If Mr McBride had been a better adviser...

One of the most prescient comments, one that all political campaigners should read, was made with reference to what is now known as #smeargate, in an Observer editorial: "The command-and-control approach to information, mastered by New Labour, looks outdated in the digital age. If Mr McBride had been a better adviser, he would have told Mr Brown that long ago". It has become increasingly impossible to subdue any information and emails are far too easy to leak - often by accident by the originator. Government needs to be open, not just in releasing information on cumbersome websites, but accessible to the citizens. Some are hailing what Obama is doing as a move in the right direction, maybe that is something our governments can learn from but, independent of the current scandal, governments current and future need to respond to the way society is communicating and leave behind the notion of central control of information that only works in societies that have a similar system of control in all walks of life.