Guardian’s Imaginer-in-Chief Alan Rusbridger has sent out an email to anxious hacks responding to articles about Carolyn McCall’s unexpected departure from GMG, laying into all and sundry (well, except the BBC) in a thousand words of defensive ranting.

The Times‘ one-line comment calling the Guardian a paper “in turmoil” clearly struck a nerve. In response to that one word, Rusbridger manages 128. Not content with Murdoch-bashing, he then devotes another three paragraphs to gloating over the Indy, calling it loser of the “format wars“, before gushing over his financial overlords and accusing competitors of just being jealous. “Outsiders look at all this and they don’t quite understand it.”

“Let’s be honest. Some of it is envy: the Scott Trust has been, and continues to be, a remarkable illustration of how a company can support serious journalism and how a news organization can place editorial at the heart of everything it does. So it comes under attack – just like the BBC – by people who dislike or envy the subsidy model and our journalistic freedoms.”

Then it’s back to Murdoch-bashing, and something even vaguely close to a threat: “We can equally certainly make the most of the opportunity presented to us. It’s no more than Mr Murdoch would do to us.” And then there’s profoundest wisdom of all: “Insecurity often breeds anger, denial and a search for someone to blame.”

A solution to the newspaper’s woes? “Mutually imagining”