“McBridegate” should finish Brown off

The NOTW article is surprisingly impartial, discreet and well done.  They have deliberately chosen not to publish some of the more lurid details of the e-mail exchanges between McBride and Draper concerning the smear on Cameron.  Perhaps, the most worrying observation for Brown about “McBridegate” is this:

Yesterday, there were rumours in Westminster circles that Downing Street unsuccessfully attempted to marshal one or more Labour MPs loyal to the party machine to issue quotes in support of McBride, but was rebuffed.

I am reminded of the poster Labour were to have used for the 2007 non-election:

 

This encapsulates everything about “McBridegate”.  It is just Gordon.  The man has built his career on deceit, underhandedness, treachery and above all fratricide.  It is not credible for Brown to dismiss this smear campaign as the work of others.  He alone is accountable for this subterfuge and for the actions of the staff that work for him.

The wiser heads in the Labour party have now to decide whether this dishonourable man can continue as our discredited Prime Minister.  What authority, moral or otherwise, does he have left?

So disgraced is Brown that Cameron may well consider forcing a vote of no confidence.  It could well throw up a surprising outcome.  The words of Chamberlain during the 1940 Norway Debate are appropriate:

At least I shall see who is with us and who is against us and I call upon my friends to support us in the lobby tonight

and

I have friends in this House.

As far as the electorate is concerned, Matthew d’Ancona sums up the situation perfectly:

David Cameron has been Tory leader for almost three and a half years now. His social background, his schooling at Eton, the extent of his experience of drugs, his membership of the Bullingdon Club: all have been scrutinised and publicised repeatedly. Ditto George Osborne – whose Bullingdon past came back to haunt him last year after his summer visits to the Deripaska yacht in Corfu. The public know these two young Tories were born into affluence. They know they may have had less-than-monastic experiences at school and university.

They know all this and more. And – guess what? – they don't seem to care. All the voters want to know is whether Cameron and Osborne are ready to take over from Labour. Because the voters have really, truly, definitely, had enough of Labour. And a few smears directed at the Conservatives aren't going to change that, however vicious or salacious. In the end, that kind of campaigning only signals to everyone how bare the cupboard actually is. He who smears, fears.

Brown should heed the words used by Leo Amery during that 1940 debate to describe Chamberlain's position:

You have sat too long here for any good you have been doing. Depart, I say, and let us have done with you. In the name of God, go!

It could not come soon enough.