George Osborne and the Hooker

Guido, with his customary desire to pursue and publicise any political story that offers any sort of titillation whatsoever, has been pursuing the George Osborne allegations with his customary salacious zeal. If you want all the details then head over to his site and have a look around some of his more recent posts - I've no great desire to rehash it all here.

The questions is, though, whether Osborne will survive these allegations. Realistically, I think he will. If John Prescott can cling to office despite boffing his secretary at the taxpayer's expense then Osborne can survive allegations made about his conduct prior to attaining high office.

But it isn't just that. We're dealing with George Osborne here. There's something about George that makes him come across as deeply unpleasant. I think it is the fact that he has the appearance and demeanour of a bloated puff adder. Therefore, any scandal involving him doesn't really come as a surprise. Seriously, if I heard that he spent his spare time punching old women in the face, I wouldn't be surprised. And that will work in Osborne's favour. The expectations about his behaviour are so low that he could probably get away with just about anything. The Daily Mash have their tongue planted firmly in their cheek with this one, but there is more than an element of truth in the idea that this sort of scandal actually and perversely (no pun intended) humanise him a bit.

Make no mistake about it, this will be embarrassing for him - almost regardless of whether it is true or not. But career ending? I doubt it somehow.

Mark Oaten: Nope, Still No Sympathy

For your delectation, dear reader, I give you the interesting sight of The Daily Mail blatantly plugging the book of former Lib Dem leadership candidate, Mark Oaten. In case anyone has forgotten, Mr Oaten had to step down from his place in the shadow Shadow Cabinet and from the leadership contest when the shit starting flying in about his private life. Pun intended. 

Still, it seems Mr Oaten is still pitching for the sympathy vote. Take this summary of his book:

"This is the story of a man obsessed by retaining his youth, fearful of turning 40 and feeling a complete failure."

Not for the first time, I'll note that a lot of people have been obsessed with retaining youth, been afraid turning forty and of being a complete failure. But they have managed not to have affairs with rent boys behind the backs of their life partners. Besides, it was only really his affair that made him a complete failure - it made him a man who not only failed to win the Lib Dem leadership, but a man who couldn't even complete the Lib Dem leadership race. 

Of course, everyone is entitled to a private life and consenting adults are free to get up to whatever they want as far as I am concerned. But if you do run for the leadership of Britain's failed third party, then you do have to entertain the prospect that your private life may become public. And for that reason - combined with the betrayal of his wife - is why I struggle to have too much sympathy with young Mr Oaten.

*H/t Tory Bear. 

McBride - a bit of perspective, please

There'll be those who tell you that it has been a good week for right-wing bloggers. Certainly, Guido has chalked up another victim, and given the reports about his personality, it can only be a good thing that Damian McBride no longer holds a position of any power or influence in the UK. And a story effectively started in the blogosphere has dominated the headlines over a Bank Holiday weekend.

Yet it is worth sounding a note of caution here. Yeah, this story was high profile over the weekend, but against any standard it was quite a slow news weekend. And McBride was a special advisor to Brown; a particularly unpleasant one, but those ministers who have been taking the piss through their incompetence and greed still very much have their place at the trough of the public purse. And - farcically - Derek Draper still seems to be running LabourList. Although if that site is to truly become independent, then it needs a new editor. In fact, if it want's to survive as anything other than the butt of a whole lot of jokes, it needs a new editor ASAP.

But above all, Brown is still in power. And whilst he has been mildly damaged by the actions of McBride, his position looks as safe now as it was when I went home on Thursday. Which means that we still have an incompetent, socially inept embarrassment with a hard-on for spending money he does not have on our behalf and at our expense in Number 10. And it doesn't look like he'll be going anywhere until next year. So for all the celebration at the demise of McBride, it is worth noting that it is nothing more than an entertaining sideshow. The real enemy - the incompetent fuck in Downing Steet at the moment - is still in place. And whilst he may be damaged, he's still going to fight on.

Draper And The Search For The Truth

So, first of all the e-mails didn't exist. Now they do exist, and they were "a bit juvenile and inappropriate" but also "brilliant and rather funny." Lord alone knows what they will be like tomorrow, when examples of them are actually published by the papers. The story will change again, no doubt. I really do hope that this is the last stand of the odious Derek Draper - someone who resembles Nu Labour's answer to Gollum as far as I can see - because keeping up with his ever changing stories is pretty much a full time job these days. 

Draper writes:

At the end of the day, though, the lesson is that we should leave tittle tattle and gossip to the right wing blogosphere. We on the left should concentrate on ideas, policy and campaigns, which is what LabourList, whatever is thrown at us, will continue to do

Yeah right, Derek, that isn't going to work anymore - if it ever worked in the first place. Draper and his piss-poor excuse for a blog act as a talking shop for second rate Labour party members and as an ill-conceived attack post against the Tories. Nothing more. Draper concentrating on ideas etc is like claiming that Draper is going to concentrate on the truth - because as this nasty little scandal shows, the truth for Nu Labour has nothing to do with the conventional definitions of the truth. Rather, the *truth* for Draper et al is a holding position - an attempt to minimise embarrassment between scandals.