http://maguire.mirror.co.uk/2008/01/has-guided-fawkes-outed-himsel.html

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/politics/threelinewhip/jan08/whoisguidoworkingfor.htm

Well, I prefer Labour to the Tories, obviously. I’m not going to be neutral. And yes, I don’t trust Cameron’s modernisation agenda either. I’m just saying I’d like to have more sympathy but its slightly difficult. Though, efforts like this need to be highlighted and dealt with and I’m glad we’re doing that.

I don’t think its possible to make a comparison with Mel Phillips either. Her writing is off the charts compared to whatever Brown has said.

The obvious point to make is that we had a “pretty straight kind of guy” and look where that got us. Let’s a have a weirdo all the way.

Except that Melanie Phillips is genuinely barking… :P

Actually, to some extent one could argue that Melanie Phillips actually benefits from the ‘Mad Mel’ epithet as the allusion to her being of doubtful sanity seems, at times, to serve as mitigation for some of her more offensive rhetoric where the same arguments, if advanced by a more considered writer, would attract far greater and more vehement public opprobrium.

Fair point. It’s more like the industrial revolution, I suppose. Nobody in Manchester invented weaving, just a great way to do lots more of it a lot more efficiently. So I stand corrected.

My point isn’t the Cameron is any more ‘progressive’ (ha!) than Brown. It’s that neither deserves the moniker. And it’s an increasing (and increasingly funny to watch) sign of Labour desperation, that all there’s left to say is: “hey, the Tories would be worse, though.” How inspiring.

If you want to make the argument that a Cameron Government will actually be more liberal and progressive than the Brown government, please go ahead. It’s a perfectly respectable argument in this era of blurred ideological boundaries and political cross-dressing - but what I actually think is that Cameron’s re-branding of the Conservative Party is essentially no more than that, and that it will revert to type if and when it gets back into power.

NuLab did not invent character assassination and smear. Have you heard of Joe Haines and Bernard Ingham?

Or, rather, between the Conservative Prime Minister we have and a slightly posher alternative one? That “vote for us or the eeevil Tories might get in” must have past its sell-by date by now.

I’m with Justin (and Jennie). NuLabour’s little Blairite turn, of which Brown has been the chief executive, practically invented this stuff. I never felt sorry for bomb-makers who lost their hands putting the detonators together, so I won’t be crying for Brown either.

What do you propose we do about it, because I’m fresh out of ideas?

Thanks for pulling these various threads together. As a tactic it really is vile and one can only hope that it does back fire on the Tories and on Cameron in particular. The Tories liked Blair - he was seen as one of them, a gent, a ‘good chap’ who was jolly good company. Brown has never courted the Tory grandees, never tried to reach out to the opposition members of the ‘club’ that is the House of Commons. Why? Because to him they (the Tories) represent privilege, elitism and opportunism - he just doesn’t like them.

I agree that the view from the moral highground is exhilarating, but unfortunately the people you need to convince can’t be arsed making the climb.

I shouldn’t get defensive of Brown when he faces such kind of hostility, but the point is the right is making it (or it has long been) part of their regular arsenal. A certain case involving a lib dem politician comes to m ind that you’re very aware of.