Martin Bell - a warning from history.

Now, I suspect the name may not mean an awful lot to a large amount of people. You may remember him as one of the BBC's war reporters. He did however, aside from reporting on the troubles in the Balkans, successfully stand on an anti-sleaze ticket in the '97 election.

He won, overturning a Conservative majority of 20,000 in Neil Hamilton's old seat.

I wonder if many Labour MPs will have considered this in the wake of smeargate.



The smears, as Will Self points out, are nothing new. Indeed, the 'team' behind the attacks are somewhat of veterans to the new approaches to communications adopted following the '97 election.

Blair, and Brown, were determined their governments would avoid the contagious virus of sleaze. After all, they did spend much of the early 1990s documenting Conservative sleaze.

Yet, I would argue it is not sleaze itself which is so damaging. Damian McBride emerged looking like a twat but not immediately did Gordon. It is quite simple and relatively effective to simply admit you've made a mistake. It incidentally apparently shows a human side to the suit. Rather, it is the handling of the incident which shall ultimately determine the outcome of this episode.

That is where Brown comes unstuck.

Yesterday Gordon wrote to all concerned and expressed 'regret' at the incident. The pragmatics of the letter avoid any legal implication but as David Crystal, speaking on BBC Radio Four's PM programme, neatly surmised it simply doesn't do the job.

And it is the calls today, made by mainly Blairites, which ultimately shall prove far more dangerous than any blog article. Fields, Millburn and Byers have all joined the bandwagon and effectively shown Brown than there still remains deep divisions within the party. The accumulative effect of 'sleaze', as a general banner, with MPs expenses and now smeargate add to party divisons.

Remember, it was Thatcher's own party which triggered her downfall.

I suspect many ministers and Labour MPs have already begun to consider their own electability, rather than that of their party now. Gordon is seen as an electoral liability. Frank Fields eloquently put it that, 'MPs are staring into the abyss'. This kind of talk not only demonstrates discontent but, so near to an election, acts as a rallying call. There has already been open civil war under Gordon and he shall be only too aware of the underlying tensions.

Indeed, the fact that this story has now run for well over 6 full news days, and shows little sign of abbaiting, perhaps demonstrates the popular level of discontent with Gordon's management of government.

Now, where's David Milliband in all of this?