We screwed up, big time. We have no-one — absolutely no-one at all — to blame for this but ourselves. The damage the Labour Party and the government have sustained this last 24 hours has been entirely self-inflicted.
And the people behind this sordid little mess owe everyone named in these emails a very public apology.
Tom Harris MP
I don’t think I could say it better than Tom Harris has. So I’m not even going to try.
Kerry McCarthy MP
If there’s one lesson for the Labour party to be learned from smeargate – it’s that if Derek Draper is leading your online operations then you may as well give up politics.
Sunny Hundal
I like Damien and Derek, and am at least glad they didn’t do this, even if they shouldn’t have wanted to. There is a difference, even if , understandably enough, no-one careas about it right now.
Apologise and move on. It’s the only way.
Hopi Sen
This is exactly the same old spinning machine that gave us the dodgy dossier, the lies, the wars, the burying of bad news as thousands are killed, the reasons why I dropped my membership.
Gordon is just the same as Tony. They have both been fundamental to New Labour and its discredited approach to politics.
I will not bother to vote again until we get rid of these people and back to traditional Labour.
Godfrey Richards
I sit here in the West Bromwich increasingly frustrated by the infantile behaviour of these politicos in Westmimster who spend their time on cobblers like this, thus helping ensure that Cameron and his Tory boys will be the next government.
The party is ill served by these pygmies. I think your time is up Derek, time for you and all of these perpetual students.careerists and egotists to go. Leave the politics to the grown ups.
Bob Woods
I am just really disappointed and sad. What kind of people are you? I am 40 and have voted labour all my life. For what? An illegal war. A former pm who has to have 7 properties to feel secure. And a truly nasty set of shadowy figures. From condemning Dr Kelly as a fantasist to this. Mr and Mrs Cameron have just lost a child. And now this? You may not have been in control of the timing – but you engineered these emails, and I cannot vote for labour again. I have put up with the Iraq debacle, the cash for honours, fourty days, so many things. But I cannot stand by and see innocent women beintg trashed as a “”joke” by you and your friends. I may have paid for Ms Smiths 88pence bathplug. Now, I just want you all to flush down it. And I speak in far more sorrow than in anger.
Katie Brown
John, sorry, mate, but this ain’t bloody serious. When you’re in the Billiard Hall this week, ask them who Damien McBride is. I’d love to hear their answers. Also, as I understand it, the only one threatening to sue is Dotty Nadine Dorries, who is desperate to get her name in the papers. I’ve got £20 says she doesn’t sue, and that’s because she wouldn’t get a penny for what was leaked from private e-mails.
Bob ‘I’m in touch’ Piper
“Smear tactics like this are not the Labour way,” he said.
“They drag the Labour Party into the gutter. They just add further to the undermining of the belief that Labour Party supporters have placed in our party.”
John McDonnell MP
These are absolutely totally brilliant Damian.
I’ll think about timing and sort out the technology with Andrew this week so we can go asap.
Derek Who
“I wasn’t lying on purpose.”
Dolly Draper