The NDP’s Pat Martin has been awfully quiet of late. No puppet shows. No screamed outbursts. Hardly more than the odd question in QP. Heartening to see then that he didn’t let Mr. Harper’s “tapes” threat go without ominous comment.

New Democrat MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre) told the Star all Harper has left is “mudslinging” to divert the public’s attention away from “the appalling economic situation he’s got all of us in.

“We have really stooped to a new low in Canadian politics if that’s what it comes down to in the time of economic crisis,” Martin said. “His tone implied something sinister on Ignatieff. It is the cheapest kind of mudslinging because it invokes suspicion without any real substance.”