Why does Roy Greenslade appear to be doing Labour's dirty work?

One of the most telling manifestations of the pathetic self-indulgence of modern journalism is the phenomenon of the "media commentator." This is a lofty figure who does not write about events in the real world, but prefers to comment on the journalists who do.

Roy Greenslade, who was briefly editor of the Daily Mirror in the 1990s, is perhaps the most eminent media commentator in Britain. He holds a hugely distinguished academic post as Professor of Journalism at the City University.

He writes regular and well-informed articles for the Guardian. He is a cheerful figure and I don’t know of any newspaper editor who would refuse to pick up the telephone if rung up by Professor Greenslade.

This reputation is well-deserved, yet this was not always the case. Scarcely ten years ago the Professor was held in contempt though most of Fleet Street. This was because he was the leading apologist for Tony Blair’s propagandist Alastair Campbell.

Whatever Alastair Campbell wanted published, it seemed, Roy Greenslade wrote it. He launched vicious and lurid attacks on those Mr Campbell disliked (as I know to my cost because I was one of them). He boosted Mr Campbell’s friends. He repeated Mr Campbell’s lies and falsehoods.

The relationship was so close that it often seemed impossible to tell them apart. Some people referred to Roy Campbell-Greenslade, a composite entity which could be relied upon to spin New Labour’s party line.

Eventually the stress of being Mr Campbell’s sycophant and alter-ego told on Professor Greenslade. He fell out with the New Labour spin-doctor over the Iraq War, and relations cooled. This was greatly to Professor Greenslade’s credit.

Fleet Street is a tolerant and forgiving place. We quickly forgot that the Professor had been a Blairite stooge and regarded him once again as a respectable and independent authority.

Sadly it now emerges that Professor Greenslade’s reformation was skin deep. Yesterday Roy Campbell-Greenslade was back in business with a disreputable attempt to trash the reputation of the Mail on Sunday political editor Simon Walters.

Mr Walters has produced a front page splash based on the serialisation of a book written by Martin Winter, the former Mayor of Doncaster (and Britain’s first directly elected Mayor).

Shortly before the 2005 general election Gordon Brown (then chancellor of the exchequer) rang up Martin Winter and asked him to bring about the selection for the safe Labour seat of Doncaster north for one of his protégés.

A few days later Ed Miliband turned up. He lived with Mr Winter for nine weeks and proved an incompetent guest, on one occasion setting fire to Mr Winter’s office. (A carpet was badly burnt, and the future Labour leader bizarrely bought him a Muslim prayer mat as a replacement.) Mr Winter nonetheless arranged matters to Gordon Brown’s satisfaction, and Ed Miliband became the local MP.

The account contains a number of insights into the character of Labour’s candidate to be Labour prime minister, but the most important story concerns the crash of 2008.

Mr Winter says that Mr Miliband told him that Ed Balls knew of an impending global crash in 2007, adding that this was why Mr Balls was so eager to hold a general election that year.

This is a sensational story, of first-class political significance. Yet when this allegation was put to Labour by the Mail on Sunday, a party spokesman dismissed it as "ancient history". Only later did Labour issue a weak denial.

There is no question to my mind that Mr Miliband made these remarks, all the more so because they were reportedly uttered in the presence of Mr Winter’s partner.

It is completely understandable that Labour felt that it desperately needed to do everything it could to discredit the Mail on Sunday story. Alastair Campbell is now reported to be working once again with Ed Miliband. Shortly after the paper was published Mr Campbell tweeted out his verdict: "Mail on scumday. Desperate desperate stuff."

Mr Campbell’s tweet was the signal for Roy Campbell-Greenslade to enter the fray. In yesterday’s Guardian article he turns his fire first on Mr Winter, who he denounces as a "political nonentity".

Then he takes aim at Mr Walters, accusing him of publishing "uncheckable tittle-tattle" and of "character assassination". He concludes his assault with the following withering assessment: "I have a lot of time for the MoS’s political editor Simon Walters but it was sad to see his byline on this confection of unsupported allegations and pathetic innuendo. He is better than that."

I ought to declare an interest. Mr Walters is a friend of mine and a former colleague from the days when we both worked on the Sunday Express. Nevertheless this attack is unfair and, I believe, politically motivated.

Mr Winter may seem to be "political nonentity" to grand media commentators like Mr Campbell-Greenslade. Yet he was mayor of Doncaster, one of our great northern cities, for seven years. The fact that he later fell out with Labour and declared himself independent is neither here nor there.

Let’s now try a thought experiment. Let’s imagine that three months before the 2010 general election the Guardian (the paper for which Roy Campbell-Greenslade writes) had gained access to a book written by the chairman of the Witney Conservative Association.

Let’s imagine that Norman Lamont, the former Tory Chancellor, had rung up the chairman of Witney to fix the seat for his protégé David Cameron. Let’s imagine that Mr Cameron had stayed in his Witney home for nine weeks, during which period he had set fire to an office.

Let’s imagine that Mr Cameron had confided to the constituency chairman great secrets of state which showed that a Tory government had known in advance about an impending financial crisis, yet done nothing to avert it.

Let’s further imagine that the constituency chairman, having broken with the Tories, then wrote an account of Mr Cameron’s visit. Would the Guardian would have turned such a manuscript down? Of course not.

It would have published it with great glee, and would have been completely right to do so. What is more, I am quite certain that the BBC would have given prominent coverage to this Guardian exclusive, and that one of the first people to air his penetrating views on the significance of the story on the Today Programme would have been none other than Professor Roy Greenslade, with Alastair Campbell following closely behind.

Instead the BBC has followed the example of the Guardian and ignored Mr Winter's testimony. This is wretched. The fact is that over the next few months Ed Miliband is making a job application for the most important position in this country. We are surely entitled to know every available scrap of detail about him. The testimony of the man in whose house he lived for two months, and fixed him his parliamentary seat, is of vital national significance.

So congratulations to Mr Walters and the Mail on Sunday for securing a first-class scoop. There is said to be more to come next weekend: I shall be reading it avidly and so should everyone else who wants to make an informed decision come the election.

As for Roy Campbell-Greenslade? Come on Roy, you can do much better than this.