Tuesday 21 October 2008

Moscow Gold

When I first started work, there was an old sweat in the corner of the office, a Labour man through-and-through, who would bitterly complain about the dirty tricks played against Labour in the 1920s and 1930s. The Beaverbrook and Northcliffe newspapers would frequently run stories of dubious provenance in order to discredit Labour. One of these was the report of "Moscow gold", the alleged secret financing of the British Labour parties by Stalin.

Old Watkins would appreciate the irony of yesterday's accusation that the richest man in Russia was negotiating an illegal donation to David Cameron's Conservatives, and enjoy their discomfiture in having to deny it.

1 comment:

Frank Little said...

Guido Fawkes blames Lord Mandelson for the stories. It would be appropriate, since it was a London Labour leader, and Lord Mandelson;s grandfather, Herbert Morrison, who was on the end of the Daily Mail's attempts at character assassination.