It's all in the email

I get annoyed when ever so often the news agenda runs wild with some story and its coverage becomes bigger than the story itself. It makes me not want to buy a newspaper, watch or listen to the news and stay ignorant of everything.

On this occasion it’s about some bloke who works for Prime Minister Brown that wrote an email to ‘a friend’ (who happens to run some political blog) about smearing some Conservatives. Firstly, what on earth do they mean by ‘smearing’? Is someone going to smear Ann Widdecombe in Johnson’s Baby Oil or smear the Tories HQ in dog crap? Ok, it’s to do with damaging someone’s reputation but I think I’ve made my point on the loose term of the word used in political context.

Still, I’m torn here and even though I have been exposed to quite a bit of coverage on this story I’m still not clear on a few things (please note I’m writing this before I have read a Sunday Paper) such as did the guy send the email to blogger man from his personal email address or was it from his @labour.gov.uk one? This is why I’m undecided. I think given his position as some spin doctor, you know that band from the early-mid nineties, pants, I mean some guy that turns bad news into good for an organisation, he shouldn’t really have written what he did. But this should only apply within his working capacity, i.e. whilst at work or using equipment owned by his employer. Outside that jurisdiction I think he should be able to say what he wishes. I mean come off it, so what if he wants to ‘have George Osbourne running scared’ by smearing him. If that’s his talent in life, then he might as well use it. I shout at the television and call Wayne Rooney a bastard every time he scores for Man United, doesn’t mean I hate the guy, it’s just some throw away expression I make every time he does what he does best. Same thing applies when I see crap news stories all over the papers, I think what a load of crap The Guardian or Telegraph have got printed on their font covers today. I then check out the hottie on the Daily Star and I calm down. Still I say it with my voice and not on a letter headed with the organisation I work for which would in some way suggest to the recipient of my views that the organisation I work for endorses what I say. So this is why I’m sitting on the fence on this one but wish to make the reader aware of which way I’ll side once I find out where the email was sent from.

If it was sent by his @labour.gov.uk email address then I think he’s in the wrong. Sending that sort of stuff using your work email address is probably not the smartest thing to do because really you are opening up everything to interpretation. The stalwart right winger would probably believe that Mr Brown himself proof read the email before it was sent and that’s where the hysteria begins. Fair play to the Conservatives, they’re precisely doing what Labour doesn’t want them to do, acting rather admirably. As yet, I haven’t heard a call for a ‘public enquiry’ (another term I one day wish to discuss) or some sort of restructuring of their cabinet. All they’re highlighting is that we’re in a recession and that Labour should be concentrating on that and not smear. I think all 60 million of us are in agreement with that and we probably also agree based on their reaction to this is that they’ve got better spin doctors (perhaps the they’ve got the singer working for them).

If he did send it from his @destroyconservative.me.uk email address to his blogging pal then I think we are wrong to castigate him. Yes, it is probably foolish to write those things but we all do foolish things and as long as we do them in our own time then we should be allowed to express our personal intentions and feelings. I’m pretty sure Tony Blair must of said ‘That git David, he made me look a fool today. I’ll get him one day,’ after receiving a pasting on Prime Minister’s question time and he should be allowed to say that at home or sending it to his mate Bill Clinton on his @blairrules.co.uk address. Isn’t that what freedom of speech (I guess in this sense freedom of email) is all about?


In other news, I’m so glad Phileas Fogg Tortilla chips are back. It’s like there’s a party in my mouth and everyone’s invited every time I munch on a packet of those bad boys.