Gunning for the wrong target

Former Sunday Post man Campbell Gunn is the victim of an ugly political feeding frenzy.

The world of politics can be brutal. The corridors of power are awash with the blood of casualties of all political persuasions and this week the baying hordes were clamouring for more to be spilled.

It all started like any other week in the race to the referendum, with no hint of the feeding frenzy that was to come.

On Monday, a woman called Clare Lally described herself at a Better Together event as an “ordinary mum”. So far, so par for the yawn-inducing course, you may say.

But the following day a website published a story suggesting Ms Lally was far from that.

It pointed to her Scottish Labour links and wrongly claimed she was the daughter-in-law of Pat Lally, the ex-Labour Lord Provost of Glasgow.

And this is where former Sunday Post stalwart Campbell Gunn came in.

Campbell, who is now special adviser to Alex Salmond, reiterated these assertions in an email to a national newspaper. As we now know, point one was accurate but point two her connection to Pat Lally was not.

The email was clearly designed to raise doubts over Ms Lally’s neutrality. However, the following day it was seized upon with the launch of a venomous offensive to get Campbell sacked.

They say sharks can detect a drop of blood in an ocean from miles away and Holyrood’s Great Whites on the opposition benches swiftly moved in for the kill. Their prize was to link Campbell’s email to the ongoing problem of online abuse of pro-Union supporters.

“Gunn must be fired”, ordered Labour MSP Neil Findlay.

“The First Minister must sack him immediately,” demanded his colleague, Richard Simpson.

Scottish Labour’s Deputy Leader Anas Sarwar even ludicrously said he was: “surprised Salmond’s adviser emailed the attack against campaigning mother Clare Lally. Normally he would just pick up the phone and threaten.”

The mood in Parliament got uglier and uglier as the chance of a scalp energised the mob.

The thing is, anyone who knows Campbell and all of the opposition leaders calling for his demise do is aware he is as honest as the day is long.

Being a good guy doesn’t make you immune from mistakes or being held to account, and the hack-turned-spin doctor clearly made a misjudgement in his one-sentence briefing. But the portrayal that he sent it in a bid to ruin Ms Lally’s life is just plain inaccurate.

Campbell is well known to Sunday Post readers, having worked for the paper for more than 40 years before retiring last year.

I write this article sitting at the desk he occupied at the Parliament. He is a friend, a fellow St Mirren fan and one of life’s good guys. Clearly there’s no pretence I’m judging the fallout with UN observer-like neutrality.

The more sensible elements of the opposition tried to restrict the row to whether or not Campbell had broken the code of conduct governing special advisers. But the rest got it badly wrong when they tried to portray him as the orchestrator of hate-filled internet attacks.

We can all agree the online onslaughts launched against those of all political beliefs during the independence campaign are repugnant. They are assaults on people simply for holding an opposing view, and the trolls who perpetrate them are a scourge.

But to suggest that Campbell’s email was in any way the cause of or comparable to the revolting abuse dished out to the likes of J.K. Rowling last week is lamentable.

And here’s the thing all the politicians who are calling for Campbell’s head know it is, which makes their feverish, high-horse criticism all the more contemptible.

Briefings of the sort that Campbell made are common on all sides of the political spectrum, sometimes raising legitimate concerns about rivals, but rarely done for altruistic reasons. Hardly a day goes by when a spin doctor doesn’t knock on my door attempting to kill a story or discredit an opponent.

These people are paid to brief against anything that moves if there is an advantage to their cause.

All of those lining up to castigate Campbell have benefited from such tactics as have I when it comes to writing stories but, crucially, most have not been caught, which opens up the moral high ground for them. If this makes you uneasy then it is the reality of modern politics. We accept it or we try to change it.

The only thing Campbell did differently was to put it in writing.

Yes, he was wrongly trying to make his opponent look less legitimate. But it seems to have been forgotten that part of his email was accurate. Mrs Lally does sit on Labour’s Shadow Cabinet. Tony Blair’s former adviser, John McTernan, last week claimed Campbell knew his email would “unleash the dogs against Clare Lally”. As co-ordinated cyber warfare attacks go, it’s fairly tame.

As I’ve already said, Campbell is a principled man. In fact, the only thing he’d threaten you with is another song if he’s holding a guitar.

Online abuse from cybernats and their pro-Union equivalents is vile and this week marked a new low on that front. For everyone’s sake politicians have to unite to reject these abusers.

But Campbell Gunn is not one of them.

And I, and everyone who knew him at The Sunday Post, can vouch for that.