Labour still using Damian McBride's playbook

Labour have been out and about this morning ramping up the pressure on Liam Fox over allegations surrounding his friendship with Adam Werritty. For a forensic review of the substance of the allegations see this well written piece on ConHome.

For me the interesting and sadly depressing thing is the manner in which Labour has gone on the attack. There clearly has been significant behind the scenes briefing to the media hinting of something improper between the defence secretary and Mr Werritty. For their part the media are happy to talk of a relationship in a way that is simply dripping with innuendo.

This morning the shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy could barely conceal a smirk when discussing the matter on Sky News. Good old-fashioned political knock-about is fine but smears are not. When Ed Miliband won the leadership of the Labour Party he insisted that the bullying days were behind them. Unfortunately the manner in which Labour has gone into battle over these allegations shows this not to be true.