Harriet Harman – The Deputy’s Not For Apologising

The Daily Mail appears to have – perhaps temporarily – taken its pursuit of Labour MPs Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey off the front page, following the apology it and the Murdoch Sun extracted from Patricia Hewitt last week. But those howling for the husband-and-wife team’s blood is still in hot pursuit, at the Mail and elsewhere, especially those who have axes to grind.

Who're you f***ing telling to f*** off, c***?!?

Leo McKinstry, for one: he once worked for Harriet Harman before crossing his own personal floor and ending up as a purveyor of what nice people call polemics, but most categorise as rants. And these are not just rants, but foam-flecked, swivel-eyed, unhinged right-wing rants. You want someone to tell you about reds under everyone’s bed and how the country has gone to the dogs, he’s your man.

McKinstry has been given a platform by the Mail to keep the campaign against “The Left” rumbling away in the background: “The Left's web of shame: It's not just Harman, Dromey and Hewitt. As we reveal, many other members of Britain's ruling liberal elite held senior posts at the NCCL when it was closely linked to paedophiles” thunders the headline dishonestly.

Yes, all the people he names had something to do with the National Council for Civil Liberties. The Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) affiliated to the NCCL. Therefore, in McKinstry’s strange world, they all done it. It’s no better over at the bear pit that is Telegraph blogs, either, where embittered ex-Labour member Dan Hodges says Hewitt’s apology has done for Harman.

“Just what do Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey think they’re doing?” he howls. I mean, don’t they realise that they should never have allowed the all-knowledgeable D Hodges (no relation) to leave the Party? Dan’s new pal, the loathsome Toby Young, is on the other hand in it just to score points for the Tories, asserting “Harriet Harman and Jack Dromey will have to resign”.

Why so? Ah, but they knew someone who might have talked to someone else, and besides, Paul Dacre has decided they’re in the wrong, he pays well, and Tobes’n’Dan don’t want to cross him because of the effect it might have on their bank balances. Meanwhile at the HuffPost, Mehdi Hasan has checked the case over and asked “What is Harriet Harman supposed to apologise for?”

To which the answer appears to be “Because Dacre has personally decreed that she will”, and that Melanie “not just Barking but halfway to Upminster” Phillips agrees. As Hasan notes, while at the NCCL, Ms Harman “campaigned on behalf of battered wives and disabled children, in defence of jury trials, freedom of information and prisoner's rights and in favour of laws to combat racial and sexual discrimination”.

Apologise for that? Hello, Paul Dacre! You can f*** right off with that one.