Aide to UK's Brown resigns over email scandal

LONDON, UK: A close adviser to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown resigned on Saturday after a blogger accused him of sending emails that discussed smearing members of the opposition Conservative Party.

After angry protests from Conservative lawmakers, Brown's office announced that the prime minister had accepted Damian McBride's resignation as his political and media adviser.

"It is the prime minister's view that there is no place in politics for the dissemination or publication of material of this kind," it said in a statement.

The emails have not yet surfaced, but British media said they were set to be published on Sunday.

With a general election 14 months away at most, the political temperature is rising in Britain as Brown's Labour Party attempts to overturn the Conservatives' opinion poll lead of seven points or more.

Conservative legislator Nadine Dorries, who said she understood she was mentioned in the emails, was not satisfied with McBride's resignation. She demanded an apology from Brown over the emails, which she described as false and libellous.

"Damian McBride ... was the prime minister's right-hand man. It is unacceptable for the prime minister to claim that he knew nothing about this," she told the BBC.

Brown's office said neither the prime minister, nor anybody else in his office, knew about the emails.

Paul Staines, who writes a political blog under the name "Guido Fawkes", broke the news of the emails, which were addressed to Derek Draper, a contributor to a website that supports Brown's Labour Party.

Staines, who declined to say how he obtained the emails, told BBC radio the messages were "obscene and over the line of what's allowable in politics".

Brown's office at first said that McBride had apologised for the "juvenile and inappropriate nature" of the emails but that failed to quell the uproar.

The Conservatives said it defied belief that Brown aides were circulating "tittle-tattle" instead of focusing on fixing the recession-hit economy.

Writing on the Labourlist.org website, Draper said he had asked friends if they knew of any "good gossip" about Labour's opponents for a blog he was considering launching.

"One of them, who works in Downing Street, responded by sending back some details of stories that were being gossiped about in Westminster," he said.

"The idea that it was a big project orchestrated in Downing Street is ridiculous," he said, adding that the proposed blog was never launched.