Remember what I said about The 'Teflon Knight' just a couple of blogs ago? It was in the hideously sexualised 'Budget' review that gave me the most amusing 'search terms' report I've had so far?
(based on some of them, I'm pretty sure the readers who found it on Google were disappointed that it wasn't a piece of parliamentary, watersports-based 'slash fiction'... Surely a growth area in literature...)
Anyway, throwing bizarre sexual imagery aside, I made a dig about the 'non-stick' boss of the Cons, missing out on the derision that was heaped on 'Poor George O'... Well looks like someone has incinerated some sausages in Cameron's pans and tried to scrape them off with an angle grinder.
Putting Teflon metaphors aside, it seems the bad publicity has finally hit the top. #CashforCameron has been trending all night, well since the Sunday Times released the footage of the Hugely rich treasurer of the Conservative party offering access to the PM to undercover Reporters under the mistaken assumption that they too were massively rich, and able to pay £250,000 for the 'pleasure'
Of course it isn't only that... I mean, if you have that much money to waste on a meeting, Cameron might well know you socially and forego any charge for a sit down, a chat, and a sip of peasant's tears. What seemed to be on offer for that fee was actual 'influence'... This meeting would be 'amazing' for your business and put you in the 'premier league' of Tory donors... Truly the dullest 'league' of any kind in the History of everything ever...
The Treasurer responsible, well, Co-treasurer... It's important to be accurate with such things... Apparently. Is Peter Cruddas... A name which may have invited such juvenile bullying he would have had to become the local thug to survive. Luckily for the world he was insulated from this fate by him 'not growing up where I did' and becoming a boy scout, which he says 'Gave him the discipline to suceed'
Now, here is the problem with any Media Strategy involving this fine gentleman. He is rich. Very rich. In fact he was the richest man in the 'city of London' so... Toppest of the top bankers... Shrewdest of the shrewd customers...
How do you make him into a patsy? I mean the footage shrieks 'Bang to rights' so you can't blame the journalists. He is intelligent and ultra successful, so 'conventional corruption' will be hard to pin on him, and he's clearly not simply thick... And he's so much 'their type' that he wouldn't be stitching them up for reasons of ideology...
So... It's top down... It came from the Boss... And it seems he knows it. His tetchy soundbite to the BBC looked like the actions of a guilty child caught stealing biscuits and blaming the babysitter for spying... Sadly the BBC, who I love with a passion have towed an odd party line, reporting the PMs anger at Cruddas as the story, avoiding the 'dodgy donor' aspect... Well... They have the license fee to think about don't they... *shakes head in tormented sadness*
Luckily the Sunday Times have been excellent on this, proving the value of true public interest journalism... This 'scoop' exemplifies everything great about the profession... Sadly though it may be Cameron's main 'Get Out' weapon... And it's been handed to him by some commentators on the left... (The right are all crowing about the fact that this happened while the Guardian were serving ice cream on their open weekend)
The narrative goes like: this is Murdoch's 'revenge' for Cameron turning his back on Newscorp.
Now aside from the insult to the reporters, this also mildly excuses those involved.
If this becomes a battle of two 'Baddies' nobody is expected to behave any better. Maybe this story would have been diminished slightly in times gone by (Even in the most psychotically pro-Cameron newsroon, I doubt that anyone would spike such an important story, and if they did, it would immediately have been leaked by the Journos who had put in such sterling work)
It isn't nasty Mr Murdoch throwing mud back at the Nasty ol' Tories. It's undercover reporters being offered influential access to our elected Prime Minister for cash money... And maybe sacrificing and smearing the 'message-boy' won't be enough this time...
So hats off to the Sunday Times, and hopefully this is the answer to all those Tabloids who dare to use a 'Public Interest' excuse to run nonsense hacked from a D-listers phone.
And for Cameron... I am very interested to see how you deal with this one... If the list of Cruddas appointments includes many 'Private Healthcare' companies you could well be in for a rough ride for a while... But remember, if the deal was 'access to David Cameron' then the buck must stop at David Cameron.
And for Ed... Get your house in order and Publish it... Because if you have any skeletons knocking about, vultures will be circling now for the tiniest morsel... If your knickers aren't clean, be ready for them to be waved in the country's face...
And Clegg... Well do whatever you want. Nobody cares any more.
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