it wouldn't be good for me if the finding went badly for him. In several phone calls he gave me the impression that all would not be well from my point of view if I did not do what he wanted".
Guido's site Order Order is down ...1.43pm
Just a blip???
The PM's latest obsession is the internet. His friends say his latest light read is Charles Leadbeater's new book We-Think and the power of the internet to create, network and inform democracy. Some of his friends, however, think the PM might benefit from sometimes turning his computer off.The Guardian Wednesday 25 June 2008
I think we can hazard a guess as to why it was referred.
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