Monday, December 15, 2008

News of the World embargoed?

Apparently yesterday's News of the World pulled a story about a snap general election after concerns were voiced about its accuracy.

Press Gazette reports this morning that

the piece claimed that the prime minister held a "secret meeting" in his Downing Street study on Tuesday with advisers and had "thrashed out a plan" to take the Conservatives by surprise and call an election next summer – a year earlier than expected.
It also claimed that the new secretary of state for business, Lord Mandelson, and Brown's former press secretary Charlie Whelan attended the meeting.

2 comments:

James Michael Parry said...

The question is, what's REALLY going on now?

It's a testament to the audacity of the NOTW that they'd put out that story in the first place before they'd finished investigating, surely to get it at all they'd have to have a source in Number 10 or something who had said they'd happen?

Presumably that means either that person was lying or they weren't who they said they were...

Nigel Barlow said...

I would hazard a guess that this was another case of the Brown briefing machine going astray.

"The source was trying to plant the story to guage the public's reaction,hence using the NOTW whose votes Labour needs to win the next election.At the last minute Brown intervened and said no