Brandjack News

By Quentin Langley

I have done it. Rep Weiner did it. Now it looks as though Chris Huhne has done it. 'It' is sending a message that was intended as a Twitter DM – direct message to one person only – as a public tweet. Rep Weiner's was a particularly embarrassing one: a link to a picture of him in his underpants. Naturally, the scandal became known as 'Weiner's wiener'.

Chris Huhne's is not so immediately embarrassing:

@ChrisHuhne: From someone else fine but I do not want my fingerprints on the story. C

Politicians plant stories all the time, and often don't want their fingerprints on them. Perhaps the Energy and Climate Change Secretary wants to promote a story about carbon offsetting but doesn't want it to be seen as coming from the Nanny State. It seems more likely it is a hit on a rival. This could be career ending or something rather minor.

If it is an attack on an opposition politician, it would probably only be career ending if the story he doesn't want his fingerprints on is deeply personal and known to be false. Obvious examples would be the false stories that Damian McBride concocted about the families of leading Conservatives in 2009.

Huhne is an ambitious politician in a coalition cabinet. It is far from inconceivable that he is planning a nasty hit job on a cabinet or party colleague. That could be career ending even if the story is not as spiteful or as fabricated as McBride's efforts.

Huhne is already in a bit of a jam, waiting for the conclusion of a police enquiry into allegations that he persuaded his then wife to (illegally) take some speeding points onto her licence instead of his. In these circumstances supporters might have been putting to a nasty story about his former wife.

It will be interesting to see how this develops.