The Smear Machine In Full Swing BLOG 24/2/2010

When in politics you generally come to expect your opponents to take pot shots at you. That comes with the territory and believe me it can get quite brutal. But where do youy draw the line when attempting to discredit a story?

Every politician needs to, at some point or other, put out a rebuttal press statement or write a letter to a newspaper clarifying a mistake or seeking to correct an opposition inaccuracy. There is, however, a difference between discrediting a false story and discrediting the person who just happens to say something you don't like. This has been the calling card of New Labour, always playing the man and not the ball. I remember a few years ago when Labour didn't like a 94 year old lady because her family complained that, after suffering a bad fall, she was denied a bed at the local hospital for 3 full days. The Labour spin machine geared up and splashed all sorts of grossly misleading rumours across the newspapers that she and her family were in some way racist people. Slurring and smearing with no hint of remorse to what they were doing.

Over the last few days the chief executive of a bullying charity has alleged that her organisation had received several distressing calls from people working with the prime minister. The suggestion was that he bullies, indimidates and is generally very unpleasant to his staff at Number 10. This lady made these comments after hearing Lord Mandleson say that any suggestion of hostility in Downing Street was nonsense. She felt outraged at this statement and duty bound to stand up for those who had approached her for help.

Now regardless of whether it was justified for a charity to make public the information made in confidence it is surely extremely unedifying for the whole New Labour spin machine to start unleashing it's slur and smear brigade on one charity worker. They have accused her of being a Tory (which, for Labour, is considered the biggest smear imaginable), being a political stooge, questioning her sources and demanding she betray their confidences.

All of this tells me what we have all suspected for a long time; Labour will do anything and sink as low as they can to cling onto power.