And it seems there were plans for a new, more robust blog, Red Rag, where gossip of the kind contained in the McBride emails might appear. Whether that blog is to be run by Draper, as suggested, or has been prematurely killed off, we shall see.
A couple of questions now remain. Who leaked these emails to Staines in the first place and is this really the end of McBride as a Labor aide?
We will probably never know the answer to the first. As for the second, look at the record. Alastair Campbell now routinely boasts he is in regular contact with Gordon Brown, while Charlie Whelan, in his new role as head of press at the union Unite, is well and truly back and was even copied in to the emails between McBride and Draper.
THE MOLE: MCBRIDEGATE
FIRST POSTED APRIL 12, 2009
Some Dare Call It Treason
Bob Quick fiasco - police were 'several weeks' away from plot
The full extent of the damage caused when the Met police's anti-terror chief Bob Quick allowed secret documents to be photographed by the press is emerging, with security sources saying intelligence services may still have been "several weeks" away from breaking a suspected plot to carry out bomb attacks in the UK when they were forced to make arrests. It is thought that some of those arrested had been let into the UK from Pakistan under surveillance. (Independent on Sunday)
The Mole: Mayor Boris Johnson steals credit for Bob Quick's departure
Mayor Boris Johnson steals credit for Bob Quick’s departure
Boris Johnson lost little time getting himself onto the Today programme this morning to talk about Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick's resignation. One could have been forgiven for thinking the London mayor was in the lead on all this. But not so.
In fact, it appears that, not for the first time, the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith is well and truly fed up with the mayor over his behaviour in relation to something that was primarily a decision for her and, most importantly, the Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson.
Technically, it is to the Met Police Authority - led by Johnson as mayor - that Quick offered his resignation last night following the fiasco he began by strolling into Downing Street clutching a top secret operational document, available for all to read.
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