| Assassination or merely the usual political spin? I leave it to the cousins to critique. |
When Alastair Campbell left Downing Street in the wake of the death of Iraqi weapons expert Dr David Kelly, the Prime Minister's allies explicitly stated that he had learned his lesson.
They said that there would be no more spin, no more deception, no more smears, no more burying of bad news. Government henceforward was to be conducted on a straightforward basis.
How utterly wrong these claims turned out to be. I have been keeping a file of ministerial lies and deceptions, and it is now bulging.
Only last week, Defence Secretary Des Browne was forced to apologise to MPs after a leaked document showed that he had misled the House of Commons about plans to axe allowances to British soldiers serving in war zones.
Earlier this month, General Sir Mike Jackson, the former head of the Army, said that he warned ministers about the extreme danger of the Afghanistan expedition, exposing as a piece of tawdry spin John Reid's remarks that he hoped our soldiers would return 'without a shot being fired'.