Don’t let Mr Brown take us back to the future

Tea with Pickles

At the heart of this government we have seen one of the most brutal smear operations in full force.  Gordon Brown’s loyal spin doctor Damian McBride was unmasked last year as the mastermind behind spreading malicious lies and unfounded rumours about Conservative Politicians. At the time after much dithering Mr Brown eventually apologised. He promised a new politics but it didn’t last. Like so many of his promises they bite the dust sooner or later. As Mr Brown has clung on as one botched coup after another has failed to unseat him, he has retreated further and further into his Downing Street bunker becoming more and more obsessed with destroying opponents in the Labour party and not actually getting the country out of the monumental economical mess he got it into.

Last night Mr Brown was exposed again in the most public of fashions on TV during the election debates over the outrageous lies the Labour party have been spreading on leaflets that the Conservatives would cut the winter fuel allowance and axe free bus passes and TV licenses for pensioners. Our supreme leader was caught like a rabbit in headlights claiming he didn’t authorise them.  A likely story. This morning we published a list of  23 examples of Labour literature peddling lies about Conservative Party policies. I won’t list them all here but it’s a brutal example of politics hitting new lows . It was particularly satisfying to see the intrepid  Cathy Newman over at Channel  4 news destroying Labour’s indefensible justification for printing these smears. It’s recommended reading.

As Labour tried to get a grip on the crisis engulfing them, their press conference this morning  was taken  directly from a Soviet style textbook on media management. Journalists weren’t allowed  to ask more than one question as Mandelson,  Brown, and Harman tried to avoid close scrutiny over their lies. One of my dear chums at the BBC had the microphone ripped away from him by a Labour spin doctor as he tried to ask a follow up question. Then in a bid to try and reassert control Brown and his comrades decided  to only take questions from the foreign press as they tried to stop the media storm raining down on them. It really was desperate stuff. Hardly new politics, hardly transparent.

If we let this politics of fear triumph over the politics of hope this country will be a poorer place. Trust in politicians is at an all time low and for that we must all take responsibility . This election offers the chance for a new dawn, for a new start and for a new type of politics. Don’t let Mr Brown take us back to the future.

Eric Pickles