Has this woman not now put those people at risk? I fear there will now be a witch hunt at No. 10 to seek out and punish those who made those calls.

I think it's wrong that she made the information public in this way.

She has said that her organisation has received calls from people in the office, but then said that she isn't accusing Gordon Brown of being a bully. Well come on, it's one or the other isn't it?

If she has evidence that he is a bully, then she should have contacted the complainants and asked them if she could release the details and then done so.

Then the public could look at the evidence and make their own minds up.

Now I don't know what to think.

Can you imagine the conversation?

'I'm sorry, I must have misheard you. I thought you said you were being bullied by the Prime Minister!'

i never hit anyone, not since school anyway.

jumped down stairs and landed on someone who was really annoying me once though..............

Cameron expects inquiry into No 10 bullying claims

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8527611.stm

You bet your monacle he does



Where to start... That Mandy would know all about such operations, or that this government has often been alleged to effectively bully members of the cabinet?

I suspect its Mandy is the one who actually carries out the punishments

Well, if you are being bullied, it makes sense to call an overtly Tory helpline doesn't it . Next door to a Tory office, formerly patronised by Anne Widdecombe, Cllr Mary O'Connor, both Tory.

Why not go to Bullying UK instead?
Why not, if you are going to smear someone, find out that there isn't a deputy PM before looking like an idiot in front of Channel 4?!

The staff at 10 Downing street are civil servants, they have a HR department that includes a welfare department - if you are being bullied, you see them first!

All smells very fishy.

Yes, and the mammoth Tory heavyweight that is TV's Sarah Cawood, apparently. Can we stick to one conspiracy theory at a time please .


I don't think we can really speculate why someone went to one helpline for a given issue than the other. There are too many possible variables. And does the fact that the woman on TV apparently isn't very politically astute actually make their position weaker or stronger, if you think about it?


Some of the staff in No. 10 are civil servants, these days quite a few of them are 'private appointees' i.e. consultants and the like. The CS have been complaining since Blair's premiership of the removal of CS staff from No. 10 and their replacement by people who have obvious party loyalties and/or are paid for by the labour party. I'd imagine the admin staff are still CS though, no reason for the party to pay for them.


It's politics, that's a given. The one thing I think we can say for certain is that Mandleson tried to bury it and the press didn't pay any attention to him, which means he will now have steam coming out of his ears. I don't know the truth of the matter and I'm pretty sure we won't until well after the election.

I heard the Today interview on Radio 4 this morning, and the whole thing looks very dodgy with more people resigning from the charity. I think that there may have been other motives. At this stage I am not saying that Gordon is spotless but he is certainly less guilty than when this first broke.

Private Eye says the Mail on Sunday published a 'spoiler' article, knowing that The Observer had the serialisation rights to the book. As a result, the government assumed the MOS had the inside track and briefed them*, in the hope that they could turn this into a bigger issue than any potential scandal the book may contain.

If that's true it's obviously backfired spectacularly, as the bullying story should have been something Mandy could have knocked out of the park...

* Private Eye pretty much says the MoS didn't actually have a scoop, just a vague idea, with 'government sources' providing the details.

Yes there was mention of the book on the Today show interview. I think that for the author this has been great but not for anyone else involved. The charity has had its commercial links exposed and people are not happy about how they operate. So I would expect that the Charity Commission will be looking closer. Cary Cooper the psychologist resigned from the charity as well. A disaster all round really.

I still don't know what to think.

I want to think that Gordon Brown is a forceful, assertive leader, but obviously there's a thin line. I wouldn't be too worried if a couple of complaints had been made - just as long as it was found he had not behaved inappropriately.

As for the charity, I think the woman is an idiot. She deserves what ever comes at her - it looks like pretty much all of the charity's patrons have abandoned it, and the whole outfit seems to be very shady indeed. Rather unsurprisingly, the tory party seem to have their oar in the situation on the charity's side.

The whole ordeal appears to be a storm in a tea-cup if you ask me.

Same here.


It is clear that he threw things around and lost his temper. Though if you have ever had to deal with civil servants and local government employees then that is perfectly understandable. Would that be inappropriate if the person was incompetent? If it were a civil servant even the PM could not fire them.


Yes the principle of anti bullying is the correct one. Though the fact that the charity is losing patrons and looks dodgy is very bad. The fact the Tories have piled in could actually harm them.


So far I agree, we are talking about complaints but without anyone being mentioned.

Gordon Brown 'very upset' about claims he is a bully, says Ed Balls

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010 ... defence-pm

Brilliant, they wheeled out his missus, one of TV's foremost bullies and a man called Balls to defend him