I’d be inclined to think we should look a gift horse in the mouth – at least today.
It started off this morning with a story which appeared absolutely incredible. Apparently, the Metropolitan Police is in the habit of lending its older horses to those who might be able to keep them. In this case, Rebekah Brooks of News International fame. As Tom Watson tweeted:
At least the horse’s head didn’t end up in my bed! http://t.co/UfwsVlmY Unbelievable. Quite unbelievable.
But later on, the suspicion arises that the timing of this juicy but relatively trivial piece of news has just been one massive exercise in smoke and mirrors. The really big news has come from a quite different quarter – the Leveson inquiry and the declarations of a certain WPC. The declarations first:
Do read para 40 of police officer Jacqui Hames’s #Leveson statement on surveillance:“The News of the World has never supplied a coherent explanation for why we were placed under surveillance. Ill 2003, David, together with Dick Fedorcio and Colnmander Andre Baker, met Rebekah Brooks to discuss the matter.
“She repeated the unconvincing explanation that the News of the World believed we were having an affair. She agreed to iook into Alex Marunchak’s associations with Rees and Fillery but to my knowledge nothing further was ever said about the subject, indeed Mr Marunchak was subsequently promoted.
“I believe that the real reason for the News of the World placing us under surveillance was that suspects in the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry were using their association with a powerful and well-resourced newspaper to try to intimidate us and so attempt to subvert the investigation.”
As Jon Snow commented on his Twitter feed this afternoon:
Devatstating testimony from former WPC Jackie Haymes to Leveson: NOW subversion of a murder investigation? http://t.co/UjTxhaeM
Which brings me to my final piece of comment picked up from the ether:
#Leveson: Police collusion with NOTW to subvert murder inquiry. Met: HORSE! HORSE HORSE HORSE, LOOK AT THE HORSE! Murdoch: *silence*
If the above sequence of events is really how it has happened, and underlying it all is really a case of smoke and mirrors as already described, then it’s not just an old story about the alleged subversion of a murder inquiry but an absolutely hot potato of current news management.
By the police.
By certain parts of the media.
By the Lord only knows who else.
