A Blogger’s Notebook

Having sat patiently on a barrel of digital dynamite for months — the emails from Gordon Brown’s chief spin doctor Damian McBride to Mandelson’s protégé Derek Draper, suggesting Tory smear stories — I light the fuse on Andrew Neil’s BBC Daily Politics show. In an unedifying squabble, I succeed in stitching up the once again infamous Draper on live TV, forcing him to deny that he takes briefings from McBride. Viewers at home may be baffled as to why I am determined to talk about Draper’s relationship with McBride. They may also be bemused by my unflattering Berkeley University T-shirt. The reason for this is to wind up Draper even more: Berkeley featured on his CV, despite him not graduating from that institution. After the show I publicise on my blog a Freedom of Information request for emails between McBride and Draper.

Chris Hope is a Telegraph journalist I have worked with in the past: he took the credit for our investigation into the Smith Institute that resulted in Gordon Brown’s favourite think-tank getting restructured by the Charity Commission.