Labour and Alastair Campbell: legacy & lies

BBC:" David Cameron is demanding a personal apology from Prime Minister Gordon Brown over e-mails sent by an adviser discussing smearing the Tories. The Tory leader is "absolutely furious" and is calling on Mr Brown to give a guarantee that such messages will not be sent again, a spokeswoman said.

Damian McBride quit after his unfounded claims about Mr Cameron and shadow chancellor George Osborne became known. Cabinet Office minister Liam Byrne says Mr Brown knew nothing of the e-mails. But Labour backbencher John McDonnell has called for an inquiry to find out who was involved. "

If you read this sorry story, it's just sickeningly ironic the way that former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell thinks the whole thing is somehow 'beneath' the standard of spin mechanics or indeed behaviour that Labour should be seen to uphold.

"Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair's former spin doctor, wrote in his blog that he had been struck not just by the "unpleasantness" of the emails, but also by their "incompetence". "McBride will be thinking that was his big mistake - writing it all down. His really big mistake was thinking it might be effective," Mr Campbell added"

I really makes you wonder what he's thinking. What did Alastair Campbell then think about the great dossier, the 45 minutes and so on, and does he seriously think that compares favourably to now ?

I can't pretend I'm an expert of every single mechanic of the Blair government. I'm not. I don't know every little thing Alastair Campbell did or said, but I strongly think we know more than enough. And to summarise Alastair Campbell's role, I agree with Michael Howard in a Newsnight interview from a while back that Alastair Campbell was one of the main factors responsible for taking politics exactly into the loathsome gutter it is today. Howard reflects:

"I think that's the man who's responsible for what's changed [pointing at Campbell -j]. The way in which Alastair has conducted his operations, he was in Downing Street when he bullied and lied his way across our political life...consistently did more to lower the tone of our political life, our public life than anything else. And that was all of course done with Tony Blair's connivance and authority"

And I've never seen Michael Howard look as sincere and serious about anything actually.

It's the height irony, it's an insult to injury, for a lying murderous charlatan like Alastair Campbell to be slitheringly admonishing about a culture he was heavily involved in creating and normalizing, much to the delight of the Labor plebs.

Which bit doesn't he like, the fact that it may not be 'effective?' or their 'incompetence' ?, or just the fact this guy got found out ? Well I guess Campbell would know.

I just see this as just another sinister little drip drip way of trying to normalize, trying to exonerate Blair, Campbell and others for the catastrophe of the Iraq War and the monstrous pile of shocking lies they thought absolutely nothing of concocting and presenting to sell it.

It's as if to say that was normal, but this is abnormal. And that Alastair Campbell is still doing this years latter, tacitly supported by the BBC in this case, I find extraordinary.

And credit were it is due to Labour's John McDonnell for taking a stand on this topic which as he rightly says only reflects on Labour not anyone else:

"They drag the Labour Party into the gutter. They just add further to the undermining of the belief that Labour Party supporters have placed in our party"