The jewel in the crown of Samizdata.net
A blog for people with a critically rational individualist perspective. We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR
[Russ.,= self-publishing house]
There is much to find for those who look
We are not alone
Made possible by...
 
April 16, 2009
Thursday
 
 
Panic in Downing Street
Brian Micklethwait (London)  Media & Journalism • UK affairs

You probably missed it, because how the hell can anyone keep up with this stuff? But, I just happened to chance upon a couple of comments (numbers 269 and 276) on this at Guido's, both of which had, copied and pasted into them, this:

Downing Street in 'meltdown'

PRWeek - David Singleton 15-Apr-09

Downing Street was this week in 'meltdown' as Gordon Brown's inner circle attempted to limit the fallout from the Damian McBride scandal.

Well-placed sources told PRWeek there was mounting fear in the heart of Downing Street that fresh revelations about senior MPs could emerge over the next few weeks and months leading up to the general election.

Brown's close lieutenants such as Ed Balls, Tom Watson and Ian Austin are all believed to be vulnerable. It is feared fresh stories could be revealed by the handful of journalists who were fed negative stories by the Brown camp - or as a result of further emails that were sent to Labour blogger Derek Draper being made public.

One Downing Street insider said there had been 'endless conference calls and crisis meetings' since the story of McBride's plans to smear senior Tories broke on Saturday.

The source added: 'This is a full on disaster for Gordon - Downing Street is in meltdown. But it is more of a problem for Brown's inner circle than it is for the Government more broadly.

'The great fear of Brownites is that all of their activities over many years are suddenly now at risk of spilling out. It is an open secret that Gordon’s operation has been carrying out character assassinations, leaking documents and briefing against ministers and so on, but nobody has ever caught them red handed - until now. Now they have been caught out, it becomes legitimate to talk about all the other occasions.

'It is a bit like getting Al Capone on his tax returns; it is actually one relatively minor misdemeanour - by no means are those emails the worst thing that Brown’s operation has ever done.'

Another source with close links to Downing Street said the PM’s defence was looking increasingly fragile: 'Brown has had to stake his defence on this being a rogue operation, a single aberration that nobody else knew anything about.

'The worry is that someone will produce evidence that it went much wider than this handful of emails and it went much wider than McBride.'

Which they will, because it did.

In short, matters are developing exactly as I told you they would in this posting. Brown's ludicrous claim not to believe in dirty tricks has turned this from a few dogs chasing a small smear of dirt (The Emails and who knew what about them and whether anyone had tried to spread the particular smears in them) into a thousand dogs swimming happily in a quarter of a century of liquified shit, and now, too late, Downing Street realises it. But, like I say, it's too late.

These people are smart enough to realise the terminal mess they are now in. Good. Nobody is smart enough to extricate them from it. Good again.

Comments

As you so rightly say - this is just the tip of the Labour Sleaze iceberg which will hopefully sink the Labour Party for good.

Silent Hunter


Posted by Silent Hunter at April 16, 2009 08:11 PM

Not to rain on your parade, but "He's toast!" was frequently heard over here during the Clinton years....


Posted by PersonFromPorlock at April 16, 2009 09:39 PM

yeah but Clinton did some ok stuff and had charisma...


Posted by robert arbon at April 16, 2009 09:52 PM

"Panic in Downing Street"... I have a certain Smiths song going through my head right now :-D

I must say I am enjoying this.


Posted by Perry de Havilland at April 16, 2009 10:02 PM

Am I the only one thinking this will play out like Watergate?


Posted by Guy Southward at April 16, 2009 10:59 PM

Play out like Watergate?

I hope it plays out more like waterboarding.


Posted by NickM at April 17, 2009 12:21 AM

How we are laughing. Couldn't happen to a nicer crew.


Posted by Chalcedon at April 17, 2009 05:45 PM
yeah but Clinton did some ok stuff and had charisma...

Yeah, interns need love too.


Posted by Sunfish at April 17, 2009 07:16 PM
Post a comment









Remember personal info?


Enter anti-spambot Turing code:





Select some text and click this to format it as a quote Make the selected text bold Make the selected text italic Add a web link


Basic html active.

Alas, but for obscure reasons Mozilla, Mac and Linux users shall not harness to power of the push-button formatting options and shall therefore compose basic html with their bare hands. Yet Mozilla, Mac and Linux users shall not fear, for we shall reveal forthwith the mysteries of Basic Html:

<strong>This text in-between is bold</strong>

<em>This text is in italics</em>

And
<blockquote>This is a quote</blockquote>
Remember to close your opened tags as such: <tag> tagged text and closing </tag> and we promise you will get out of here alive.

For adding links, either use the link URL button on the toolbar or enter your code by hand in the following format:
<a href="http://www.your_link.com">your link text or description here</a>

Movable Type's anti-spambot e-mail address protection is enabled.

You are a guest on private property. Have fun but please be civil and succinct. Blogroaches will be persecuted, not to mention IP banned.

Long third party quotes or articles will also be deleted... so just link to articles you think are germane to your comment, don't quote the whole bloody thing.