An aide to the Prime Minister spreads some nasty gossip in a private email to a blogger. The blogger’s emails are hacked, the emails are leaked to another blog, and the aide resigns. It’s a juicy and very modern tale of a spin doctor getting a taste of his own medicine. But is it really the outrageous sleaze scandal the media wants it to be?

Surely the PM himself cannot be held responsible for his aide’s private emails, and his aide’s private emails should never have reached the public domain in the first place. The aide has resigned — line drawn, case closed.

In other news, it turns out that some MPs have been claiming hefty expenses to which they are technically entitled under the current rules, even though they don’t really need the money. This must have come as a terrible shock to all those who thought MPs were selfless ascetics who spurn all remuneration and donate their salaries to orphanages. Was this an outrageous sleaze scandal? Come on.

The outrageous scandal here is that it’s issues like these that swing elections. There are so many serious issues to think about, and Britain is more interested in the politics of the petty.

Filed under: Uncategorized, bbc, conservatives, davidcameron, jonathanbirch, journalism, labour, ukpolitics on April 12th, 2009