This entry was posted on
Thursday, January 19th, 2006 at
8:56 am and is filed
under Rupert ‘The Evil One’ Murdoch.

Telegraph – Plot thickens over the ‘world exclusive’ based on pub chatter

Mirror – Leo Blair kidnap plan was merely F4J pub ‘banter’

Oh. My. Goodness. How ever did the Downing St Echo get their hands on this story?

Independent – Father of all plots: the kidnap that wasn’t and the end of a protest group: However, it seems the latest ruse, far from being a serious attempt to kidnap Leo Blair, was, at most, the slightly inebriated flight of fantasy of three men in a pub. Mystery surrounds how the plan came to The Sun’s attention and why it took the Met’s Anti-Terrorist Branch (SO13) more than a month to approach the men believed to be behind it… In the febrile world of Westminster gossip, there have been dark mutterings about collusion between No 10 and The Sun over the leaking of the story during a week of embarrassing headlines for the Government over health and education. Fuel was added to the fire by reports that Dave Hill, the Prime Minister’s communications director, had been involved in lengthy discussions with the editor of The Sun, Rebekah Wade, before the story broke. But when the political editor of Sky News, Adam Boulton, implied as much, he received a dressing down from No 10.

Health and education? Try instead rendition and torture. This is a government that thinks in a forward direction, remember?

I think the time has come to ask if Jo Moore is still working for 10 Downing St in an ‘unofficial capacity’, because it seems to me that every time the public needs to be focused on how important it is that Blair get his way on one civil liberties issue or another, or if there’s something new that needs covering up, a phantom threat like the Ricin Non-Conspiracy or the ‘foiled’ ‘plot’ to bomb Canary Wharf pops up… with the Sun leading the pack.

Milk it, baby. Milk it hard!

The Scum – Father Christmas 4 Justice: Cops smashed the Leo Blair kidnap plot by threatening to SHOOT the four dads who hatched it, The Sun can reveal. Special Branch officers called at the lunatics’ homes the day after they were seen discussing the snatch while dressed in Santa Claus outfits. They were told to abandon the plan – or risk death by a police marksman’s bullet. The four were on the fanatical fringe of the Fathers 4 Justice group, which has campaigned for broken home dads to have better access to their children. And the exposure of their shocking plot led founder Matt O’Connor to formally DISBAND the organisation yesterday. The plotters – two of whom have criminal records for violence – hatched their scheme to abduct Tony Blair’s five-year-old son on December 9. They went to a seedy London pub after a Fathers 4 Justice demo in which bell-ringing marchers dressed as Santas. But unknown to them, police alarmed at growing calls for “direct action” were investigating extreme elements of the group. Scotland Yard had already been warned of a plan to firebomb offices of a Family Court service which liaises between parents and children in divorce proceedings. The four were still in Father Christmas costumes as they planned the kidnap in a smoky corner of the pub, unaware they were under surveillance. They aimed to snatch Leo to make the “ultimate” protest. But they were soon warned off. Graham Manson, a member of the extremist splinter group The Real Fathers For Justice, said last night: “They were told by SO12 officers that they knew what they were up to – and that they would be shot if they tried to carry out their plan.”

Hmmm… surveillance by SO12 officers, you say?

I think that perhaps I might have been too charitable here.

UPDATE – Well *said*, good sir! (But you do know that your son-in-law was probably in on it too, yes?)

As Leo Blair’s grandfather, I find it utterly unbelievable, actually unforgivable, that the Sun newspaper would endanger the personal safety of my five-year-old grandson by not only publishing details of the alleged kidnap plot, but also splashing this little boy’s photograph across its front pages.

There can be no excuse for this action.

I recall, at the end of last year, the discretion exercised by that same newspaper over the contretemps between its editor, Rebekah Wade, and her partner, Ross Kemp. Then the only issue was of the personal dignity of a pair of adults, not the personal security of an innocent child. Shame on you Wade and your unthinking cohorts.

Tony Booth
Blacklion, Ireland