The Labour Party’s general secretary, Ray Collins, denies knowledge of the Red Rag attack site.  Yet the News of the World placed him at a planning meeting held on December 1, 2008 at Unite’s HQ.  He was there with the now disgraced spin and smear merchants Damian McBride and Derek Draper.  On the Unite side were Charlie Whelan and Andrew  Dodghson.  Kevin Maguire completed the dirty half-dozen. Guido believes that although Collins did not know of the specific intended smears outlined in the January email by McBride to Draper, he did however know of the intention to launch the anonymous attack site.  Nor was he the only person at Labour HQ who was aware of the intention to set-up the “plausibly deniable” site.

On Friday Guido spoke with Dan Thain, who was until recently the Labour Party’s eCampaigns Manager based in Labour’s HQ at 39 Victoria Street, he now works in the London office of Blue State Digital (famous for being Obama’s online people).  He admitted on the record that:

• He knew in principle about the plan to set-up an anonymous Labour attack blog.
• He denied knowing about specifics such as the smears or the name of the site.

He indicated that Sue Macmillan,  New Media Campaigns Taskforce Leader at Labour HQ, was also in the know.  She worked closely with Derek Draper.  The obvious question for Collins, Thain and Macmillan to answer is:

Why if it was not the intention to use the Red Rag site for below the belt, spin and smears, was it set up with an anonymous and therefore plausibly deniable structure, outside the Labour Party?

The mere fact that they didn’t want it to have any link back to the party was because it was always intended for it to be used to smear opponents in a way that they would be too ashamed to do openly.  That was implicit in the setting up of the site.  Ray Collins can hardly claim to have no responsibility for the site  just because he didn’t know which particular smears were going to be used.  He still helped plan and facilitate the setting-up of the smear site.

Numerous “blogger’s breakfasts” were organised by Derek Draper at Labour HQ with invitations sent to dozens of bloggers [invitation list for the December 4, 2008 blogger's breakfast revealed by Guido here].  Attendees of the blogger’s breakfasts organised by Derek Draper held at Labour HQ confirm to Guido that the idea of setting up an attack blog was openly discussed.   In fact at all the meetings the discussions invariably came back to how to take on  and counter  the success of the ConservativeHome, Iain Dale and Guido blogs.  Guido has a detailed picture of discussions held at those breakfasts.

+++ Developing +++

Guido was too late to get the “Save Draper” campaign going.  People don’t realise what a disaster this is – what will Guido do for comedy material?

Labour’s general-secretary Ray Collins has thrown him overboard already.  In an NEC announcement leaked to Iain Dale, rather than LabourList, the entertainment provided by Derek was brought to an end.

Ray Collins, General Secretary of the Labour Party,

“As you will recall from November’s NEC Away Day, last year Derek Draper volunteered one day a week of his time to Labour HQ on an unpaid basis. He subsequently left Victoria Street to set up the Labourlist blog.  Since then he has offered advice and opinion on an adhoc basis which ended in March of this year and will not be sought in the future.

“I receive advice and opinion from many Labour Party supporters in my work as General Secretary but I decide what advice I take or seek and act in a manner appropriate with my values and those of the Party which certainly does not include smears or personal attacks. I want to reiterate that Derek Draper does not hold a position or role with the Labour Party and this will remain the case.

“To make clear Labourlist is an independent left-of-centre website and blog. The Labour Party did not fund its activities. What the Party has supported is an effort to promote left-of-centre bloggers more generally by bringing interested supporters together at a series of events.

“I absolutely support the Prime Minister’s view that scurrilous rumour, gossip and personal attacks have no place in politics and no place in the Labour Party.”

Psychologies magazine, where Derek Draper had a regular column, announced today that:

“Derek’s position is being investigated independently by the British Association of Counsellors and Psychotherapists to reveal if he really is guilty of the allegations made about him, what the background and details of the story are, and how all of this affects his standing as a therapist.”

Guido doesn’t have any psychotherapy qualifications, so this is not a professional judgement.  In Guido’s opinion a man who thinks smearing an innocent woman over mental health issues is “absolutely brilliant” is not fit to deal with vulnerable people.  The BACP has been dragging its feet over concerns that Draper lied about his qualifications.  It is a fact that Draper was expelled from his course at the Wright Institute (in Berkeley, not at Berkeley).

His desk is already on Ebay…

No severance pay-off.  Quite right.  James Purnell’s announcement that unemployed alcoholics will be refused benefits must be a double blow. However the government says unemployed alcoholics who seek treatment will be able to claim benefits.  McBride should seek help from Draper, he is a sort of psycho-therapist…

Nadine Dorries MP has just told GMTV that she was called last year by journalists seeking to substantiate the smears against her.  She believes that because the press would not run the stories McBride and Draper set-up the Red Rag blog.

Derek Draper’s “Red Rag” anonymous smear site was registered on November 4, 2008 according to publicly available records.  Draper had lunch at Chequers with Gordon Brown on Sunday 16, November 2008.

Brown recalled Draper to aid the  Labour Party, Draper boasted to many people that he was helping Gordon Brown.  Did he not discuss with Brown what he was doing for him?  Was Damian McBride also at the same Chequers lunch? 

Are we supposed to believe that the subject of Draper’s online battle plans was never discussed with the PM?

You can just imagine the panic in Downing Street on Friday with Tom Watson having conversations exactly like those in this clip, telling Damian and Derek to undo what he doesn’t know about and wouldn’t even remember if he did. The excuse lines used by Damian and Derek come straight from episode 6 of The Thick of It - including “this email was never intended to be seen by anyone but the recipient”.

Draper of course added to the real comedy with his defining Channel 4 News soundbite yesterday – “I wasn’t lying on purpose”. Armando Iannucci’s fictional version was “I unintentionally lied. Unknowingly might have told an untruth”.

Guido particularly likes the line “Malcolm Tucker has left the building”.  Damian McBride has left the building.

Questioned repeatedly he disowned Dolly, he denied Dolly headed up Labour’s online operation.  Byrne denied he had any official role in Labour.

So why did they launch LabourList in Labour HQ with Peter Mandelson and Dougie Alexander in attendance?  Why did Gordon Brown invite Derek Draper to Chequers?  What did they discuss – Strictly Come Dancing?

UPDATE : Alastair Campbell has just disowned McBride and Draper, with a nothing to do with me  guv dismissal: “I barely know Mr McBride. I was vaguely aware of him being around the Treasury when I was in Number 10, and vaguely aware that he was closer to the Charlie Whelan school of strategic communications than my own. (I’m aware we tend to get lumped together in some sections, but I know the differences, even if they don’t.)”

UPDATE II : Clarke has just called for Draper and Whelan to consider their position.  His was the voice that put the final nail in the coffin for McBride.  He obviously hasn’t finished with that hammer…

The News of the World reveals the smears – full story here.

Draper has lied from the beginning about this whole affair. His candid honest response to receiving these smears – which he wanted to publish as soon as possible – was to tell their poisonous author that they were “brilliant”.  Surely decent Labour-minded people have had enough of him?  He is an electoral liability who should be cast adrift. In the words of Gordon Brown, there is absolutely no place in politics for Derek.

Tomorrow you will get a glimpse of how Brown’s henchmen really work.  Guido has done the rounds of all the broadcasters and Draper has been on some of them.  He even now just continues lying, it is not even very good lying.  His story changes all the time.  Remember how he lied to Guido and Andrew Neil on the Daily Politics?  How can he have any credibility?  Why don’t decent Labour supporters get rid of him as their online champion?  Why on earth was he brought back?

McBride’s resignation statement is bordering on deranged in anger (Guido’s text messaged taunts to McPoison might have been cruel, but hey, this was payback for his contrived smears aimed at Dale and Guido).  Guido revealed the truth about how McBride operates, he lies about how Guido operates.

The idea that Damian’s poisonous smears were just a few juvenile jokes between old pals is the joke, this was a discussion as to the  sequencing of politcally motivated smears by experienced spin doctors.  In the know people include not only McBride and Draper but, for example, Charlie Whelan.  Whelan is no juvenile.

Stephen Pound says Guido is laughing all the way to the bank – actually Guido gave the story to the News of the World and the Sunday Times for pleasure not profit.  McBride claims in his resignation statement that stories he came up with he didn’t want in the public domain.  Lies. He had already put some of those stories in the public domain – as a very angry Nadine Dorries will testify.

McPoison accuses Guido of having Tory backers – it just shows that they just don’t get it – this blog was started for free, with no committee behind it, no plan, on a whim.   It is Guido’s plaything.  The Tories are rightly wary of Guido and incidentally they have a PR problem tomorrow – the last thing they want are half truths mixed with smears getting out into the open uncontrollably.  Coulson is apparently having kittens according to sources at his old newspaper.

Admittedly Guido is no naive innocent.  It was deliberate timing to launch this assault on Downing Street this weekend to fill the holiday news vacuum.  Nobody so far has commented on the irony that it was also this week that it became legal for the government to read all our emails.  Like Guido always says, people should not be afraid of their government, governments should be afraid of their people. Now where is that ’99 Premier Cru Grande Classe Margaux?

Private Eye’s Francis Wheen (of HP Sauce) has some good sources inside Labour circles and has heard some of the stories going around.  When Guido previously mentioned Draper’s widely known financial woes, Dolly launched into one of his charateristic blustering tirades:

Needless to say [Guido's] latest post about me is inaccurate, offensive and libellous… I am clearly not going to get into my personal finances as these are no-one else’s business but the picture [Guido] attempts to paint is patently ridiculous.

You will note there are no names or actual facts just blanket and unspecific insinuations. If he had any actual facts why wouldn’t he publish them?

Guido will be more specific this time.  Private Eye doesn’t report that when Macintyre found out about Draper’s  treachery, he called Dolly “pure f***ing evil”.  Macintyre also complained to friends that it wasn’t just the difficulty of getting Draper to pay back the money he owed – it was that Draper  had enjoyed many an expensive alcohol fuelled lunch with Macintyre, unfortunately invariably at the latter’s expense.

The left-wing New Statesman political correspondent fancies himself as someone with an understanding of economics – he recently had a spat with Fraser Nelson, the Spectator’s number crunching political editor, which was hysterically one sided.   It has taken Macintyre a long time to grasp that there is no such a thing as a free lunch – except for Draper.