The New Statesman’s Dan Hodges claims to have obtained an email sent on behalf of Ed Miliband’s director of strategy Tom Baldwin to all shadow cabinet teams.
The email reportedly
warns Labour spokespeople to avoid linking hacking with the BSkyB bid, to accept ministerial assurances that meetings with Rupert Murdoch are not influencing that process and to ensure that complaints about tapping are made in a personal, not shadow ministerial, capacity.
As former Observer political editor Gaby Hinsliff (@gabyhinsliff) tweeted earlier today, Gordon Brown’s post walkabout gaffe (see video below), in which he called an elderly former Labour voter a “bigot”: “Shows how easy it is to forget the first law of broadcast: even if you’re not on air, if you’re miked up you’re effectively on record.”
Channel 4 News was quick off the mark with an online poll on its live election blog, asking: “Does Gordon Brown’s unguarded ‘bigot’ remark make you less likely to vote Labour?” At the time of writing, the ‘no’s” had a 68 per cent majority but watch that space…
Meanwhile, a spoof Twitter account @bigotedwoman and the phrase “Bigoted Woman” are currently trending on Twitter.
The Guardian’s assistant editor and esteemed political pundit Michael White was spotted taking a well-timed, and no doubt well-earned, nap during the opening proceedings of the Labour party conference in Brighton today. Shame he couldn’t have spent the day lazing in the sun in a deckchair with a knotted handkerchief on his head…
Michael White, Guardian assistant editor. © 2009 Mousetrap Media