Brown Love & Brown Hate.

The past 24 hours have revealed a great deal about the country.

Firstly, how easily the media can get suckered by Alistair Campbell and the Labour spin machine. It was, of course, foolish of National Bullying Helpline founder Christine Pratt to stick her head above the parapet. Not only did she breach the confidentiality of those who rang the NBH up, but she also did so without realising how easily she could be smeared, discredited and used as a smokescreen for the real issue - whether Gordon Brown is fit for office.

But then aren't we all compromised? We've all got secrets, connections and circumstances that can be used against us. (Ask Boris Johnson, for example.) Those taking part in the public flaying of Pratt might consider at some point how vulnerable they are in turn. It could happen to anybody - especially when spin doctors are looking for a distraction. This is the psychology of McCarthyism and Witch Hunts, but Christine Pratt should still have paused before acting, if only because it is such a distraction.

That is no excuse, however, for the bullying she has in turn endured. Britain is a nation of bullies, as this blog has pointed out, but in a subconscious way that seems oblivious to the irony of bullying resulting from a story about... bullying.

Still, as Rod Liddle and Brendan O’Neill demonstrate, a nation of bullies must, by necessisity, blame the victims, if only so they can tell them to Grow Up, Suck It In, Pull Themselves Together, Live With It, etc. This seems to be the main problem with exposing Brown as a bully - you get the impression that a large segment of the public sort of agree with bullying, in part because it's always good sense to side with the bully, but also because there is an unspoken loathing of the weak. As Nic Cohen said of the thuggish 'comedy' panel show, Mock The Week:

Similarly, Mock the Week tells me something about the British I would rather not know. It commands an audience of about three million. As I watched, it occurred to me that Britain may well have three million people who would happily go along with the mob if we ever had a government that incited violence against the vulnerable. [SOURCE]

And as AA Gill noted (while pretending that this is only an English rather than a UK-wide trait), even joy and laughter is tainted by this pack sadism:

English humour is the sound of the bullies. The overtold story of the English underdog overcoming the big man with laughter is simply not true. The English constantly use their humour as an indiscriminate bludgeon... The humour of embarrassment and the joy of classroom teasing is a national sport, and its very ubiquity is its open-palmed “What, us?” defence, because at some point everyone suffers for it. Obviously there’s no harm meant. If you beat up only Pakis, you’re a racist, but if you beat up everyone it’s only having a laugh. And anyway, they should be able to take a joke. [SOURCE]

This presumably explains how Brown the Bully is presently being spun as Brown the Victim. If he really were on the skids, there would be no mercy for him, as John Major, Neil Kinnock and Michael Foot's own skewerings demonstrate. And how else to explain tonight's spectacle on Channel 4 News, where lumpenprole grotesque, John Prescott, jowels wobbling away, tried to convince the nation that his party did not have an issue with bullying by, err, trying to shout down Krishnan Guru Murphy and smearing Pratt without her being there to give a response. He could do this because he had an entire political machine behind him, launching a violent counter attack like, well, a bully who's just been shoved back.

But that's not the only factor at play here. There's the herd-like falling in to line of the most insubordinate of lefties, all piling in on Comment Is Free, Harry's Place and Socialist Unity to spread the shit, repeat the spin and generally defend a man they claim to hold in contempt. Why? Because they're scared that the Tories might get in, and individual values mean nothing when there's a turd wearing a red rosette vs. a twat in a blue rosette. This is the origins of every betrayal by the left in this country - a set of strongly espoused beliefs behind which only tribalism and accompanying blood feuds really matter. At least Bob Piper is consistent, one supposes.

The only question now is whether the public will fall for it, as they seem to have fallen for the 'Pity Me!' narrative engineered last weekend, and see Brown the victimiser as instead Brown the victim. Or perhaps he truly has been wounded and so they will swarm around him like sharks, eager for more blood. The fact that The Sun has described Brown as 'The Prime Monster' suggests the latter, whereas the muddled coverage by the BBC suggests the 'narrative' is still up for grabs. Perhaps the matter will die, as the government hopes, or more shit will float to the surface. After all, it wasn't so long ago that Brown was shoving wavering Labour MPs into the 'Yes' lobby during the climax of the ID Card Bill showdown of 2006. The fact remains that Brown's bad behaviour has been common knowledge for a while - it's been in the public domain long enough to suggest that a bastard can stay a bastard just as long as he remains a powerful bastard.

But this all gets in the way of the real question: Are Andrew Rawnsley's allegations true, and if not, why has Brown merely issued denials and not libel wits? That in itself speaks volumes.