Damian McBride gives Gordon Brown a headache

The news broke on Saturday, that one of Gordon Brown's closest aides had been sending vicious emails meant to 'smear' top Conservative figures. Shock, outrage, despair!

Of course though, one may say that these kinds of dirty tricks are nothing new in politics and that we should all move on and talk about something far more serious such as the worsening economy.

However, the fact that the Prime Minister allowed such an individual to work so closely with him is surely a worry. In these emails, McBride allegedly attacked the mental health of George Osborne's wife, which is surely below the belt.

There is indeed no room for this kind of 'smear' in politics but the Tories should be careful not to take too high a moral line when criticising McBride's actions. This may just come back to haunt them.

During the continued row on expenses both parties have resisted talking about allegations in the house of commons in too much detail, both in the knowledge that they probably have more skeletons lurking in the closet.

With someone like Peter Mandelson around, the Tories should be very weary indeed of appearing to openly attack Brown's government too veraciously.

Oleg Deripaska is a name that should be remembered, especially by Osborne. In this case Osborne tried to smear Mandelson but not surprisingly the shadow Chancellor came out worse.

Both parties of course have their failings but the Damian McBride issue is not really party political. Does it for example, highlight a worrying culture at the heart of government, where smearing has become acceptable, no matter what the truth acually is?

Certainly it is worrying that Gordon Brown kept McBride so close, but does this paint Brown as a bad judge of character or merely ignorant? Neither of these assumptions are probably true so why was McBride able to do what he did?

The answer may be that McBride did what he did, because he thought his boss wanted him to do it. This is worrying, because if true it suggests that Brown promoted a culture of 'smear' against his opponents.

This is perhaps too cynical and Brown if nothing else does at least appear to be a sincere politician. It was then to many people's astonishment that he refused to personally apologise for the emails.

True, the PM did not send the emails himself so he is not personally responsible, but in most organisations the buck stops with the man at the top and this issue could have had a line drawn under it far earlier had Brown apologised immediately.

Brown did send hand written letters to all of the top tories who had been smeared, expressing his "deep regret" but the word sorry was not included. This is no real surprise but a small sorry could perhaps have eased the pressure on number 10.

So here we are on Wednesday and the story is still in the news. Who knows, maybe it will distract people from their economic woes and they will go out and spend some money.

Every cloud.....