Stoking the Fire...

Ordinarily any headline run in UK tabloid The Mirror - or for that matter The Sun or The Star or in numerous other rags - any headline that runs in The Mirror would be taken with a huge dose of salt. A typical 'Mirror headline might go BIG BABS' BOOBS EXPLODE!!!!! accompanied with a picture of Barbara Bush, or more likely still, Barbara Windsor.

So, you read EXCLUSIVE: BUSH PLOT TO BOMB HIS ARAB ALLY your first reaction ought to be BOLLOCKS!!, because chances are, that's what it is.

But wait... this time it's probably different? Since it was published the UK Government has dropped a humungous ton of bricks upon the heads of british newspaper editors, and charged a former government employee under the Official Secrets Act for leaking sensitive government papers to the press.

In other words, by hammering so swiftly and so fiercely the UK Government is pretty-much confirming the veracity of the story - and it is clearly embarassed by the revelations. Although probably not too embarassed for the very same reason - using clumpity boots at a ballet does not a delicate performance make.

I offer no comment whatsoever upon the substance of the report: merely the observation that the UK Government is doing everything in its power to play this up. Smells to me like Someone, as the saying goes, is being stitched-up like a kipper.

How very, very strange?