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Amnesia Dave is a rider on the Brooks storm
Barry Freeman
What do you call a horse with an unsightly infected lump on its back? Raisa (the late retired police horse once stabled in the plush surroundings of Rebekah Brooks’ Cotswolds pile)!
The identity of said lump, however, may vary. Obviously this role would mostly have been filled by the former Sun editor, self-confessed buyer of police information and – perhaps most incredibly – Fulwood Academy governor herself.
At time of writing, however, PM Dave Cameron is unable to say with certainty whether or not he too straddled the nag in question.
Happily, although unable to distance himself from the deceased equine bobby, Mr Cameron was at least able to say with confidence he had absolutely ‘no recollection’ of having ridden with the perceived villain of the piece, Mrs Brooks. Her husband Charles, a fellow Old Etonian, yes. Granted. But not her indoors. No sir. No recollection of that whatsoever. Which is almost as good as saying it never happened. But not quite.
In Westminster they call it fudge, and most Downing Street communiques regarding our PM’s relationship with News International – the ongoing source of infection which qualifies him for inclusion in aforementioned joke – tend to come thickly coated. Last year, for example, a hefty slab came along with the revelation Dave had spent time with Brooks over the previous Christmas – but wasn’t able to say exactly when...
Needless to say, while many thought it was good to know the PM had given over part of this most special time of year to celebrate with the then CEO of News International (she had lots to celebrate as, on December 10, the Crown Prosecution Service had said no further charges would be brought over the News of the World hacking scandal because witnesses refused to co-operate with police), many others felt it’d be even better to know exactly which days of Christmas the pair spent in joint wassail.
The day after the day after Boxing Day? No big deal. Christmas Day? What are you, family?
More than a week of embarrassing wriggling later it emerged we were talking about a small private party (attended also by James Murdoch and all-round useful right wing idiot Clarkson, J.) at the Brooks home on December 23 and their attendance at a larger gathering five days later.
Does this mean we can expect to wait a week or thereabouts for the PM to remember whether he ever hit the pony trail with RB? We should hope so, if hilarious unattributed Downing Street quotes like the Christmas date classic ‘it was a couple of days before, I think’ are our likely reward.
Then again, who knows. Maybe he’ll never remember. Perhaps he banged his head and lost his memory, like in the cartoons. Maybe a seat in front of the Leveson Inquiry would be the bump he needs to find it again and stop taking us all for a ride.
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Sunday 19 May 2013
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