Labour advisor accused of online slurs

Welsh nationalist party Plaid Cymru has demanded the resignation of Labour party advisor Adrian McMenamin, after he allegedly used a computer at Labour headquarters in an online political dirty tricks campaign.

McMenamin, who is special advisor to Secretary of State for Wales Paul Murphy, has been implicated in a smear campaign involving nearly 3000 postings and cross-postings to an internet-based newsgroup.

Plaid Cymru was accused of being racist and hypocritical, and of supporting a Tory administration. While some messages carried McMenamin's name, others used aliases similar to prominent members of the Welsh party.

Plaid Cymru spokesman Alun Shurmer said: "It is an absolute disgrace that someone should use computers bought with public money in this manner."

Elfyn Llwyd MP, Plaid Cymru's Parliamentary Leader, said in a statement: "It appears that both Mr McMenamin and the Secretary of State for Wales are unaware of the conditions of employment for civil servants. Their contracts specifically state that they must not take part in national political activity or express such views in the press, books, articles or leaflets."

"Sending messages to a newsgroup attacking Plaid Cymru would seem to fall into this category. Mr McMenamin's position is therefore untenable and he must go," Llwyd added.

Newsgroup members pointed the finger at McMenamin, after becoming suspicious about the unusually large number of messages. They then traced the IP addresses of the postings to Labour's offices at Millbank in London.

Labour said last week that the messages came from its machines, but claimed they were from "a volunteer who used Labour's PCs to contribute to the newsgroups in his own time".