TogoPThanks Toby - a few points
a) How do you know Guido had the mails for 3 months? Did he acknowledge that he'd been sat on them since they were sent back in January? or has he perhaps only recently received them and hence why he exposed the proposed smears?
b) Nadine Dorries one of the would-be smeared has already commented that she was challenged on the same smear some time ago by a well known Labour Commentator - which would imply that the smears were actually being disseminated via other mediums too. Perhaps they were testing the market amongst friendly journalists but these were a little too hot for a newspaper?
c) Assuming Guido didn't "hack" Dolly Draper's mail then the likelihood is that he was sent these by one of the parties involved. The intent and timing of this may be much more interesting than Guido's timining. You should also consider that Guido and Iain Dale both recently filed Freedom of Information requests to the Cabinet Office requesting mails concerning proposed smears of them/their websites. On the basis that Guido already has this information and just wanted this offciially - perhaps this request triggered the other mails to be sent to Guido by a party with an interest in them being exposed.
I think there are some very carefully words being used at the moment to describe who you knew what/when. I doubt this will be enough to keep the lid on it !!
