Smearing goes beyond Labour blogs

By Tom Miller

I don’t seek to play down what has come to light over the past couple of days, not that I was involved in it myself. Nor ideed did I have any knowledge of it. I’ve made my comments elsewhere.

People are, understandably in my view, very angry. But in reading our comments at LabourList, you’d get the impression that Labour was alone in having people with dubious jounalistic/blogging ethics among its ranks.

If you think this, you should read the Stirrer. Iain has (rather crudely, I think) tried to turn what was clearly a big mistake on his part into an attack.

I’m not sure if that will work either.

Now I’m not saying that anyone is guilty or innocent of anything; Tom Watson (and possibly, we’re hearing, his legal team) can establish the facts quite well enough. What I do wonder is if anyone, Labour or Tory, has learned anything.

If there is one thing that people should have taken in over the weekend, it is that it’s probably a bad idea to make completely unqualified and unsubstantiated accusations and allegations aoubt people.

Our editor here, Derek Draper, has (correctly) taken a lot of flak, despite the fact thathe decided not to publish the things that were sent to him (indeed, a whole load of attacks sans facts are now in the public domain which, if Derek had remained in charge of them, would not have been).

Iain, in contrast, sent his to a national newspaper (not that staines didn’t try), which, we’re now told, has published them.

It looks likely that a senior Labour MP has been slandered. Cue days of tabloid outrage? I doubt it.

Update: Bob Piper also has something to say about this, and other matters.

Update: Some stuff from the comments: Firstly, this. Why didn’t Osborne report his friend/associate/other libel free desingated woman?

Secondly, seeing as it’s so in vogue to demand apologies from party leaders for the completely unauthorised activities of their staff, how about one for this? It’s been nearly a year.

No? Well I never.

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