Come on Dolly, do the right thing...

Newbie blogger and good read 

Tory Rascal

has a message to the junior LabourListers and the left-wing blogosphere in general:

Couldn't agree more.

Flashback: Draper and No10 spinners have learnt nothing in ten years.

On a hunch Tory Bear dug out his copy of Donald Macintyre's 1999 biography "Mandelson and the making of New Labour." It seems that Dolly has learnt nothing in the last ten years and there are some rather amusing similarities between

Drapergate I

and II:

As the story was beginning to break:

"By nine the following morning the potential dangers were beginning to become clear. Mandelson phoned Wegg-Prosser, asleep after returing from a party in the small hours. Why had he just seen Alan Clark on the BBC TV's Breakfast with Frost, denouncing Derek Draper as a "dodgy bloke"? Wegg-Prosser, physically trembling as he did so, begun to read out selected passages from the Observer to his boss over the phone. They agreed a "line to take" - namely this was a piece of "typical Derek Draper swaggering", that Draper risked doing himself great harm, and that he should learn some lessons from the episodes."

Remind anyone else of the "banter between blokes" line that Downing Street tried to take on Friday night/Saturday morning as the McBride/Draper smears story broke?

And where was Draper when the story broke? On holiday of course:

"Wegg-Prosser repeatedly asked Mandelson whether he should try and contact Draper, currently staying with his friend Jane Bonham-Carter at her family's villa in Campania. Eventually he did so , reaching him mid-afternoon, and breaking the news of the Observer scoop. He reported to Mandelson that Draper had seemed "taken aback but not that concerned"."

Perhaps McCavity would be a more appropriate nickname for Dolly...

One thing that Draper didn't get this time though was any defending from No10: 

"In fact it was initially Blair himself, who in the course of routine meetings at Number Ten, had taken the view that Draper, as a long-time Labour activist who had worked tirelessly for the modernisation of the party, should also be defended. It might be much too cavalier to say, as his ex-girlfriend Charlotte Raven would tell Draper later in the week, that the story really only amounted to boastful boy drinks champagne."

No such defence this time round, Brown is ruthless at cutting loose those who cause embarrassment. Perhaps most telling about Draper would be Mandelson's take on the whole situation:

"Draper, having cut his holiday short and flown into Gatwick during the afternoon from Naples, spoke to Mandelson at around 7pm. When he asked his former boss if he really believed he had said all the things quoted in the Observer, Mandelson was over-heard saying, "Unfortunately I can imaging you saying most of it all too easily"

Unfortunately Derek, everyone can imagine you plotting with the likes of Brown, McBride, Watson and Wheelan to smear the tories with RedRag lies all too easily...

That was Quick...

Sky is reporting that a decision about Damien Green will be released tomorrow at 11am...

Exclusive footage of Damian McBride leaving Downing St:

Couldn't resist this one, and no doubt the joke has already been made, but:

Hat-tip:

PlayPolitical

Back on the interwebby...

TB would like to say a big thank you to the wonderful people at Edinburgh University Computing Services who fixed his laptop for free. 

By far the most effcient techno-types he has ever come across!

Unite turns on Draper

Iain Dale is

reporting

that Unite are now flatly denying they have given money to LabourList. This is rather odd given the Wheelan connection, and the fact that this assumption has been doing the rounds, and had not been denied in the last few months that LabourList has existed.

An off the cuff comment from Draper's henchman and potential Judas, Tom Miller comes to mind. TB was chatting to Miller the other night and he said, "I'm not sure Derek has even received any payment yet."Could it be that Unite had promised the money and then, since this scandal broke, the promise has been very much revoked. Unite can get away with saying they haven't funded LabourList if no money has actually changed hands yet, regardless of whether they were planning to.

Meanwhile Draper himself has admitted he is

weighing up his options

and considering whether to quit. 

Blue screen of death....

Apologies for the lack of blogging today. Here's why...

Hopefully will get everything fixed soon.

Dave is pissed off...

TB has never seen David Cameron this angry, and justifiably so. This report has some of the footage, though the BBC has the

full interview

where he is visibly very angry:



It's all very well saying that these emails were never meant to see the light of day etc. But let us get one thing straight - the blog was created and the strategy to promote it was in place. Tory Bear can't help but think that if David Cameron's son hadn't died recently, would the full all out assault of Red-Rag have gone ahead?

It's not like the stories weren't written and ready to go.

He who wields the knife, might just wear the crown.

'Tis a common proof,
That lowliness is young ambition's ladder,
Whereto the climber-upward turns his face;
But when he once attains the upmost round,
He then unto the ladder turns his back,
Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees
By which he did ascend. (2.1.22)

TB is hearing stirrings that the LabourList kiddies are upping the ante for a post-Draper world. The Labour grass-roots movement, which believe it or not, actually contains some pretty good blogs have

almost all

called for

Draper to go

... Draper isn't the only person to receive Unite subs to fight the tories online, and TB has seen evidence that suggests that the minions have already begun planning what they will do once Draper is finally given the axe.

Quite why he is still clinging on remains to be seen, but there has been some speculation that Draper is holding out in order to negotiate a severance package from LabourList, of which the financial and legal status remains very grey.

Rumours are also flying round Labour circles of a certain prominent figure online who, as no friend of Draper already, is trying to build up support from the grass-roots to take over at LabourList.

Well whatever cheeky monkey wants to come in from the outside is going to have a tough battle with Draper's padawan who are already making plans of what they would do to try keep the fledgling LabourList afloat. This will prove a hard task given just how associated it is to Draper and just how protective of it Draper is being.

Unite will have to increase their funding of the project if Draper goes, because TB doubts very much that the FlowVideo office will be quite so accommodating to LabourList after Dolly has been knifed.

4 days and counting...

TB has had a busy day so just sitting down to a computer now...

The truth about Gordon Brown has now been running at the top of the news agenda for nearly 100 hours now. Any campaign class or press training will tell you that you have 24 hours to kill a story before serious damage is caused. Well it seems that the Downing St press office is struggling without their attack dog-in-chief McBride. The story is still dominating the BBC and Sky and today's papers still have it on their front page.

Seems

Watson

is next in line for the chop.

Twitter banter.

TB promised a free Dan Han t-shirt (see ad below) for his 500th follower on Twitter.

Congratulations then to

Cllr Andrew McConnell

who started following TB today.

Drop TB an email Andrew and he'll sort out getting the prize over to you...

The Telegraph finally wakes up:

Guido stuck it to the Telegraph after they swallowed McBride's spin late on Friday night in a preemptive strike to try limit the damage of this weekend. Andrew Pierce and Rosa Prince have

seemed to realise

they have to stick it to No10 and woken up to what the real story is:

"The Telegraph have established that.."

"The Telegraph

read on a blog

" more like.

The knives are out for Dolly...

TB is amazed that Derek Draper hasn't flown back from hiding in the Caneries to rescue his career - or maybe he just knows it's over.

While the cat is away the mice come

out to play

:

Laurie Penny

has stuck the knife right into the heart of Labourlist. In the prominent headline post on the website she has called for Draper to "step-back" and let his minions- Alex Smith, Tom Miller etc take over the shop.

Draper has clearly taught his padawan the tricks of dark-arts trade well, and in return they have risen up against their master in a veiled attack. Prescott has called for him to go, as has LabourHome and now even his own website says he should back off. Keep up the good work guys.

So long farewell Dolly.

Derek told such dreadful lies...

...it made one gasp and stretch one's eyes.

The noose is closing around Dolly. John Prescott has broken cover and

told him

to no uncertain terms to return from whence he came - back to the political wilderness, once again in disgrace. Will anyone from Unite join JP and call for Draper's head? Or will they continue with their tacit/financial support for the Night of the Wronged Wives*?



So long farewell Dolly.

*Hahaha

.

This is not an apology.

TB has been out of the loop for a few hours but don't for one second think Gordon has apologised. The BBC

is spinning

that writing to the Civil Service to criticise the rule book that Labour wrote is good enough. Why would someone not get fired already for smearing opponents, and seeing as McBride broke every Special Advisor rule, will the Labour Party be refunding the taxpayers the huge salary that McBride was paid? The personal letters to all those smeared is a start but why can Brown never just say sorry.

Why won't he go in front of the cameras?

TB will tell you why - because he knew exactly what was going on.

More smears and lies...

Donal Blaney has an interesting report about how two CF councillors are being smeared by their local Labour Party. Conservative Future executive member Plymouth

Cllr Steve Ricketts

and Essex

Cllr James Cottis

have been attacked in a dirty tricks campaign. Whether or not this is a coordinated national strategy from Labour, or whether it's just a strange coincidence one thing is clear-

Labour is rotten to the core.

Some questions for Unite:

BRILLO

: Who finances you?

DRAPER: We publish every year who finances us, different donations.

BRILLO: Who does?

DRAPER: Well, we haven't published it yet. But I can tell you we had some money from a trade union and we had some money from a few independent Labour people


Truly independent blogs don't need funding to be set up. You just got wordpress or blogger and set up a free account and weyhey you're off. Presumably no money has been spent by LabourList on PR as it

had it's launch held for free

at Labour HQ. Derek and Alex Smith the editors presumably are paid for all the "brilliant" work they do...

So why the need for so many donors?

What is this money being spent on?

As TB has already revealed this morning - it sure as hell ain't rent.

LabourList doesn't publicise the fact that it is actually run out of the offices of

FlowVideo

, a private company set up by Mr and Mrs Kate Garraway:

Funny that this isn’t mentioned on LabourList. Equally odd is why Draper would need funding from Unite the Union to set up the website and have somewhere to run it out of, when he already has an office that his company is already renting.

So then Derek, for the sake of the openness and transparency that you have now called for in the blogosphere, turning over a new leaf, and what not, what is the Unite money going on because it isn’t office costs? Why are you pretending that you have a “suite” when in reality it’s a post office box?

Why freely publicise the location of your actual office on one website and go to the effort of getting a mailbox and fake “suite” for another? Why the need to hide LabourList away?

Draper is the last person to be calling for a new open blogosphere given his track record and his refusals to be clear himself. Given that the taxpayer has funded one branch of these smear operations with McBride and that Union subs fund Draper, there is some explaining that needs to be done here. People have said that Draper can’t be fired because LabourList is his etc, this would be the case if it was really an independent project, but it’s not, Draper has Unite the Union to answer to as well as other anonymous private donors.

How happy are they with this weekend’s devastating revelations?

How happy is the average Unite worker with what Draper is doing with their hard earned money?

Unite subs are being used to fund disgusting gutter politics and they can't be happy about this. This weekend has proved who is pulling the strings of LabourList and some light has to be cast on who is funding this dancing to a merry tune? Wheelan, another disgraced attack dog who disappeared, only to resurface at Unite was CC'd into the smear emails, so is it the official line of the whole of the Unite the Union executive that they support this weekends fun and games?

· How much Unite member subs money has been given to LabourList?

· How much Unite member subs money is being spent on ‘rent’ in Piccadilly?

· On what terms is the Unite funding provided and on what timescale?

It was The Sun what done it...

The Sun

holds no punches

on Draper, Watson and more importantly Brown.

Nice weekend Gordon? TB bets that

this

was a fun affair:

Guido

reveals

this morning that Draper had lunch with Gordon at Chequers the same week he set up RedRag. Yep it's not looking good is it? Alan Johnson

hit the airwaves today

saying Brown didn't have to apologise for anything because he wasn't responsible.

What absolute bollocks - at starter level was it not Brown who employed McBride!?

Why the secrecy?

Dolly is sadly hiding in the Canary Islands at the moment and thus unavailable to comment about this office based confusion. TB did manage to get through to Dolly loyalist

Tom Miller

, who passionately defended his boss to TB last night. Miller said that he “spends most of his week” in the LabourList office so is clearly a good person to speak to:

TB: Oh right so which office? The “office”on Beak St?
TM: Errrh no. A different one…
TB: Oh right, so who works at the Beak St office?
TM: Errrh nobody does.
TB: Oh yeah why not?
TM: Errrrrrrrrh... because that’s the postal address.
TB: I know. So where is the real LabourList office?
TM: I’m not telling you.
TB: Why not? Because it’s 38 Victoria Street?
TM: I’m just not telling you. We can play guessing games all night. It’s definitely not Labour premises.
TB: Ok so, is it a business or private residence?
TM: I’m not sure, I’d imagine it’s a business.
TB: Where in London is it?
TM: I'm not telling you.

Why the secrecy?

Why can't the post go to the real office?

TB is with you on this one Tom. He too would imagine that is probably is a business address...

A registered business address - no less prestigious than Beak Street.

Suite 35

BRILLO

: "The Labour List, you work out of the Labour Party headquarters"

DRAPER: "Of course we don't work out of the Labour Party headquarters. Come on, can we at least get the basic facts right."

BRILLO: "Where's your office?"

DRAPER: "Piccadilly"

LabourList "

Headquarters

" – Suite 35,

77 Beak Street

, Piccadilly:

Oh dear more lies. That building doesn’t look big enough to have two suites let along thirty five. Reckon it could hold a couple of hundred "suites" if they were say the size of a small box though. A post box perhaps. Why don't you tell us where your office really is Dolly? It might not be in Labour HQ, but TB reckons the

Unite

members might want to know what exactly the money they give LabourList through their subs is being spent on?

Because it sure as hell ain't rent... What other companies use the LabourList office Derek?