Ministry For Feral Media
The Press Conference Massacre
Well, the Gord came roaring out of the sidings, running over the body of former General Secretary Peter Watt (RIP) in the process. Heh: greater love hath no man man than this, that a man lay down his career for his superiors and take the negative briefing from "senior Labour sources" afterwards with good humour.
Anyway, back to the conference and before the assembled hacks could draw breath, Brown was already seven sentences into a scripted statement and claiming that he knew NUFFINK about this bloke who seems to be unduly keen to donate huge chunks of money to the comrades in the names of the people who make the tea in his office building. Abrahams? Never heard of the chap. Nope Brown, uh, was "not there," in the words of a poem we heard somewhere once.
Guido's done some work on the members of the Cabinet who may be the grateful recipients of the Abrahams' munificence, and although Hilary Benn seems to be in the clear Nick Robinson reckons that the bell tolling in the distance isn't Big Ben reminding us that it's time for a coffee and doughnut pit-stop. Nope, it's tolling for Harriet Harman:
Worried. Very worried. That is how I would feel if I were Harriet Harman. Repeatedly Gordon Brown has refused this morning to give her his unequivocal backing after it was revealed that her campaign for deputy leader accepted money from one of those used by David Abrahams to hide his donations. The Brown campaign and the Benn campaign refused similar offers.
The Harperson's released a statement pleading ignorance and the Gord's announced an Independent Inquiry. Makes a change from a review, we suppose.
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1 Comments
GB did pretty well in the circumstances and was able to separate himself from the situation pretty well. Certainly Brown and Benn's campaign teams were happily able to avoid getting embroiled unlike Ms Harman. There is an irony there given Mr Dromey's whistle blowing on Labour's earlier financial difficulty. Poor Watt caught the complete blast and no doubt that's a function of being General Secretary of a Labour Party short of money and unable to look a gift horse in the mouth and he's gone the way of all flesh. By the way what's happened to Lord Ashcroft? Is he still ticking and about to explode in the Tory trench?