Smeargate: The Depths

With Peter Brookes on Holiday Morten Moreland provides the above in this morning's Times.

Says it all really.

However, looking at some of the things that Damian McBride thought he could use against the Tories shows how stupid and grasping at straws Labour have become. Or at least some people in Labour as Alistair Campbell is startlingly the voice of reason.

A visit to a sexual health clinic by a single man in the late 1980's should be looked at in the context of the time. We were being feed the advertising 'Don't Die of Ignorance' at the start of the HIV/AIDS health awareness push. The fact that a heterosexual young man decided to go and get tested is not a sign that he had any sexually transmitted disease merely that he wanted to be sure possibly for that current partner or possibly after a previous partner of his own personal sexual MOT. Personally I think such an act should have been applauded not lowered to some level of there is something sleazy going on. If only more sexually active individuals followed that approach on a regular basis.

As for the emotional strains on someone close to the political fray I don't think that sort of scenario is something that any of us involved in politics are ever very far away from. The next 13 months are going to be a tough time on anybody seeking election and those around them. The time commitments to move into General Election mode are higher than those already felt by the elected representatives and it also gets manifest on those who are candidates and their teams as well. There will be fall out across the parties on all sorts of level after the elections. Those who are suddenly out of office, those who fought hard came close and just lost, those whose partners don't fully understand the demands of this period etc.

The dark arts have been part of this Downing Street for 12 years now. This time they have been exposed for just how treacherous they are. Far from being ludicrous and juvenile as the phrase was on Saturday these were being seriously aired as a strategy to win a fourth term. Clearly the sign of a Government not trusting being able to attack a party that is policy-lite with their own policies.