Downing Street must abandon these dark arts

WE'VE had welcome expressions of regret. We've had a promise of new rules.

But as Downing Street made clear last night, Gordon Brown just can't bring himself to say sorry for the scandal of the emails sent from No 10 and designed to spread lies about Opposition politicians.

Mr Brown needs to take a long, hard look in the mirror.

He assures us that he was not involved in, and knew nothing about, the emails that were being sent out from his own office. But people should be in no doubt that it is the Prime Minister himself who must take responsibility for the culture in Downing Street under his leadership.

He certainly knows that his key lieutenants have been planning a very personal campaign against David Cameron in the run-up to the general election. They've hardly made a secret of it.

What's more, Damian McBride was not a peripheral figure. He was a civil servant paid for by the taxpayer, and he was personally appointed by the Prime Minister and directly responsible to him. He worked alongside the Minister for the Civil Service, Tom Watson, at the heart of the Prime Minister's office. He was to Gordon Brown what Alastair Campbell was to Tony Blair.

So this is not a situation where simply re-writing a code of conduct will do the job. Indeed the existing code for special advisers already says explicitly that personal attacks are strictly forbidden. The problem is not that the rules were not tight enough, but that one of the closest associates of the Prime Minister thought he could ignore those rules and get away with it.
There remain many unanswered questions too. Mr Brown needs to explain whether he was aware of plans to set up a special website to smear Conservatives — even if he did not know the details of the smears themselves.

He needs to make clear that Mr McBride will not receive a taxpayer-funded payoff from his job at No 10. That would be completely unacceptable. He also needs to make it quite clear that he will sever all ties with Mr McBride and the former adviser, Derek Draper. Gordon Brown's advisers are like the mythical hydra. You chop their heads off, but they just grow another and keep on coming. Damian McBride has been sidelined before, as was his predecessor Charlie Whelan. But in the end Gordon Brown couldn't do without them, and brought them back.

If that happens in this case, for example in a general election campaign, it would be nothing less than an admission of guilt by the Prime Minister.

We need a proper explanation of the role played by the Cabinet Office minister Tom Watson. He was named in the emails, and sat next to Damian McBride in Downing Street. The Cabinet Secretary needs to investigate whether any of his actions breach the Ministerial Code.

And also there needs to be a proper investigation by the Cabinet Secretary to ensure that nothing like this is happening elsewhere in either No 10 or the Government.

But above all Gordon Brown needs to understand his own role. For 10 years he has been working to undermine political friend and foe alike. But he is Prime Minister now — and in the midst of a national economic crisis. So he has to change too.

His job is to sort out the mess in our economy. And he should make it clear that his Downing Street will now abandon the political dark arts that have characterised too much of his career so far. Nothing less will sort all of this out.