Tom Watson has contacted me directly to deny any involvement in the whole McBride/Draper black propaganda caper.
I rather feel that he ought to have noticed what was going on immediately around him. But the evidence implicating him was circumstantial, and my enquiries today of people who know him personally seem to indicate that he is not a vicious character.
So I accept his statement.
Emails happen when ‘good’ people do nothing.
Then as Minister for the Civil Service, he should be contacting the Police and asking them to investigate Mr McBride on a suspicion of Malfeasance in Public Office.
Mr McBride was a Civil Servant. His behaviour has broken the Civil Service Code of Conduct and brought the Government into disrepute. He send the slanderous emails in Government time, using Government equipment and via the Government Secure Intranet. All the time, he was being paid by the UK taxpayer.
If Mr Watson truly didn’t know what was going on, he should be as disgusted as the rest of us and determined that those responsible are investigated by the Police and, if sufficient evidence if ound, dealt with by the Crown Prosecution Service. We cannot have Civil Servants behaving in such a manner – can we?
“he is not a vicious character”
Hah! Tell that to Tony Blair!
I note he has still not posted on his own blog.
What’s up is the scared little rabbit (see his last blog entry) Watson scared of the headlights?
How pathetic using someone he knows to publish a denial for him.
Sickening and gutless but typical of the Brown sect within Labour!
Boudicca
I agree. The criminal law case against Whelan and McBride seems unanswerable. The case against Watson really was circumstantial, unless further inquiry turns anything up. Draper is a dreadful worm but as he was not in public pay at the time not actually acting criminally as far as I can see.
I agree with Boudicca – there must surely be a case of malfeasance to answer here for the reasons as set out previously.
I think you’re being far to lenient with Watson – what the hell was he doing then when all this was going on?
Sleeping?
I think that, when an MP (an MP!) rings up a man who makes Glenn Hoddle look sane and intelligent to deny his involvement whatever it may be, then we all need to contemplate the level to which this country has sunk.
I agree that Draper appears to only be party to the criminality, but as he wasn’t in public office cannot be charged with Malfeaseance in Public Office. There may be other charges which DO apply.
Mr Watson and other members of the No.10 office should have nothing to fear, if they were not involved and knew nothing about the proposed smear campaign. As Minister for the Civil Service, Mr Watson should be primarily concerned that the reputation and professionalism of the Civil Service is seen to be upheld. Allowing Mr McBride to resign – and that being the end of the matter – is simply not good enough.
It will be interesting to see if the Police are summoned. I very much doubt it – which will lead me to conclude that it wasn’t only Mr McBride in No. 10 who were involved in this operation.
Aren’t ministers supposed to know what is going on in their departments? Didn’t they used to take responsibility?
So was he, as Silent Hunter suggests, merely sleeping or what?
I’m still a little confused here. Who was going to pay for this website admin etc? Who paid for the domain name (aside from the ollie cromwell nonsense).
The person with ultimate responsibility for what goes on in No. 10 is the Prime Minister.
David Boycott
Being vicious to Tnoy Blair is a plus point
silent humter, trism,
He’s denied any knowledge. He hasn’t denied being useless or incompetent. The point is, I have seen no hard evidence with which to contradict his denial.
It would be a hypocritical if I should spend sp much energy deriding the many accusations without proof of “terrorists”, but did not apply the same standards elsewhere.
subrosa
good points.
Funny about Tom Watson not being vicious. Not only is there the Blair business, was it not his idea to attempt to smear Cameron by being the deviser of (and cameraman, as well) the infamous Sion Simon video?
How did the Sion Simon video smear Cameron? Yes, it was crap, but the thrust of Simon’s comments was that Cameron was prostituting his family by allowing them to be used as he made scripted speeched from the kitchen table.
How did the Sion Simon video smear Cameron? It was an awful clip, poorly executed, but the central thrust of Simon’s comments was this (and it was spot on): by pretending to be caught unawares at home in scripted ‘spontaneous’ webcameron appearances, Cameron was prostituting his family.
(forgot to fill out info fields on previouse version of this comment. my bad.)
Dear Rector,
You are clearly a good person who judges others by their own standards. Nobel idea, but simply not realistic when dealing with things you normally find under overturned rocks.
I think you have been had. Watson has innumerable ways to communicate his “I’m clean” message, forgive me, but you do seem to be rather a backwater !
kardinal birkutzki said “There may be other charges which DO apply.”
Conspiracy to libel or slander ? Conspiracy to anything else ?
And is it only Tom Watson who can request a police investigation ?
Alan Douglas
Alan
No, we can all request a police investigation. But as the Minister responsible, if he has reason to suspect a crime MAY have been commited by staff under him, he MUST call in the police. That is in the Civil Service Code. That request from a Minister is much harder for the highly politicised Met to ignore than a simple request from you or me.
So I am trying to use the Civil Service practices I know from my old employment to force the opening of a police investigation. What that would find, and where leads might point, I know not.
But it would get much more procedurally complicated if I were asking him to open an investigation into himself. So I am not.
I hope you will see that I am not as daft as I look sometimes!!
Fair enough Craig. I suspect that he may be, like most of his colleagues in this failed government, pretty well incompetent and useless.
Clearly you’re a good soul. I’m far less trusting. Still, let’s hope your assessment is accurate. We shall see, eh?
Craig,
There are several other sites that share the same server as Draper’s LabourList blog:
http://davidcameronseconomicpolicy.com/
http://www.davidcameronseconomicpolicy.co.uk/
http://toryeconomics.com/
All three are just more petty nonsense of the kind that is dragging my Labour party further into the sewers and all registered on 2009-01-09 in the name of:
The Labour Party
39 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0HA
UK
Do they come under Watson’s aegis?
A full list of all the sites that share LabourList’s server can be found here:
http://freebornjohn.wordpress.com/2009/04/12/labourlist-has-some-strange-bedfellows/
It comes to something when we are the labour party have to listen to moralising rants from the tories 🙁
what a sad day, still I note cameron and co have no issue with email accounts being hacked into and private correspondence being splashed all over the net.
Would they take it it the same way if the same happened to them