THERE is a big difference between “attack” and “smear” when it comes to blogs. And there is a difference between smearing and negative campaigning.

Let me make my own position clear: negative campaigning is a necessary and inevitable part of politics. You have to attack your political opponents. For a start, you owe it to the electorate to expose your opponents’ failings. Secondly, if you don’t attack them, they will attack you first.

A lot of guff has been written and spoken in recent weeks about how we have to lift political debate up out of the sewer, and other such plumbing-related metaphors. We’re now in danger of being accused of “smearing” whenever we raise a word of criticism about our opponents. Smeargate has been awful to behold, but let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater (continuing with those plumbing-related metaphors). 

A commenter contacted me in the last week to point out that in his recent successful presidential campaign, Barack Obama spent more money on negative campaigning than on positive campaigning. That does not mean that he bought advertising space to attack Cindy McCain for her history of drug addiction or to smear Senator McCain for fathering an illegitimate child (the tactics of McCain’s Republican opponents during the presidential primaries in 2000). Had Obama done so, he would have proved himself unworthy of the office he now holds. But he didn’t; he did what all candidates have to do and exposed the weaknesses of his opponent’s policies. And thank goodness he did.

So I think Iain Dale was wrong when he equated the attack blogs A Leaky Chanter and Aneurin Glyndwyr with the late and not-very-lamented Red Rag smear blog.

I genuinely have no idea who set up either site (it wisnae me, in case you’re wondering), but there is clearly a place for blogs which concentrate on the weak spots of their political opponents. A Leaky Chanter has a link to the very funny “Richt Honourable Alex Salmond” Twitterfeed, featuring such memorable updates as “wants a G183 so he can go to big important meetings too. Not fair.”

Most of the stuff on A Leaky Chanter is in the same vein — irreverent, funny and merciless (although I do think it’s completely unfair and unwise to attack Salmond on his expenses — a cheap shot which can be aimed — and will be, no doubt — at any MP of any party. But then, as an MP, I would say that, wouldn’t I?).

The half-hearted attempt by the SNP to add a tartan fringe to Smeargate can be easily dismissed.  SNP MP Angus MacNeil’s claim that A Leaky Chanter is a “Labour-linked blog” is based on nothing more than the fact that it’s on my blogroll! Based on that logic, Guido, Iain Dale, Dizzy Thinks, ConservativeHome and Gallifrey One are all “Labour linked” sites…

An “attack blog” is a completely different animal from the kind of smear blog that McBride and Draper were planning to set up. By all means attack your opponents’ policies, but when you attack our families, or invent stuff to attack, you’ve crossed the line. And you’ve exposed yourself for having nothing of substance to attack on. And that means you’ve lost the argument, and deservedly so.