Whips launch witch-hunt over ‘Pollygate’ email sent to every Labour MP

Government whips have launched a witch-hunt to track down the Labour politician blamed for sending copies of a vicious attack on Gordon Brown to all 350 of the party’s MPs.

The investigation follows a ferocious verbal assault on the Prime Minister last week in the Guardian newspaper written by former Brownite cheerleader and Left-wing pundit Polly Toynbee.

Within 48 hours of its publication, every single Labour MP received an anonymous letter containing a copy of Ms Toynbee’s near-hysterical tirade via the Commons internal mail.

Party officials are convinced that the culprit of the mystery – dubbed ‘Pollygate’ – is a Labour MP who is determined to bring down Mr Brown.

The theory gained ground yesterday after it emerged that nine Labour MPs had written to party chiefs demanding a leadership contest, though none of those MPs is suspected of being responsible.

An insider said that if a Labour MP were found to be involved, they would be ‘thrown out of the party’.

In an article last Saturday, Ms Toynbee wrote: ‘Unseating Gordon Brown may be Labour’s last chance. Getting rid of a Prime Minister is a high-risk strategy but a dying party should be ready to take dangerous medicine.

'The smell of death around this Government is so overpowering it seems to have anaesthetised them all.’

Ironically, less than two years ago, the Guardian was foremost among those who were urging Mr Blair to stand down to make way for Mr Brown.

No one was more enthusiastic in their praise for Mr Brown than Ms Toynbee. But in recent months she – and her newspaper – have turned their fire on him.

It means that in the past year or so, Ms Toynbee, doyenne of the Labour-supporting chattering classes, has been openly feted by David Cameron’s Conservatives, a party she has derided for most of her career.

To add insult to injury, she now finds her prose used by Labour enemies to destroy Mr Brown, the man she once dubbed the saviour of the party.