Tory Sleazer Andy Coulson Gate: Dale is All Amuddle

Further to the breaking news on Conservative senior executive Andy Coulson's apparent sleazy past behavior it is interesting to observe the usual suspects.

Iain Dale, a seasoned smearer and libellist who is yet to out his little chipmunk? source of course and serial economics idiot who yesterday deliberately and diametrically misrepresented the Wall Street Journal on his popular but essentially nonsense blog, rushed out a response of sorts to the Guardian/Newsnight Coulson Ate My Hamster story.

Iain's headline - as with the Wall Street Journal one - turns the story round and seeks to paint the Guardian as predators:

Guardian Targets Coulson in Bugging Story

And of course the rest of the post is just confused nonsense. A remarkable muddle.

"Andy Coulson has already pointed out that he wasn't even editor of the paper when some of this happened."

Points out Iain. Some of the disciplinary activity happened AFTER Coulson left is true. Though not the actual sleazery and alleged criminality that had been discovered and which precipitated his sharp exit.

"None of this has happened during his employment by the Conservative Party"

Well make your mind up! It didn't happen while he was at the NOTW. Well it did actually. Apart from the fall out. It did not happen during his employment as Tory sleazer in chief? Well actually much of the fall out and the apparent cover up did happen while Coulson was in Cameron's pay.

Arguably Coulson left the NOTW so he wouldn't need to answer to Press Complaints; so that the enquiry, minus a key figure, could not really proceed; so that Murdoch was off the hook; so that in the region of thirty other journalists who had been habitually commissioning private investigations and phone hacking and blagging involving some 3,000 celebs and polis would get away scot free.

Clearly but clearly a newsroom does not have contracts out on 3,000 celebs and pols and their 'phones hacked without a professional and successful editor knowing. Clearly every hard-hitting story that rolls in needs to be quizzed.

"How did you get this?", "Can we prove that?", "Are you sure about this detail?", "You have a tape of the phone call?", "You dived the bins like I told you?". And so on and so forth.

Many years ago I was one of three editors of a hard hitting local news and what's on magazine. And we checked our stories and how they were stacked up. Are we expected to believe that Andy Coulson did not do this?

If he can deny knowing about all this sleaze on his watch will that make everything his little muppets are up to in Tory briefings deniable too?

Have the Tories EVER but ever employed any private investigators? Before Coulson? After Coulson? Have the Tories EVER but ever paid "tip fees" for any material? And so on and so forth?

Being more specific: Who was/is behind the patently ludicrous attempts to paint Lansley as a man smeared (or suicide bombed by a Labour candidate's little woman, thanks Donal) rather than a blabbermouth loon?

Nice to see the old "I don't know Andy Coulson well" line from Iain Dale as soon as 12:07 AM. Brilliant! And as his first comment points out, if Cameron did his "due diligence" as Dale claims, then Cameron is a clown and clearly not fit to be PM.

He either knew just how dodgy Coulson's crews condoned practices had been and still gave him the gig. Licking his lips perhaps? Or he really didn't check properly. I'd speculate that it is the former. Including the lip licking. He's probably amazed that Coulson has not had to be ditched before now.

George Osborne - with that strange facial expression of his - is a worthy accomplice for Coulson in our picture. It was The Daily Telegraph's Benedict Brogan that outed GOO as the Tory McBride equivalent. As we covered HERE and HERE TOO.

Here's an extract from the first link, the bold type is Benedict, with Balls providing a bit of a template for Dale's denials of knowing Coulson, the rest is LOL:

The most fascinating revelation of this perhaps being GOO cast as the nearest thing the Tories have to McBride! The post is no longer readily available where it was originally posted. Is that a contractual matter I wonder? Benny Brogan is Back Blogging at his new home. And this was from his very first post there:

I've returned amazed at how I managed to miss such a joy of stories, and why there's so much excitement about a hirsute Scot on YouTube (but enough about Alistair Darling). To my holiday-addled brain, the most significant development of the week is the outing of Ed Balls and his shadow spin operation. Did he really say of "Mr" Damian McBride: "I haven't been involved in his political work"? Eh? The opening post of a new blog should set the tone by avoiding sensation. It should be scrupulously fair-minded. At all cost it should avoid unedifying name-calling. So I shall merely say, in the gentlest way possible: "liar liar, pants on fire".

To which BB might possibly add: "mea culpa, mea maxima culpa", which I think would be Mister GuF's point? Though, back to that earlier paean we'd add that BB is essentially saying "It's a dirty job but somebody's got to do it" which might well provide a challenge for Cameron and his bin-diving, phone-tapping head McBridivist Coulson, should the worst happen.