The revelations in the Murdoch Sunday Times – of which I have a modestly decent copy, so no need
for paywall payments (see what I did there, Rupe?) – reinforce what Michael
Crick of Channel 4 News had
already established, namely that the facts of what became known as Plebgate
were significantly at variance with the official Police accounts, which in turn
had been leaked to the press.
That's what I think of youse accuracy whinges, Pommie bastards!
Put directly, the ST
is saying that former Tory chief whip Andrew Mitchell had been targeted and
goaded into the alleged outburst during which he, according to the rozzers,
called them “plebs”. This, in turn, resulted
from a deterioration in the relationship between Young Dave’s jolly good chaps
and the Diplomatic Protection Group (DPG) of the Metropolitan Police, who guard
Downing Street.
Is Andrew Mitchell in trouble still? That depends on which Murdoch title you read, it seems
When Mitchell arrived on his bike at the Downing Street
gates the fateful evening, already late for a speaking engagement, he would not
have known that he was being set up. The cops certainly did know: a totally untrue statement from a “member of the public”, who turned out to be an Police officer who
was not there at the time, incriminating Mitchell, was soon circulated. Rather too soon, it seems.
Sunday Times article from yesterday
And the ST story
is all very well, but this puts the Murdoch empire in what Spike Milligan once
called A Very Difficult Position. The Sun
was first out of the blocks in splashing the story and denouncing Mitchell, to
the extent that the Sutton Coldfield MP has since launched a legal action
against it (the competition within the press meant that the Daily Mail was not far behind).
Sunday Times editorial from yesterday
But what is far worse is that the ST’s daily stablemate The
Times – or, as it likes to tell in self-promotional retro style, the “Times Of London” – was, as recently as
February this year, recycling
stories fed to it by the Police, which the paper said its readers should
believe as their source said “Mitchell
had indeed called the brave officers charged with protecting our leaders from
terrorist plebs”.
The Times ran that under the headline “The truth about Plebgate”. Now the ST says it certainly wasn’t the truth, and that Mitchell was made
the fall guy in an increasingly bitter spat between the DPG and Government. And
the Sun’s non-bullying Political
Editor Tom Newton Dunn, who started the ball rolling, may be in the biggest
trouble of all. What
appeared under his by-line bears repetition.
“COPS have called on a
foul-mouthed Tory Chief Whip to resign after confirming that the millionaire
minister launched an f-word rant at armed police ... Andrew Mitchell – newly-promoted by PM David Cameron – raged: ‘You’re
f***ing plebs’”. Now
another Murdoch paper is effectively saying that Newton Dunn, the paper he
works for, and of course the Times,
have been peddling a pack of lies.
Maybe the Murdoch
empire would care to decide which way it
wants to face on this.
2 comments:
Which way will Janus face?
Toss a coin Tom join the human race
May it be heads or may it be tails
Lob it in - it never fails (much).
Don't take sides in a cat fight. The Police Federstion was undoubtedly looking for an excuse to pillory Mitchell, and the newspapers are climbing on every bandwagon as usual, but the officer who made the original allegations has not been disciplined and still holds to the story, and insiders originally laughed about how typical it was of Mitchell's behaviour.
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