Downing Street Says » No 10 Emails

Asked if the Prime Minister had spoken to Tom Watson over the weekend and been given reassurance that Mr Watson knew nothing about the Red Rag website, the Prime Minister s Spokesman (PMS) said that the Prime Minister spoke to his ministers regularly; we wouldn t normally get into the specifics of who he spoke to and when. In regards to Tom Watson s involvement in this issue he issued a statement on Sunday and there was nothing further to add.

Asked repeatedly if Tom Watson had been aware of Red Rag, the PMS said that Tom Watson had issued a statement and that was the position. His statement said that there were unfounded allegations about his involvement in discussions to create the Red Rag website and that he had no such involvement.

Asked if the Prime Minister was satisfied that no ministers had been involved, the PMS said that the Prime Minister s letter to Gus O Donnell spoke for itself.

Asked if the Prime Minister had ever discussed Red Rag with Derek Draper, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had no knowledge of this website until we were contacted by the media over the weekend.

Asked if it was true that Derek Draper had had lunch with the Prime Minister at Chequers last November, the PMS said that he wouldn t characterise it in those terms; the Prime Minister regularly invited large groups of people to lunch at Chequers. There were quite often in excess of twenty people at his Chequers lunches and they normally involved a diverse group of individuals at any one time.

Asked if the Prime Minister would apologise for what had happened, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had set out his position yesterday in his letter to Sir Gus O Donnell and he made it clear that any incident, such as this one that devalued politics was a matter of great regret to him.

Asked if the Prime Minister thought any of the claims in the emails regarding Tories could be true, the PMS said no, he thought they were untrue.

Asked if the Prime Minister now regretted appointing Damian McBride, the PMS said that Mr McBride no longer worked for the Government; the sending of these emails should not have happened and the Prime Minister immediately accepted Mr McBride s resignation when it was offered.

Put that some people were saying that the Prime Minister s call to tighten the rules in the Special Adviser s Code was a smokescreen, the PMS said that the Prime Minister had made clear that nobody else in Downing Street had knowledge of these emails; there was a huge amount of frustration in Downing Street and in government that the way the story had panned out had made it more difficult for the Government to explain the action it was taking to deal with the big issues facing the country at this time. Everybody in Downing Street and across government was working very hard to address the big issues facing the country; we had the G20 meeting a few weeks ago and an important Budget coming up next week; that was the focus of the Prime Minister s attention.

Asked what Tom Watson s role was in Downing Street, the PMS said that he was the Minister for the Cabinet Office; for details of his roles and responsibilities it was best to look at the Cabinet Office website.

Asked if the Prime Minister would consider publishing the job description for his special advisers, the PMS said that the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers set out very clearly what they were and were not allowed to do. We had made what special advisers were and were not allowed to do even more explicit and set out what would be regarded as an automatically sackable offence. Those were the changes to the code that we made yesterday.

Asked what a strategy adviser did specifically, the PMS said that the roles and responsibilities of special advisers were governed by the Code of Conduct for Special Advisers.

Asked how the Prime Minister felt about accusations that there was a culture at No 10 whereby this sort of behaviour was acceptable, the PMS said that the Prime Minister s consistent view was that neither he nor anybody else in Downing Street had knowledge of these emails. It was the Prime Minister s strong view that there was no place in politics for the dissemination or publication of material of this kind, or activity of this kind. The Prime Minister s undivided focus was on acting to make Britain a fairer, safer and more prosperous nation, and in particular on guiding the country through the current economic difficulties; that was what the public would expect, not only the Prime Minister but everybody who worked for him to be doing.

Asked what protection there was to stop a fusion between the political special advisers and the civil servants, the PMS said that there was a Code of Conduct for Civil Servants that set out the appropriate behaviour for civil servants and there was a Code of Conduct for Special Advisers that set out the appropriate behaviour of special advisers. It was important to have these codes of conduct so as to ensure the appropriate delineation between special advisers and civil servants was clear and was respected.

It was not unusual, unique or in any way unprecedented to have special advisers and civil servants working together; it happened at No 10 under previous administrations and it happened across Whitehall.

Asked if someone like Tom Watson would have both an official and political function, the PMS said that Tom Watson was a minister and therefore by definition he was a member of the House of Commons and a politician. His roles and responsibilities were set out on the Cabinet Office website and he was governed by the Ministerial Code in the same way that all other ministers.

Asked if the Prime Minister had full confidence in Tom Watson, the PMS said yes.

Asked when the Prime Minister found out about the emails, the PMS said that the Prime Minister found out late on Friday when we were contacted by national media organisations asking for a response.

Put that Damian McBride didn t resign until 5pm on Saturday and that the decision should have been taken before that, the PMS said that as soon as the exact content of the emails became clear, Mr McBride offered his resignation and it was accepted immediately.

Put that Mr McBride must have been clear about the content of the emails, the PMS said that the key point was that Mr McBride offered his resignation and that was accepted immediately by the Prime Minister.

Asked how long officials at No 10 had been aware of an email leak story relating to Mr McBride, the PMS said that we were not aware of the full details of it until Saturday. There were always rumours about various stories that newspapers could write.

Asked if the Prime Minister still believed in the need for special advisers, the PMS said that special advisers had been a feature of not only this government but of previous governments. Special advisers performed a function that could not be performed by civil servants and that was why they were employed.

Asked if the Prime Minister was any clearer on how the emails got into the public domain, the PMS said no.

Asked if any civil servants had known about the emails, the PMS said no; we made clear on Saturday that neither the Prime Minister nor anybody else in Downing Street had knowledge of these emails.

Asked if the Prime Minister had had any replies to the letters he had sent out to Conservative MPs yesterday, the PMS said no, not to his knowledge.

Asked if the Prime Minister had called for enquiries as to who registered the domain name Red Rag, the PMS said that that was not a matter for the Government.

Asked if the Prime Minister was confident that No 10 emails were not being hacked into, the PMS said that we were confident that we had secure systems for ensuring that emails sent from No 10 accounts were not being hacked into through any No 10 server.

Asked if any ministers had had knowledge of the Red Rag website, the PMS said that Red Rag was a website that wasn t in operation, the issue was who knew about the content of these emails and we had made repeatedly clear that neither the Prime Minister not anybody else in Downing Street had any knowledge of the emails.

Put that there had been a discussion to set up the Red Rag website to counter other blogger websites, the PMS said that that was the characterisation that the journalist was putting on to it on the basis of the exchanges between Mr McBride and Mr Draper. Nobody else in Downing Street had knowledge of the emails.

Asked if the Prime Minister viewed the emails as out of character for Damian McBride, the PMS said that the Prime Minister viewed the emails as completely inappropriate and unacceptable.

Asked if the Prime Minister had been surprised to learn that Damian McBride was the type of person to do such a thing, the PMS said that he would characterise the Prime Minister s reaction on being made aware of the content of the emails as furious.

Asked if the Prime Minister felt shame and disgust at the content of the emails, the PMS said that it was the Prime Minister s view that there was no place in politics for activity of this kind.

5 Comments »

mr.brown well what can i say about the elections if you seriously want to gain the publics vote and mine then you need to get in reach with the public and listen to what we are saying . you need to sack all these mp,s that are continuing to rip the public off on the exspenses scam , had this been a normal member of society we would of been investegated by the law and also had the full force of the law thrown at us and if convicted then would be spending some serious time behind bars. so why does this not apply to your peers ie mps. dont you think you should do the country a favour and stand down. the public clearly has no faith or trust in you or the labour party anymore. saddam husain was taken out for less why does this not apply to you? you are crippling this country this should be a crime in its self. you all need to act like humans and get on with running the country proprly and stop bitching at each other maybe just maybe you could do your job proprly. im a concerned voter we have to have action now and stop this mass borrowing against our country . be sensable resign now cos you wont stand a chance in winning the next election..gino armani
Comment by gordon brown — 8 Jun 2009 on 11:05 am | Link
mr gordon brown,being the son of a preacher should give one a realistic view of what your views are,seeing your father was i imagine a honourable person.but his views would be that of our dear Lord.and then we are having news of people who are non doms.so to be honest how on earth do premeirs or people in gov expect the public to behave when you see people thieving off the country and being allowed to by people like yourselves.The Lord God will be your juge there is no worry about that.you may think its ok.well let me tell you it is not.these people should pay what they owe.or if notthey the gov should give people every penny back that they have paid.it is stealing.and you people want to stay in power.please sort it out.
Comment by brian palfrey — 2 Mar 2010 on 4:52 pm | Link
i got a few words mixed up in my other comment i made.what i am saying is if people can get away with paying their taxes then we should all be allowed the same privillages.and those in authority whether brown or campbell should be sacked.
Comment by brian palfrey — 2 Mar 2010 on 5:12 pm | Link
as a tax payer who has been looking for a job in afganistan can you tell me why all the companes that are out there are american and thay are making millions out of the war and the british are not i have been looking for a job the last 6 mounths out there and had no luck as the yanks do not take english on and its the same in iraq are troops are out there and it costing the tax payer for them to be there so why are we not getting somthing back are economy needs to grow to or are we letting the americans do what ever thay want to again there is one thing i can do and that is not to vote for labour ever again as thay have sold us out to the yanks again
Comment by peter wharmby — 29 Mar 2010 on 9:23 pm | Link
I want to keep my ID card I think everyone should have one and not taken away as said by the new government they are a really good thing to have

Mike Greenall Baron
Comment by mike greenall baron — 13 May 2010 on 2:18 pm | Link

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» Tuesday, April 14, 2009

No 10 Emails

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