The post you are reporting:
Brian, Bern Howard - if this was going on with a Conservative Government your attitude would be very different. The fact is it is a Labour Government and what is happening is a direct result of its controlling and obsessive leadership (or rather management) style. Your responses demonstrate just how weak any defence of this Government is.
Look at the following. These quotes below show why this is so damaging to Brown and Labour.
"The Prime Minister's response to his disgraced adviser's behaviour is worse than inadequate. There is no suggestion that Mr Brown knew about the malevolent e-mails until the story broke, but there are two reasons why he should apologise directly to those whom Mr McBride maligned. First, the quality of public life has been tarnished by actions taken in Downing Street. Second, Mr Brown is the principal figure in government, and it is in the nature of leadership to be accountable for things that go wrong." - Times editorial
"Mr McBride bullied and smeared people for years to that very end, and if Mr Brown says he didn't know about it, then I for one do not believe him. Mr McBride is just one of a number of moral defectives who are put to that task, inside and outside Number 10. Mr Brown should say sorry because he not merely invented some of these people - notably Mr McBride - but he also tolerated and, by omission, encouraged their behaviour" - Simon Heffer writing in the Daily Telegraph
"This refusal to shoulder responsibility means that the furore over Mr McBride's obnoxious emails is proving stubbornly resistant to the normal vagaries of the news cycle, and the damage to the reputation of both Mr Brown and the Government will be all the greater. That is the paradox of this affair. An attempt to drag the Tories through the mud has succeeded instead in exposing the moral and political vacuity of Labour." - Telegraph editorial
"Four former Labour ministers came forward last night to blame Gordon Brown for creating a culture which allowed his former aide Damian McBride to draw up plans to smear senior Conservatives. The ministers criticised his style of leadership, suggesting that Mr McBride was carrying out his wishes rather than acting as a freelance operator. They joined David Cameron in demanding an urgent shake-up of the Downing Street machine." - The Independent
"Harold Wilson asserted that the Labour party was a moral crusade or it was nothing. The McBride affair has left Labour members looking at nothing. That is the reality check that McBride has wrought on the party." - Frank Field MP in The Independent