Some important questions...

From: CARSWELL, Douglas
Sent: Sun 12/04/2009 10:32
To: WATSON, Tom
Subject: You and Damian McBride

Dear Mr Watson,

As you know, your Downing Street colleague, Damian McBride, has resigned following revelations about his alleged involvement in attempts to smear political opponents by disseminating apparently fabricated stories via the internet.

In Mr McBride's own words, he wrote up “some of the stories doing the rounds in Westminster." When did you first become aware of your close colleague, Mr McBride’s, efforts to write up these “stories”?

It has been alleged that you were copied in on some email exchanges relating to some of the “stories” Mr McBride had been preparing. To what extent might you have colluded in the preparation of these “stories”? Did you at any time seek to discourage your colleague, Mr McBride, with whom you worked closely in Downing Street, from preparing such fabricated smear stories for dissemination via the internet?

You are, of course, a government minister, with responsibilities for the Civil Service. Can you please confirm that you received certain emails relating to Mr McBride’s preparation of these “stories” as a government minister, on government equipment and in government time?

Finally, can you please confirm when it was that you first became aware of the Red Rag project, and confirm the extent of your involvement in it?

I look forward to hearing from you.

Warm regards,

Douglas Carswell MP

House of Commons