UK Politics
Inside the Westminster village
Published 19 July 2007
A new minister ambushed by the softest and straightest
Spin is back, with tongues wagging in Whitehall over a messy Foreign Office media foray. The statesboy David Miliband's spinmistress, Sarah Schaeffer, is said to have presented a human sacrifice to the Daily Torygraph in the shape of green-gilled Mark Malloch Brown. She put forward her master's ennobled deputy to be interviewed by the paper's assassins Rachel Sylvester (below) and Alice Thompson. The pitch, whispers my snout, was that they'd be the "softest and straightest". But the terrible twins didn't get where they are today by leaving without a story. Thus MMB's view that Britain would no longer be joined by the hip to the US resulted in Big Gordie cutting his legs off. And, in what can only be a remarkable coincidence, the next day Miliband was able to lounge on Andrew Marr's sofa to play statesboy, praising the American link, to the sound of applause from Big Gordie. Scurrilous wags claim Schaeffer promoted her boss and did down his rival. Perish the thought.
To the TUC's summer party, where a dishevelled figure was spied hovering near the door. Big Gordie arrived and the bagman buttonholed him about (judging by the gesticulations) a matter of some importance. Union barons waited impatiently, watching the exchange unfold. The Special Branch tecs appeared unusually relaxed, but then again they probably knew the chap. It was Charles Clarke, cruelly overlooked when ministerial jobs were distributed and reduced to loitering with intent to grab a word.
Plans progress for Carry On Up the Jungle, a Tory movie starring Druggie Dave as Dave of Africa. The flying pack accompanying him to Rwanda complain of turbulence, grumbling that Dave disrupted their plans by switching flights, because he couldn't get a seat in Business and he didn't become leader to travel economy. The question remains: why Rwanda? Surely he should be taking his posse on a spin to Cameroon?
Incredible as it may be, a copy of Alastair I-I-I Campbell's tales of government splits was auctioned for £60,000 at Labour's Wembley fundraiser. An incredulous guest suggested it must have been a rare unsigned copy.
I type this item while peering at a copy of a Lib Dem newspaper distributed in Ealing Southall. The centrefold is a leader the party clearly believes is a big asset. He is Charlie Kennedy, the ex-leader. Ming Campbell, the current leader, is relegated to a right-hand corner of the back page with half his head cut off and no mention of his name.
I pass on, without prejudice, extraordinary allegations from Sedgefield. Labour activists swear that a couple of Tory boys were seen littering a street before Druggie Dave's car pulled up, thus supplying a couple of props for Citizen Cameron to pick up and deposit in a bin for the cameras. It is, as we joke in the trade, a story too good to check.
Kevin Maguire is associate editor (politics) of the Daily Mirror
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