There was an interesting little piece on Newsnight tonight about what they describes as "allegations that No. 10 briefs against Labour MPs" by using anonymous officials to smear them to journalists. The amusing part was when they quoted anonymous Ministers who had told them that this sort of behaviour was still going on.

Would that be.... errrm, an allegation of anonymous sources briefing "against" No. 10? Perhaps Crick, Paxman and co. should investigate this shocking behaviour.

Of course, all this is brand new. Alistair Campbell would never have dreamed of briefing against Tony Blair's political foes in the Labour Party. And I quote from the Wikipedia entry for Bernard Ingham, Thatcher's media attack dog...

Occasionally he used this deniability to brief against the Government's own ministers, such as when he described the Leader of the House of Commons John Biffen as a "semi-detached" member of the Government. Sure enough, Biffen was dropped at the next reshuffle.