Culpability Brown

IT IS always high-risk to talk about "defining moments" in politics since they usually turn out to be no such thing. The great tide of events flows on and matters which appeared sensational and decisive one month may be largely forgotten the next.

So it is too soon to describe the uncovering of Mr Damian McBride's appalling e-mails as the defining moment in anything – the relationship between the briefers of Whitehall and the briefed; the role of bloggers in British politics; the prime ministership of Gordon Brown. But you still can't help feeling that none of these will be quite the same again. Or at least, not until the next defining moment.

As evidence of how detached I have become from the intrigues of politics, I must confess that prior to last weekend I had never heard of Guido Fawkes or Nadine Farrier. For the benefit of those who have been out of the country, the former is a right-wing blogger who exposed the McBride e-mails while the latter is a Tory MP whom somebody, somewhere, thought worthy of smearing.

Even to describe these people in such terms confirms the lunacy of the plot and the utter detachment from reality of those involved in it. Residents of the political village have managed to persuade themselves that because they spend their waking hours reading self-important blogs written by people they know, then by definition these have become vehicles of influence and significance, rather than of gossip and tittle-tattle in an esoteric world.

I noticed one prominent political blogger claiming proudly that 50,000 people a day went online in order to be privy to his pronouncements and revelations. This means that approximately 60 million did not. That is the kind of perspective that tends to be lost wherever politicians and their apparatchiks gather. The more misguided ones believe themselves to be at the centre of a universe to which the rest of society is beholden.

The logic of such crazy assumptions was that it had become necessary – in the interests of Brown's government – to control such a site through which would be disseminated a weird assortment of falsehoods, rumours and innuendoes about Tory politicians and their loved ones. Thus balance would be redressed. Fawkes would be out-foxed. Some of this rubbish would be picked up by the mainstream media. The Brown interest would be served. It is a mindset which reflects paranoia of Nixonian proportions.

That such stupidity laced with malice should exist anywhere within a very wide radius of serious government is deeply depressing. And it is indeed sensational to discover that such strategies were being actively discussed at the behest of one of the Prime Minister's closest associates, using taxpayers' money and operating from the specially refurbished "war room" – not in itself a promising title – inside 10 Downing Street. The idea that such a cancer can be addressed through a code of conduct is not immediately credible.

Over the past week, there has been a great deal of post-hoc wisdom on display. Everyone knew that McBride was Damian McPoison. Everyone has known for years that Brown made a career out of surrounding himself with a sinister array of anonymous briefers. Everyone knew that most of the time, this activity was directed against figures within the Labour Party who were regarded, however irrationally, as enemies of the wannabe Prime Minister.

Well, of course, while some of us did know all of that – and occasionally tried to challenge it – the great majority of people knew no such thing for the simple reason that they were not told very often. At various points in time, the operation got out of control and some of this seeped into the public domain. But it was hastily put back in the bottle and life went on as before. Deniability has long been more important than morality.

I noticed yesterday that Charlie Whelan had "broken his silence" – a rare commodity – to complain about "the way the Westminster media attacked Damian McBride, despite the fact they had spent the previous 10 years relying on him for their stories". Counter-intuitive though it may be, it is possible to have sympathy for Whelan's indignation. So many hands, so many feedings and now so many bites. Is there no honour left in the world?

Machiavelli, who operated in the days before e-mails compromised security, created the maxim that "one who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived". And that has long been the relationship between the spinners and the spun; a marriage of convenience to which such inconveniences as truth were always peripheral. Indeed, an extension of the principle has been that the more far-fetched the story, the more likely it is to be exclusive and thus more gratefully received.

I have always adhered to the unfashionable view that if a partisan politician or his hired henchmen briefs against colleagues, the primary matter of public interest lies in who is doing the briefing, rather than in anything that is being said about the intended victim. But Machiavelli would have understood why that simple dictum has taken so long to catch on. "Men are so simple and so much inclined to obey immediate needs…" And for too many in the media, these needs include spoon-fed stories which they have been prepared to pay for with the guarantee of anonymity.

This has always been justified on grounds of "protecting sources" which is a particularly offensive abuse of an honourable principle for entirely dishonourable purposes. In our own country, people have gone to jail for not revealing sources. Elsewhere, they have been tortured. In the McCarthy era, careers were destroyed because brave men and women would not betray their friends. Whistleblowers, with matters of real importance to impart to society, need to be able to rely on the unflinching commitment of journalists to the noble principle of absolute confidentiality.

To confuse any of this with the lowlife pact between a political poisoner and his chosen disseminator is grotesque. Yet that is the only way that off-the-record briefing directed against individuals can survive and has indeed flourished. That is also the road that leads to a belief in untouchability among the Damian McBrides of this strange world; that they can spread anything about anyone and get away with it. Hence Whelan's heartfelt sense of betrayal.

The vast majority of politicians, advisers and journalists are honourable people to whom this whole murky world is as alien as it is to the rest of the population. There is absolutely nothing wrong with briefing the press about the factors which have contributed to an action by government. That is information, from an obviously partisan source, which it is then up to journalists to take, leave or temper with other inputs. But once the line is crossed and the briefing is about personalities, a completely different set of rules must apply. If such rules emerge from this affair, it will be a great step forward. But I am not optimistic for Machiavelli was right. There will always be those…

In the current imbroglio, the big question for Gordon Brown is not whether he knew exactly what McBride was up to. The question is why McBride was there at all – as has now been confirmed, at the centre of a communications web which also included Whelan and Derek Draper. Ye gods! If one had set out to select a trio guaranteed to operate in the murkiest depths, these are the three names that would have emerged – each sharing the distinction of previous enforced removal.

I have no idea how damaging all of this is to the government of Brown in even the medium-term, or to his electoral prospects. But I am absolutely certain that it has to stop.

There must be no more McPoisons. There must be no more character assassinations directed against colleagues. There must be no more undermining of decent people trying to get on with their jobs but never knowing what they will wake up to. There must be no more disseminating dirt, real or imagined, on the private lives of opponents.

Above all, there must be no renewal of the cycle in the interests of the next anointed one who has decided – back to Machiavelli – that it is better to be feared than loved, if you can't be both.

Labour, both in opposition and government, has been forced to live with that culture for far too long. All of that is easy to say and for everyone to sign up to with an air of righteousness. Asserting that what has recently been uncovered was wicked and "inappropriate" is also pretty straightforward. But the proof of reformed behaviour will not lie in fine words.

It will lie in the texts, the phone calls, the headlines – or preferably the absence of them. We shall see.

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Spinners

DEREK DRAPER

Former special adviser to Mandelson. Following boasts that he could buy businesses time with 'connected' individuals in the Labour Party, he left to train as a psychotherapist in the States. Married to GMTV's Kate Garraway, he returned to politics once Brown was PM, and, alongside editing the LabourList website, became a key networker between Blairites and Brownites. Received smear e-mails from Damian McBride with a view to creating Red Rag website, which was to be modelled on the Guido Fawkes blog, Order-Order.

GUIDO FAWKES

Paul Staines is the political blogger Guido Fawkes who, since 2004, has blogged on the website Order-Order, which last week published details of e-mails sent by Damian McBride to Derek Draper, outlining plans for a smear campaign against leading Tories.

CHARLIE WHELAN

Political director of Britain's largest trade union, Unite, which itself is one of Labour's largest donors. Former aide to Gordon Brown when he was chancellor, Whelan remains devoted to the Prime Minister, having returned alongside Draper. He is Brown's Alastair Campbell.