I know some of my readers (Nadine among them!) think I must be shagging Tom Harris, because of the number of times I link to him on this blog. Maybe that would have been the next smear in the McBride/Draper emails...
For those of you who have doubted my sanity at times, read his take on the events of the last 24 hours HERE. It's a candid appraisal of the damage done to his own party and it ends with a plea for those responsible to issue a public apology to those that were mentioned in the emails. This blogpost illustrates why Tom Harris is without a shadow of a doubt the number one Labour blogger, even if his own party seem to find it difficult to acknowledge it.
The fact that Tom was despatched to the backbenches while the likes of Damian McBride and Charlie Whelan continued to be embraced in Brown's inner circle speaks volumes.
Toms a bit slavishly loyal to his party, even to the extent that he puts it before national interests. Theres no doubt his hearts in the right place though, I hope He survives the upcoming carnage.
ReplyDeleteTom put it more eloquently than when I blogged about it and said exactly what I was thinking from pleading with the more tribal Labour activists, to pointing out the sheer immorality of what has happened. No excuses!
ReplyDeleteA short walk would do him wonders.
ReplyDeleteRead his blog earlier today and agree with every word.
Why are so many Labour bods unable to see why this is just plain revolting?
Harris should take on Tom Watson's digital engagement job if Labour have any sense at all.
ReplyDeleteYes, Tom Harris is correct and deserves support.
ReplyDeleteSuch a relief from the bumbling and pompous performance of Stephen Pound which was misguided and dishonest.
Friday, 10 Apr: news reports of an explosion in a pie factory in Huddersfield.
ReplyDeleteSaturday, 11 Apr: news reports of an explosion in a Pork Pie factory in Downing Street.
@ jon dee
ReplyDeletePound is in the business of preparing the grounds for State Regulation of the Internet. That's why he's doing the outrage job.
Does he have something to hide?
Draper has just posted an excuse on Labourlist and is now ‘rededicating himself’ to that site.
ReplyDeleteOthers may have a different view
Well, bang goes Tom's chance of a knighthood!
ReplyDeleteAn honest piece from an apparently decent man.
It says a lot about Labour that he should be a backbencher and Smith, Balls, Cooper et al should not.
What an extremely nasty man Brown is.
Tom Harris - is clearly at least - not mad or imbalanced.
ReplyDeleteI really don't know why he does not come over and join the Conservatives. it would make sense - especially given the way Labour folk have started to treat him
However, he still bows to the Labour whip. He knows that the Brown cancer is terminal for the party, but still does not have the integrity to at least decline the whip, let alone go independent or cross the floor.
ReplyDeletePerhaps they could trade him for John Bercow?
ReplyDeleteIt seems fair to say that LabourList is a completely failed venture. And also true that in the UK the right-wing side of politics is better represented than in the left.
ReplyDeleteBut the problem LabourList tried to solve was a false one. There is no shortage of places for the current Labour government to present its policies. It controls all the levers of official communications and can get its spokespeople on the BBC at any time.
The problem here is the lack of a wide-ranging multiplexed blog in which different ideas and concerns from those on the progressive left can be worked out - an in opposition to government policy if necessary. Eight years ago the earliest "power blogs" in the US were largely right-wing - Drudge, Andrew Sullivan, and The Corner.
What emerged in opposition were DailyKos and The Huffington Post. These kinds of blogs are more or less what we need in Britain now.
What LabourList had rapidly become was a more sterile and tedious version of National Review's The Corner combined, it now seems, with an aspiration to the politics of personal destruction practiced by Drudge.
Let LabourList die and let's try to find a more interesting and open platform for left-wing politics online.
http://englisheclectic.blogspot.com/2009/04/nasty-blogs-story.html
It is NOT a cased of a right-wing blog dominance. The stark fact is this disgraced, incompentant ZaNULab scum are just HATED.
ReplyDeleteIt was right to sack McBride and perhaps Draper will now be dropped by the Labour party. Smears of our politicians are just out of order- blogs are an opportunity to debate issues and policies - not to engage in personal abuse.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the blogosphere needs to be better self regulated - sites should not indulge in childish personal attacks - Draper and McBride have been found out, but will all blogs, stop personal abuse? will inuendo and personal comments about GB stop? i read on right of centre blogs vile personal attacks on the PM. for example Guido Fawkes recently blogged " The Prime Mentalist is an emotionally retarded weirdo."
he tags any blogs to the Prime Minister as "Twat Watch"
This is as equally offensive as McBride and Draper.
Do you reckon blogs could desist from this sort of offensive nonesense?
I suspect that i will wait with baited breath for that sunny day when we debate policy and not the personal.
If a government does not have moral authority, then it has no authority, only power.
ReplyDeleteI wonder Iain, if you would have been so quick to rush around the TV studios had this been the Tories.I suppose we will have a chance to find out in the not too distant future :)
ReplyDeleteAll well and good Iain but Tom Harris so seldom shows any consideration for his Scottish electorate on his blog. I doubt if any of his constiuency supporters glean any hope from his posts. He's stuck in the Westminster bubble.
ReplyDeleteJust been over and looked at Mr Harris' blog. Do you really think he gets it Iain? Left this:
ReplyDelete"Tom, while I can appreciate your outrage at the current revelations, (they are damaging of course), I find this post disingenuous at the least.
How do you think that Labour has behaved over the last 12 years? Do you think this is a new phenomenon? No, this has been the pattern of behaviour right from the start, smears, lies and spin. Dr Kelly, the Paddington rail crash survivors, even members of your own cabinet have been on the wrong end of the Blair/Campbell inspired dirt digging machine. We all knew, how come so many on the labour benches were so blissfully unaware?
Your outrage, and that of others such as Charles Clarke, is years too late. And the PM's press release was laughable."
Batteredstrat
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Now the walls are crumbling some integrity is coming to the surface. Thats the easy bit.
Practice the virtue of decency when the going is good(winning elections). Thats the hard bit.
What I find nauseating in the extreme is this.
Tony Blair: Lover of God, Jesus, Bible, Koran. Torah and self proclaimed 'straight kind guy' employed Campbell and endorse his use of calumny and detraction, apart from lies and bully boy tactics, to destroy reputations and thus toxiby the body politic.
Gordon Brown: Son of the Manse. The Man with the Moral Compass.
As above using first the lying evil smiling Whelan to destroy all who stood in Brown's way to #10. Then to use McBride after proclaiming the death of spin.
Whited Sepulchres both.