Sunday, April 12, 2009

No Confidence Vote Could Bring Down Brown

Pressure on Beleaguered Brown is mounting with calls to apologise for 'Smeargate' from both Tories and New Labour ranks. A commons 'no confidence' vote would purge the lies, deceit and spin eating away at the heart of a rotten government.

Furious Cameron is demanding a personal apology from Brown. Members of the decent Labour Party have rounded on the corrupt Downing Street black ops spin machine. Any shred of credibility left in ministers and their band of cronies has been destroyed.

The Tory leader is said to be "absolutely furious" after more details were revealed today of a disgraceful Tory sex smear campaign at the heart of Number Ten which led to one of Brown's closest aides being forced to quit.

A leading back-bench Labour MP today added his voice of disgust at the dirty tricks outrage, placing Brown as Party leader in a precarious position.

A personal apology is the least the Tory leader should expect. But that should be made to the house of commons. A vote of confidence would have to follow.

Cameron is calling on Brown to give a guarantee that such messages will not be sent again. Anyone who thinks this will end New Labour spin is living in fool's paradise.

Blair's spin doctor Campbell is in regular contact with Brown. Whelan, now head of press at the union Unite, is back in the fold and was copied in emails between McPoison and New Labour's Dolly Draper.

With spinmaster Mandleson lurking in the shadows, that can only lead to more dirty tricks and dark ops in the weeks to come. To argue that Brown knew nothing is laughable.

During his time in Downing Street, Brown's attack dog McBride did the job he was expected to do. Brown may not have been in on the detail but certainly he would be aware of the broad outline of the cunning pre-election plan. After all, that is why taxpayer-funded toe-rags like civil servant McBride are hired.

The smear campaign has been spun by Number Ten as a "juvenile and inappropriate" prank by two blokes. A pathetic attempt at damage limitation to play down the seriousness of the spin operation at the heart of the fag-end of a rancid government spinning out of control.

The dirty tricks campaign to smear top Tories, including Cameron, was exposed by top political blogger, Paul Staines, author of the Guido Fawkes blog. But it's not just the Tories who are furious. The rank and file Labour Party has had to suffer the lies and spin of the New Labour brand for over a decade.

Labour backbench MP, John McDonnell, today called on Brown to launch an independent inquiry into who was involved: "Smear tactics like this are not the Labour way ... They drag the Labour Party into the gutter." LibDems too are up in arms.

Deluded Brown stands alone. His cover has been blown. He would do well to remember the unpopular Callaghan government's defeat on 28 March 1979. Then the commons passed a motion of 'no confidence' by one vote — 311-310 — which forced Callaghan to call a general election, ushering in the Thatcher years.

Only last June, Brown escaped the 42 days vote by the skin of his political teeth in a mixture of pork-barrel politics and support of Northern Ireland's DUP when the government scraped through by just nine votes - exactly the number of MPs from Northern Ireland who voted for the draconian measures.

With a united front of Tory, LibDem and back-bench Labour MPs, a 'no confidence' vote would place the Brown's government on a knife edge.

The full blown political row has dealt a bitter blow for Brown, after one of his most senior aides, Damian McBride, dubbed McPoison, was fingered by Staines over emails discussing possible smear stories about Tory MPs, sent to New Labour blogger, Derek Draper to be used on a scurrilous New Labour pre-election website, 'Red Rag'.

Once again, the spinner became the story and McBride was toast. The more they spun, the deeper the hole.

Brown famously forced his way into Number 10 in 2007 declaring an end to the culture of spin that had dogged the Blair years. No-one believed him then as McPoison followed closely behind. No-one believes him now. A slow drip of poison will continue under a horse with a different colour.

All political parties have their attack dogs. All get up to dirty tricks of one sort or another. That's politics. And all do their upmost to shield their boss from any damage.

Now a general election is round the corner. For the first time in the UK, political bloggers will be a powerful and influential force.

Trying to beef up existing New Labour-supporting blogs and launch new ones are part and parcel of that phoney war campaign.

But New Labour ministers and cronies cannot get it into their arrogant skulls just why so many blogs seem to be 'Tory supporting'.

The Orange Party, a relative new kid on the political blogging block, certainly isn't Tory supporting per se, its politics are left-leaning. But like so many voters it is just fed up to the back teeth with a decade of the discredited New Labour brand and the arrogance of lies, spin and deceit.

That raises the issue of confidence among the voters and that should raise the issue of confidence in Brown in the house of commons.

Throw in the toxic scandal of ministers' second homes fiddles and Brown and his fag-end of a government is doomed, however long New Labour tries to cling onto power.

Picture: What did Brown know and when did he know it? McPoison and the Supreme Leader in happier spinning days

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