That bibulous former Young Conservative and pain in the side of Westminster, Guido Fawkes, has a theory about why No 10’s probably behind the leak of crucial evidence to the Beeb last week, prompting Goldsmith’s desperate injunction:
[…]
When news of arrests and interviews has come out, it has more often than not been from the politicians themselves. Given that the Beeb didn’t buy this story, who profits from revealing crucial police evidence? Not the investigators, which is why the police sought to suppress the story, because defence lawyers could make much mischief, and probably will, with the “trial by media” line.
To quote the most famous detective of all, “If you eliminate the impossible, whatever is left, even if improbable, must be true.” Those under investigation, now that they believe it no longer possible to “fix” the CPS because of the evidence known to have been discovered, have the most to benefit from bringing the evidence into the public domain. The desperadoes of Downing Street would not be above leaking against themselves, tactically it would also allow them to portray themselves as victims of media savvy police investigators. They already brief that the police are “theatrical” and whine that they are unable to publicly defend themselves from the “trial by media”.
These are dangerous times for Downing Street’s toughest street fighters. The gloves are definitely off, which is why Guido thinks this leak has Downing Street’s fingerprints on it.
It appears that No 10 appears to be using one of the Scooter Libby perjury trial’s defence strategies – only where Libby’s supporters tried to engineer a mistrial during the hearing by using their media access, New Labour have been trying to stop it before it even comes to indictments, let alone trial. But they were stymied by the Met’s request for an injunction.
This puts what I’d initially assumed about Lord Goldsmith’s motives in a different light – though having to apply for the injunction when he quite probably would really rather have been doing his master’s political bidding and quietly whispering to selected media figures must’ve been irritating in the extreme.
I bet Blair is kicking himself too that he didn’t introduce some kind of Prime Ministerial pardon system when he had the chance.
UPDATE:
BBC 1 O’clock news is reporting that Downing St denies absolutely that it could’ve been the source of the leak, because ‘details of the emails mentioned in the press prove it couldn’t have been them’.
Uh-huh.
Ooooh, look at the airborne piggies!
DOUBLE UPDATE:
BBC Radio 4 is reporting that the emails were between Ruth Turner and Johnathan Powell and concerning Blair crony Lord Levy. ‘Unnamed sources’ in the government are now blaming the police for the leak. Oh, this is fun. More soon.
