Thursday, 7 June 2007
Gullible's Travails
You shouldn’t laugh.
Then again... No. You should.
I’ve been laughing like a drain for days at Iain Dale’s attempts to wriggle out of admitting that his ‘Brown plays politics with terrorism’ spin story was all a load of… well, unsubstantiated spin.
Let's look at Dale's original write-up to begin with, and I'll show you exactly where the spin is:
Gordon Brown's spin team of Damian McBride and Michael Ellams spent most of Saturday phoning round the Sunday lobby giving them 'exclusive' insights into Gordon Brown's views on fighting terrorism.Wow, what a staggering revelation, eh? Brown wants to get his face in the Sundays so what does he do? He only goes and gets his PR staff to ring the papers. What shocking behaviour! I'm completely aghast - how dare they ring the papers when they'd like them to run a story. The sheer nerve it all!
Confidentially (of course) my confidential 'sources' in the Tory Party (who must never ever be named as co-conspirators) have been telling me that Cameron never, ever, asks his own PR people to ring lobby journalists in order to place stories in the Sunday Papers...
...he just gets David 'Two Brains' Willetts (who's really the Mekon... Sshhh - not a word to anyone, its a secret) to telepathically implant stories directly into the brain of Patience Wheatcroft at the Telegraph. Oh Shit, I've started channelling Guido.
I believe there was even a document from which the journalists were able to craft their words. Indeed, so similar were the stories in the main broadsheets they had to have been given a document. Click on these stories if you don't believe me - Sunday Times, Observer, Independent, Telegraph. Now, nothing wrong with that until you know what the terms of this 'exclusive' story were.
A document, eh... The plot thickens...
What Iain's talking about is a press release.
That's the actual story here. Brown's senior PR staff rang a small number of journos at the main Sunday papers and then faxed/emailed them over what amounts to a press release - and there is indeed nothing wrong with that at all...
...so why go to all the trouble of waffling on about 'documents' from which the journos 'crafted' their words in order to make the whole mundane business sound ever so much more sinister and clandestine than it really is?
Because Dale's blatantly spinning the story himself for all he thinks he can get out of it by trying to convey the suggestion that these journalists are, themselves, being coerced into spinning stories for Brown.
But that's not all - now we get to the good bit...
Brown's spinners told these papers* that they would only get the story if they agreed not to carry any quotes from David Davis, Nick Clegg or any other opposition spokesman. Not only that, they weren't even allowed to tell the Tories or LibDems about the very existence of the story. Now, have a look a those links in the above para again. It's not difficult to spot that not a single one of the stories contains a quote from David Davis or Nick Clegg? Coincidence? No.
No, you're right Iain. Coincidence is not the operative word here... that word is 'Bullshit'.
Here's Patrick Hennessy of the Sunday Telegraph, in Dale's own comments:
You make a great fuss when you think newspapers get things wrong but you are quite happy to make rubbish claims yourself.
I wrote the Sun Tel terror story and I can categorically assure you I received no instructions or threats from the Brown team not to contact the Opposition.
If I had, I would have told them to p1ss off.
And then there's Iain Kirby of the News of the World:
And Nick Watts of the Observer:Iain - As Political Editor for the News of the World I also wrote up the Terror story and your version of events is completely wrong.
As Sunday journalists we do not follow a rolling agenda like the dailies and therefore keep policy speeches from both Conservative and Labour front benches to ourselves until deadline.
I notice you did not complain that Alan Johnson or Sarah Teather were not quoted in our story alongside Graham Brady's article on grammar schools.
Also, Michael Ellam has not taken up his post yet, so he was probably doing something far more enjoyable than ringing around the Sunday lobby.
Like Paddy Hennessy, I am more than capable of telling a special adviser to piss off
Your claims are not standing up to scrutiny Iain. I wrote the story in the Observer and would like to second the postings by my colleagues Patrick Hennessy and Ian Kirby. I received no instructions from the Brown camp not to contact the opposition.So that's two of the four journos who's articles are linked to by Dale - plus one he neglected to mention - all calling him out for talking bollocks. And Dale's excuse is:
Nick Watt, The Observer
I pointed out that I know for a fact that at least one newspaper did receive such a briefing and it was entirely reasonable to assume, given that all four broadsheets wrote almost identical stories, that all of them agreed not to carry quotes from either of the opposition parties.Ah.
So a 'fact' is actually an anecdote that someone told Iain - one that he couldn't be bothered to check out to see if it was really true...
Meanwhile, over at Guido's, 'Sunday Times Insider' has rather a different take on the nature of this 'fact':
So what motivated failed Tory MP and still ambitious Dale's ejaculation on the subject? Answer: The Sunday Times was embarrassed the story was, er, not quite the exclusive it appeared to be and has tried to muddy the waters by claiming they had it exclusively before it was "briefed" all around. How embarrassing for their lamebrain lobby hacks. Just the usual nonsense from their dunderhead political editor David "crackers" Cracknell who persuaded a gullible Dale to run such guff.In case anyone's at all interested, Dale's real beef in all this is that none of the papers who ran with the story could be arsed to ask his mate David Davis, for a quote - thereby preventing the Tories from spinning Brown's comments as an unwelcome intervention in a matter in which a couple of cosy little cross-party glee clubs had already come to some sort of unspecified consensus.
If one actually looks at Brown's comments and compared them with the 'trailer' for Reid's planned speech on proposals for yet more anti-terrorist legislation, most of which had already been extensively trailed in the press over the last few weeks, what is most obvious is that Brown was saying absolutely nothing that wasn't already in the public domain, having previously been trailed by either Reid or by the usual unnamed Home Office spokesman who crop up when politicians want to float an idea without the risk of taking flak if the public aren't keen.
Brown may have been 'playing politics' on Sunday, but only to a very limited extent in openly associating himself, as the incoming party leader and prime minister, with a raft of policy proposals he intends to support but which previously had been trailed exclusively by another minister - John Reid - who also happens to be leaving the government in about three weeks time...
...Dale's reaction (and his 'story') doesn't even make the grade as 'playground politics' - it more 'infant school politics' and Dale is just throwing a tantrum because the press gave Gordon first use of the sandbox without letting his mate, David Davis, play as well.
Dale's article, as it now stands, concludes with a typically self-serving and self-justifying acknowledgement of Hennessy's comments (although not those of Kirby or Watts - but then Dale does get the occasional payday from writing puff pieces for the Daily Telegraph), in which he still sticks to the line that its reasonable to infer things of which he has no direct knowledge on the basis of one entirely unverified and unsubstantiated comment from a journalist who, so it has been alleged elsewhere, may have fed Dale a pile of steaming bullshit in order to cover his own embarrassment at finding out that his big 'exclusive' wasn't quite so exclusive as he assumed it would be.
UPDATE * Patrick Hennessy of the Sunday Telegraph has vehemently denied in the Comments that he received any such briefing along the lines I suggest. He describes this entire piece as "rubbish". I pointed out that I know for a fact that at least one newspaper did receive such a briefing and it was entirely reasonable to assume, given that all four broadsheets wrote almost identical stories, that all of them agreed not to carry quotes from either of the opposition parties. Hennessy further says: "I didn't think the story needed a Tory or Lib Dem reaction". That is of course for him to decide, but I have to say that I find it astonishing that on an issue where Blair and Cameron, together with Red, Davis and Clegg were trying to build a cross party consensus (soemthing Hennessy must have known about), he didn't think it worth ringing Davis or Clegg to see what they thought about Brown crashing in on the issue. Of course, PA carried Davis's fairly strong comments from 7.30pm, well before the Sunday Telegraph's deadline.A better man would simply make the necessary corrections and offer up an apology for getting it wrong.
UPDATE.
It seems that Dale's capacity for shameless self-publicity and self-justification continues unabated on this one:
UPDATE: Michael Howard must read my blog. He just asked John Reid if it was appropriate for the Chancellor to give stories on terror legislation to Sunday papers with conditions that they did not carry quotes from Opposition politicians. Reid said he was at one with his very close friend the Chancellor and batted it away.Remember, three journalists have, thus far, denied that any such conditions were even mentioned let alone imposed and it's been alleged that Dale's (also alleged) source for the story span him a complete yarn on this to cover his own arse.
As one anonymous commenter at Dale's blog notes, to continue to peddle this story is tantamount to an allegation that the three journalists in question - all political editors with their respective newspapers - are lying.
UPDATE - I've put the Times angle to Dale and got this response:
Unity,Fair enough, although in the interests of strict accuracy it should be noted that the Times article carries two names on the byline - Cracknell and David Leppard.
An interesting theory, but I'm afraid that I haven't spoken to or had any other form of communication from David Cracknell for a couple of years. Sorry to blow that particular theory out of the water.
Having checked, it also appears than none of the main Sunday's who ran the story, including the Mail on Sunday and Sunday Express bothered to contact David Davis for a quote and, even more amusingly given Dale's subsequent whinging, Reuters, who only covered the story second hand, did go out and get a couple of quotes...
... from Shami Chakrabati and Lord Carlile.
UPDATE - AND THEN THERE WERE FOUR
And another journo denies Dale's story:
Dear Iain,
It is unlike you to get stories squew whiff but on this occasion I am afraid your report about a supposed
Brown terror spinning opposition is not right. You are correct to say that we wrote a story about Brown's policy on terror, which I felt was of interest to our readers as we have long been following this issue. However, to my knowledge, neither Damian McBride or Michael Ellam were not frantically calling the Sundays last Saturday (I didn't speak to either of them) but it is not right and insulting to suggest that we were instructed not to contact any opposition spokesmen. Obviously such instructions if they had been given would have been ignored. So sorry Iain, your story is not up to your usual standards.
Marie Woolf
Independent on Sunday
Labels: iain dale, newsnight moment, spin
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