Labour MPs are starting to rebel against the 'no apology' line. Another Labour MP has spoken out. Parmjit Dhanda has some strong words for Gordon Brown. He, like Tom Harris, was sacked in the last reshuffle for no apparent reason.
The more I read about these e-mails, targeting not just politicians but their families, the more I can only conclude this is one of the most sordid and damaging things that have ever been produced by ‘allies’ of a Prime Minister, certainly in my lifetime.
So what happens now? Firstly, don’t underestimate the damage this will do to the body-politic in this country, so the clearer and louder the apology, the better. But beyond that, things have got to change. I know current ministers and ex-ministers who have been briefed against or ’smeared’ by people who have then been allowed to just carry on in their posts, encouraged and rewarded even.
Journalists have informed me that at the last reshuffle I got a dose of the ‘briefing’ treatment by one or two who I thought knew better too. And this is from people who are meant to be on our side! But when they brief people, they always think they’ll never get found out. They’re wrong.
Pity there aren' t more like Parmit and Tom. Oh yes, I forgot. Frank Field has a few choice words too.
36 comments:
No wonder Labour MPs are getting edgy, the Party and Labourlist still hasn't resolved what to do with the other character in this sad pantomine - Derek Draper.
Why hasn't the General Secretary of the Labour Party announced the removal of Draper as his unpaid aide and as the Party's adviser on New Media? Why hasn't Unite insisted on Draper's removal as Editor of its self-funded Labour List?
Meanwhile Draper has gone to ground. No twitters since last week; a removal of his entire FaceBook site and zero appearance on a media he is normally too desperate to appear on.
I heard Ed Minibrown on the PM show, defending brown. I almost crashed the car.
Minibrown claimed that he didn't recognise the Brown that Frank Field described.
Young Ed must have been off at school when brown and his henchmen were undermining and ultimately forcing from office, the democratically elected, sitting Prime Minister.
He must have been at the Cubs when brown and his henchmen were bullying and in some cases buying off, with baubles and patronage (His brother, David Miniblair, for example) anyone who could possibly have posed a threat, on the way to his coronation as PM.
This has a long way to run yet.
It is slowly dawning on them, isn't it? They realise they have an amoral,stop-at-nothing, responsible for nothing tyrant pf a leader...
Trouble is, they won't get "edgy" enough, at least I hope they don't!
We wouldn't want to see the back of the PM before the next election.
They don't have a Brutus - do they?
Frank Field is one of the few Labour MP`s I have enormous respect for.He himself, lets not forget, was on the receiving end of some odious arm twisting over his campaign to get Brown to backtrack on the 10p tax fiasco.
It is men and women like Frank Field on the backbenches of Labour who must now come out of the shadows and start to retake their party back from the darkness and gutter it has sunk to.
Now is the time to strike, Brown has lost his IMmoral compass and hasnt had time to regroup. Put this little bastards arm up his back and see which way he twists...
If they still continue to sit back in glorious isolation and tut from the side lines come the next election they may not even have the side lines to tut from...
Courage Mon Brave
Frank Field would. He’s an embittered and very serial offender.
The exculpatory convolutions of the Labourists are amusing but isn't saying sorry a bit overrated? Some people think everything is ok if they issue a 'sorry' after a transgression.It isn't.It trivialises the offence. For too many sorry seems to be the easiest word.
When you have done something wrong, and you realise it, being able to apologise properly, or not, is the difference between being a man and just being a big girl's blouse.
Re Brown's responsibility, Ian Kershaw's concept of 'working towards the fuhrer' sheds light on how a leader can be responsible for actions without explicitly requesting them. Wikipedia summarises the argument:
"...in Nazi Germany, officials of both the German state and Party bureaucracy usually took the initiative in beginning policy to meet Hitler's perceived wishes, or alternatively attempted to turn into policy Hitlers often loosely and indistinctly phrased wishes."
It's surely obvious McB was 'working towards' the PM in this matter. (BTW I'm not comparing Brown to Hitler beyond this narrow area!)
Just one more historical analogy: Henry II and Becket. Didn't one throwaway comment end up with the King crawling to Canterbury in penance?
Also check out this re imminent job adverts....
http://gawragbag.blogspot.com/2009/04/job-advert-imminent.html
"Pity there aren' t more like Parmit and Tom"
What, sacked ministers?
I agree
"He, like Tom Harris, was sacked in the last reshuffle for no apparent reason."
Say no more.
I doubt that Simon Gardner would know anything about Derek Hatton and his ultra left organisation Militant Faction- which controlled Liverpool and tried to take the Labour Party itself.
Frank Field stood against these vicious (and by God they were vicious) people.
He is a braver man than you could ever be, sitting there carping at everyone and anyone.
When you have read about this honourable Labour Politician you may realise that the old Labour Party had many people like him, Mrs Dunwoody also was a towering principled old socialist!, this Labour Party headed by Brown is nothing like the old respected Labour Party.
We may not agree with their politics but by God I admire Mr Field and people like him. If they could take back the Labour Party from the Brown Militant Tendency then we would all breath a sigh of relief.
They had principles! Something Brown and I think this Simon Gardner lack!
I agree with strapworld's well-made points. Frank Field is one of the good guys. Just as a little personal corroboration, I have a mate who used to do some research for him and he testifies he's genuine.
So far today we have seen Alan Johnson, Hazel Blears and Ed Milliband sent out to face the media and try and defend the indefensible. It's ridiculous beyond belief of all of them not to recognise the vicious side of Gordon Brown that so many of his ex-colleagues have written about in the press today.
But more importantly how come the author of the book "Courage" hasn't had the courage or the decency to face the media himself. Instead he sends out his minions to answer questions about what he knew of this affair and his much criticised No 10 machine.
This may not be popular but I think Nadine Dorries needs to clam down before she appears to be revelling in this. Publishing a private letter to her just strikes me as wrong.
Osborne and Cameron have shown some real class here. However; all in all I think there are much more important and substantive issues that need to be addressed as a time when the economy is tanking, the Met. is under fire etc.
This is only a stories that excites people who follow blogs, the press and politicians.
I have been away for Easter Iain and I have just caught up with your coverage of the e-mail story.
It seems to me we have two fantastic bloggers on the right who open the bowling . The dangerous pace of strike bowler Fawkes is catching the eye right now but the cunning wiles of Dale are just as important and your posts have been fantastic .
( Frank Field was himself an early muggee of course.I bet he finds the idea that Brown knew nothing ass laughable as the rest of us )
Draper may not be making live appearances but the media are using the most shifty looking disreputable pics of him (not hard to find) to plaster over the news bulletins. He does look wonderfully seedy.
Drapers not 'twittering' ? Hilarious.
The fact that what Labour MPs must ask themselves is this ...
... if I a bloke sat on the sofa in front of the telly, and with the odd rolled up copy of the Daily Telegraph or Times for swatting flies, knew that Draper was a car crash waiting to happen - well how on earth did it come to pass that Brown and Mandelson, allowed Draper to inveigle himself back onto the gravy train.
Once again given this gross lack of judgement I ask is it any wonder that the country is in this mess. Whatever the opposite of the Midas touch is Brown has it in spades (or should I say Spads).
And Strap... you are right. Its been frightening watching various low grade MPs and ministers appearing on TV and convoluting and degrading themselves.
its now happening on the blogs - Harvey and Gardner are risible.
Its funny how the financial crisis did not prompt the cabinet to try to control Brown but this shabby smear business may do.
Iain, have you seen the video of you over at bloggerheads? :D
**Link To Video**
Wonder what Gavin Esler will make of it all on tonight's Newsnight? I also wonder which of Gordo's sacrificial lambs will be sent out to slaughter this time........how about Jacqui? ;)
The reason the Labour MPs are afraid is that the same tactics have been sued against them for years by Brown's machine. Its been like a political tank slithering across the party churning up everything into uniform Brown slimy mud.
"Wonder what Gavin Esler will make of it all on tonight's Newsnight? "
Perhaps there'll be some news?
>>Frank Field would. He’s an embittered and very serial offender.<<
Serial offender ?
So you think an MP who has the audacity to breach some sort of contemptible party political omerta ought be referred to in terms usually reserved for criminals ?
Have you borrowed Brown's moral compass, SG ?
An apology is only genuine if you change the behaviour you are apologising for. If you say the words, but continue acting as before, then that is much worse than not apologising at all, in my opinion.
"I doubt that Simon Gardner would know anything about Derek Hatton and his ultra left organisation Militant Faction- which controlled Liverpool and tried to take the Labour Party itself."
I do- having been a party member at the time in Liverpool.And Frank Field is still an embittered prat.
Frank Field is a thoroughly nasty piece of work who likes to dump on young mums - for probable reasons Iain thinks are libellous.
Indeed. And I remember Alec Douglas-Home well too.
Where are all the Harpersons, Smiths, Flints, Hewitts, Eagles and Beards (sic) - and she a lawyer too - when it comes to defending innocent women targeted by a gang of testosterone fuelled bullies?
Chatty Chipmunk has even been on the airwaves shouting, 'nothing to see here - move along'.
These days make love to a woman who turns out to have been drunk and you go to prison, but calculate the ruin of two of them in the cold light of day and your action is merely 'regrettable'.
One wonders why has there been such silence from the Labour sisterhood?
"Labour MPs are starting to rebel against the 'no apology' line."It's way past any apology... Gordon Brown should resign! He's demonstrated beyond any doubt that he's unfit to lead his party, never mind the country.
No blog coverage of 114 people arrested BEFORE a Demo. 12 Pakistanis arrested and going to be deported, with no evidence so far. Police lying about CCTV cameras in the City..
These are the stories Right Wing blogs have not covered this weekend.
CIF is doing better.
http://englisheclectic.blogspot.com
Iain;
When I first glanced at the headline, I thought it said "Labour MP's start to get dodgy" and I thought -so; what's "newsworthy" about that?
And then I read on and thought - Frank Field?
Didn't he cave into Brown and accept some half arsed fudge over the 10p tax rate abolition - let's not forget that there are STILL well over a million of the poorest being hurt by this nasty piece of Labour legislation, despite what they said to buy Frank Fields acquiescence.
If you want to find a decent Labour MP and they are pretty thin on the ground - you could try Bob Marshall Andrews and as you say Tom Harris at a push. I would say Kate Hoey but I don't like bloodsports- apart from hounding Dolly Draper to ground.
Field was lethal on PM yesterday. The 'two Gordons' is comparable to 'something of the night about him'.
@ Paul Halsall
"CIF is doing better."
OK, so stay there, then.
So, Simon Gardner, apart from your usual pathetic attempts to assassinate his character, what do you have to say of Field's comments?
Man not Ball, then.
Post a Comment