[deleted]

Yes, Harry Cole. Why should Brown bring this up at all? And if he must, why not bring it up at a time more convenient to News International, the organisation that sought to make a profit from exposing his son’s illness against his family’s wishes.

Clown.

Even if he did it for revenge, he has made a huge contribution to the welfare of our democracy.

Sunny, there is no need to put up a defence for Brown.

That Harry Cole is coming out with this drivel is hardly a surprise – but who is coming out with this on the Left?

The phrase “Clutching at straws” springs to mind here from Tory Bear.

“This idea that Brown is using this as a stick to beat News International is rubbish.”

But, from the viewpoint of any sensible person – so not Cole then – Brown should – he really should – be waling the bejesus out of NI, for no better reason than they deserve it.

What do you expect? Cole still can’t get his head round the idea that it might just be about acts of straightforward criminality.

For him – and his boss Staines – it’s always going to be a left versus right thing. Thus they will continue to call it wrong, as they both have for the past two years.

Staines got rather ratty with one of my regular readers the other day – unexpectedly, I have to say – but did not dissent from being called “an absolute laughing stock and a fatty to boot”:

http://zelo.tv/o4Jcgk

But Gordon Brown has never wanted to talk about his kids in public. He even shielded them as much as possible from the public eye.

I didn’t think much of him as Prime Minister but he never once used his kids as political fodder.

Not entirely true this Sunny.

Gordon Brown’s rebranding efforts continued apace today with another emotional interview focusing on his family life.

A few days after the Prime Minister was broadcast speaking movingly about the death of his first-born child, he told a supermarket magazine about his other children’s birthdays and the death of his mother.

Mr Brown’s closest advisors including Lord Mandelson, Ed Balls and David Muir have succeeded in encouraging him to display a softer side.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article7033848.ece

As for keeping this story alive, it’s not as if it needs any help from Brown.

It’s a ridiculous, desperate accusation. The papers struck the first blow, having allegedly broken the law to invade the Brown family’s privacy. Gordon and Sarah have every right to comment on this attack on their family. I think we’re generally far too quick to shout “OMG you’re using your kids for political gain!” at politicians we dislike, and this is the most ludicrous example I’ve come across.

If they had refused to comment, of course, those now complaining would be going around claiming that this proved that Brown loved Murdoch more than his own kids, or something equally facetious.

Tim J @ 8

Your contention that not all Tories are bad is taking a battering, Tim. Gordon Brown and David Cameron have both lost children. It would be impossible for them either of them not mention this fact in interviews and surely we can see that as legitimate. David Cameron uses (for want of a better word) his experiences of his son’s position to express his support for the NHS. On this, surely we can give him the benefit of the doubt? Surely the fact that both men lost children in the public eye is something we can let past?

The accusation that Brown attempted to use the death of his child for political gain is a pretty sick one and regurgitating the Times ‘s spin on the subject is pretty sick too.

Tim, I am not too sure what you are trying to prove with that, but you appear to at least giving tacit support to guttural journalism that has poisoned the political World these last twenty years.

Look around, Tim, has the damage your allies in the press achieved much that you would support?

be waling the bejesus out of NI, for no better reason than they deserve it.

He wanted a judicial enquiry in 2009 against News Int on the phone-hacking scandal but other Labour figures advised against it, presumably on the basis it would look too partisan and political.

The Tories are trying to throw that accusation again now but it won’t stick, given the Milly Dowler story and whatever else that has come out.

Point is, Brown wanted to but had no political cover at the time.

Chaminda – See @JustMcKeat on Twitter. I think he’s getting too cynical in his old age.

Yeah right, the Guardian approached eh. Good job the Guardian and the Labour Party aren`t in each others pockets.The fact is that stories about Brown`s children came out at various convenient times and there is little morally tochoose between the NOTW, a not especially poor Newspaper ( nothing like as bad as the Mirror at hacking) and Brown.
I don`t blame him for this .Cameron also used his own story its part of politics but to imagine that a dark vicious operator like Brown was above it is to be a blinking child .
Ed is doing what he always does. Appealing to the people who are going to vote for him anyway. 7500,000 people rather enjoyed the News of the World and if Ed Milliband succeeds in destroying the free Press and choice in broadcast media there will be a terrible revenge.
This war goes back to Kinnock who came along just as the new merciless Fleet Street got into its swing. He felt he could not win .Ever since Labour has been obsessed about what to do about the ” right wing press” , which is actually the free press .
All the time Blair grovelled the secret loathing grew and nothing will ever be enough. As we all know collectivism has to control the truth and the Press is the first thing to go.
We know that the whole tabloid media were as guilty as each other we have seen the reports. We know why this attack on Murdoch came now and we can guess the forces that are behind it.

The accusation that Brown attempted to use the death of his child for political gain is a pretty sick one and regurgitating the Times ‘s spin on the subject is pretty sick too.

That’s a stupidly reductive way of looking at it. So stupid that I’m not sure it’s even worth responding to, but in for a penny…

The life experiences of politicians are frequently used when they become extremely high profile figures to give depth to their personality – to make them human and understandable to the wider public. Before Brown was married, his relative absence of a non-political hinterland was considered a real drawback by his advisers. He was reduced to being photographed at friends’ children’s birthday parties to ‘prove’ he had a life outside politics.

When he was married and then when, heartbreakingly, his first child died, he made the decision that while he would allow his marriage to be leveraged as a political asset (all that ‘my husband, my hero’ stuff at Labour party conference) he would not refer to his children at all. That stance, however, did not last a pre-election campaign, and more and more frequently he referred both to his feelings about Jennifer, and make more references to his children. Look back at the profile interviews back then, and you’ll see a lot of references to his kids bursting in on the interview.

Is that ‘using’ his children? On one level (a stupid, reductive level) yes, it is. The ‘pure’ way of doing this is what Yvette Cooper does – do we even know how many children she has? Alternatively you accept, as David Cameron does, that the public are interested in you as a person and that a large part of what makes you a person is your family. You’ll still try and control the intrusion, but you don’t try and pretend that they don’t exist.

Does that excuse printing details of Brown’s child’s illness? No, I don’t think that it does. I’m not seeking to defend what the Sun did, whether or not it was strictly illegal (I’d tend to think that this was an old-fashioned leak, rather than a theft of private medical records, but I have no firm view one way or the other). But the claim which is often made, not least by Brown himself, that he never sought to ‘use’ his family as a political asset is not true.

Look around, Tim, has the damage your allies in the press achieved much that you would support?

And this is pathetically childish as well. They were Labour papers back then so nyer! Playing a finger pointing party-political game about this is puerile. All main parties are implicated. The Tories because David Cameron hired Andy Coulson, Labour because the criminal acts happened on their watch, they knew about them and they decided not to do anything about them.

Chaminda – See @JustMcKeat on Twitter. I think he’s getting too cynical in his old age

Yes. With 1,000 twitter followers and a sub-100 blog readership, I’m a huge and influential figure on ‘the left’.

The Tories are trying to throw that accusation again now but it won’t stick, given the Milly Dowler story and whatever else that has come out.

I don’t understand what you mean by this. Brown shouldn’t have ordered an investigation because deeply unpleasant activities have subsequently come to light, that would have come to light earlier had Brown ordered an investigation? Eh?

Labour didn’t call for or put in place an inquiry because they were scared. They didn’t want to upset Rupert. The Tories didn’t call for one in opposition for precisely the same reason.

16
Totally agree with your last paragraph.
What an irony though if Murdoch goes down under the tory’s watch.

On an entirely different note, in no way related to Ordure Ordure’s increasingly risible attempts to run interference for NI, Guido has been denying that NI was the source of his own hacked claimed to fame whereas I note that Mad Nads has claimed the opposite. Who to believe?

@16
No, Gordon wanted to have an inquiry, but was prevented from doing so by Sir Gus O’Donnell. Blair asked GB to stop Tom Watson from investigating – he refused.

There are lots of mistakes he made, but this isnt one of them.

19 – so the Guardian claims. But a Cabinet Secretary can’t actually prevent a Prime Minister from ordering an inquiry, merely advise him that it would be inappropriate.

It’s also a tiny bit convenient that this story emerges now. “Oh, I wanted to but I wasn’t allowed to”.

Tim J @ 14

Come on you know most of what you have written is utter nonsense. Look at the Ed Milliband marriage thing. The Tory press have been all over it, picking the bones out of that. Had Ed Balls been Labour leader we would know everything there is to know all about he and his wife’s life. We both know that, Tim and I can see no reason to pretend otherwise.

I do not have a problem with so much of this family stuff to be honest, as long as it never used to hide a wider hypocrisy. We all new about Denis, Norma and Cherie as well. The Right Wing press went after Blair’s kid when he got drunk after his exams. Of course they even wanted to know the status of the youngest MMR vaccine. Okay, nothing too serious, but when you are illegally hacking phones and the medical records, you have to admit that a line has been crossed.

The worsted that Thatcher’s family had to contend with was the ‘Dear Bill’ column in ‘Private Eye’ and the fallout from the behaviour of her adult kids. Though I think a plot to start a military coup may constitute a public interest.

There may or may not be ‘Labour’ papers too but none come even close to the Rights sickening attacks on the families of Blair/Brown, the lies, half truths and subterfuge that has taken place.

Politics has become a dirty job and the press have driven it into the gutter. You have to be honest, Tim, the most despicable cruel papers are uniformly to blame for that. It is not the Left that have constantly held up members of society for ridicule. No one has went after the Left’s hate figures to the same extent that your people have zoned in the poor, the unemployed and the disabled.

The Right Wing press went after Blair’s kid when he got drunk after his exams. Of course they even wanted to know the status of the youngest MMR vaccine.

The press held back from reporting on the biggest story about Blair’s family, and were quite right to do so.

Chasing Blair on the MMR point was completely reasonable journalism, since Blair had denied his child the vaccine whilst promoting it for every parent in the UK, that would have been an absolutely gross and revolting piece of hypocrisy for which he would have thoroughly deserved to be pilloried.

Total bollocks! GB never asked for sympathy when his daughter died, he asked for respect for her memory, and perfectly reasonably, he spoke about her death in interviews. Telling people how you feel about the death of your child is the thing that bereavement counsellers recommend, getting it out of your system and all that. With regard to his son, Fraser, I think both he and Sarah have been the model of restraint. Personally, I would’ve dealt with it at the time, giving that evil bitch Brooks a fucking good slap! Political considerations were obviously a major factor at the time, but the fact is, it’s all out in the open now, so if GB and his missus fancy going round there and giving the vile twat a right old kicking, I’d be glad to help out. Go on trolls, denounce me as a mindless thug, or any other insults you care to aim in my direction. Brooks is the indefensible one in this latest revelation, the fact that whiny little bastards like Cole, not to mention the tory trolls on this sight, are using it as a chance for some Brown-bashing comes as no surprise at all.

@Paulnewman

This would be the same Guardian that urged their readers to vote Lib Dem?

Or is there another one that supports the Labour party?

This would be the same Guardian that urged their readers to vote Lib Dem?

Or is there another one that supports the Labour party?

If that’s your criteria, then the chat about ‘the Tory press’ at the time all this phone hacking was going on looks a bit specious. There were only two newspapers that endorsed the Tories in 2001. Even the Express supported Labour back then.

John B @ 23

No, Tony Blair was the Prime Minister AND a parent (as well as a husband). He was right to make a judgement on one issue as a Minister as well as take part (two parents) in another as a father. The press may ask him what he did, but if he refuses to answer, as is his right, then the matter was closed.

I can support a woman’s right to choose abortion, even if I would not want my partner to have an abortion, (nor would she).

Tim J @ 26

If that’s your criteria, then the chat about ‘the Tory press’ at the time all this phone hacking was going on looks a bit specious. There were only two newspapers that endorsed the Tories in 2001. Even the Express supported Labour back then.

We all know who the ‘Tory’ press are, even if they do not support the Tory leader of the day, they still retain their Right Wing roots and despise any move toward the centre by the Tory Party. The stuck the knife into IDS when he was not moving to the Right fast enough.

@Paul Newman 13

Seriously? SERIOUSLY??! Sounding desperate, Paul. I know Guardian journalists who’d never vote Labour – especially since Iraq.

Provide us with evidence that the Mirror was more corrupt than the News of the Screws, please. I’ve heard nothing about that. But every day, more and more of Murdoch’s empire is revealed as illegal and immoral. You want to talk about newspapers and political parties being arm in arm – look a bit closer to home at the links between the Tories and News International ffs! Right-wing press does not automatically equate to free press. We have a right-wing press because we have a free press, not the other way round. Perhaps if they’d done more to earn their right to exist and publish, they’d have more support now. Or do you support the hacking of murder victims and the like? Oh, that’s right. It doesn’t matter, because the left are evil, ‘collectivist’ bogeymen who must automatically be involved in things far worse than any of those good, upstanding bastions of truth and justice on the right. Yeah, right. Moving on…

I see the tory midget trolls are out on a mission to attack anyone who dares to speak out against their right wing thug hero.

What is with the brown shirts, and their love of tapping peoples phones and spying on their opponents? If it is not Nixon, then it’s the Murdoch crime family so loved by the right wing. Note to trolls.. Bliar was a right wing pillock.

The funniest thing is watching the right wing blaming all this on the public for buying the scum newspapers every day. This is the same right wing who constantly tell us that people act in their best interests, and know what is good for them, so no regulation in anything is needed. So now the right wing muppets are arguing against their own economic argument. Priceless!

Al

Check this out…..

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/corporate/research_and_reports/what_price_privacy_now.pdf#page=9

New Of The World ..no worse than anyone else,end of mate.

@Paul Newman

Actually I think what the NoW have done is FAR worse than anyone else, and I think most people in this country agree with me. Your agenda is really quite transparent.