Will CCHQ and/or The Telegraph release paedophile claim emails Labour MP says he was told about over lunch?

Tom Watson has published a lengthy blog this morning, including correspondence with David Cameron and Tory Chair Grant Shapps. The blog relates to a story that fellow Labour MP (and phone hacking crusader) Chris Bryant was told by a Telegraph journalist over lunch. Here’s what Bryant told Watson:

“[Telegraph political correspondent] Matthew Holehouse told me at lunch at Quirinale that he had been accidentally included in a series of email exchanges between senior figures at Conservative Central Office who were speculating about which Labour sitting MPs were paedophiles and how they should deploy this ‘information’. Matthew seemed to think that this showed that CCHQ was run by a bunch of children and he said it was worse than Damian McBride. He reckoned the paper would be running the story later that week, unless the powers that be intervened. I asked him which senior figures were involved. He said ‘very senior’, but refused to elaborate. He also refused to tell me which Labour MPs were speculated about. He didn’t believe that any of the emails’ allegations were anything other than nasty vindictiveness and an attempt to smear Labour MPs.”

Watson argues that these emails are either “a serious piece of investigative work” which should be handed to the police, or “a scurrilous and puerile attempt to smear sitting politicians” which is a story that would be in the public interest (so the Telegraph should report it) and which should be acted on by the Tory leadership. The Tories have said that the story is “completely false and without foundation”.

Will either the Tories or the Telegraph release the alleged emails (if they exist)? We won’t be holding our breath…

Update: Watson has written another blog, in which The Telegraph confirm via correspondence with the Labour MP that the emails do exist (although they argue that they’re in relation to last year’s Paedophile Information Exchange stories). As Watson writes “the emails do exist which flatly contradicts the denial by Grant Shapps” – but more than that, if these emails exist, then they should be put into the public domain.

If they are “nasty vindictiveness and an attempt to smear Labour MPs” perpetrated by Tory staffers, then the public have a right to know, as they has a right to know when Labour adviser Damian McBride was implicated in wrongdoing back in 2009. And of course if they are not, then no-one involved has anything to worry about…