The Smears Behind Joyce's Resignation

As if Labour hadn't had enough trouble with smear allegations after the Damian McBride affair, two newspapers - neither admittedly friends of Labour - have published stories suggesting that Eric Joyce had other reasons for resigning as a parliamentary aide to Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth. Those reasons, according to the Times and the Mail on Sunday, were to do with smear campaigns being proposed against the outgoing and incoming heads of the Army. General Sir Richard Dannatt has angered Labour's high command with his very public criticisms of their provision for forces in the field, and it is clear that government ministers are worried that his successor, General Sir David Richards, might be similarly awkward. His daughter apparently works for David Cameron, thus fueling their suspicion.

Black propaganda is, unfortunately, part of the warp and weft of politics, and you can usually spot a government on the way out when its black ops start to spring back into its face becauase no-one wants to play their game any more. The Whitehall bunker seems ever more out of control at the moment.