RIP David Kelly

Can I be the only one who thinks it distasteful and unnecessary for the government to have released the port-mortem report on David Kelly? His family and friends were not happy about it, Lord Hutton specifically ruled that it should remain confidential. So why was it released? It hasn't silenced the conspiracy theorists. Far from it, it gave them another opportunity to vent. They are not the sort of people to let evidence and the conclusive findings of the report that Kelly took his own life, get in the way of their view that the poor man was killed by the government. I have heard more than one accuse Alastair Campbell of actually committing the act himself. Enough already. It was a tragic death, but it was suicide. Can we stop raking over this unfortunate soul's bones and allow him to rest in peace?

Alastair at the Inquiry, again

So once again Alastair Campbell has been in front of an inquiry into the Iraq War. And surprise, surprise, there were no surprises. No clangers were dropped, no faux pas made. And of course none could really have been expected. But that did not stop today's media feeding frenzy. There was a veritable scrum of photographers waiting for him when he arrived to give evidence, News 24 and Sky broadcast the lengthy session live, we will have Andrew Gilligan and all manner of talking heads commenting on his performance on every news programme, paper and website for the next 24 hours and don't even get me started on the write-throughs. Alastair is one of those people that no matter how much journalists criticise, they can't get enough of him. Back in the days when he was the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman (1997-2001), his twice-daily briefings to the Lobby (Westminster-based political correspondents) were something to behold. They would sit there desperate to get his attention, hanging on every word like love-struck teenagers. Of course they would claim afterwards that they had "grilled him" during the briefings, but take it from one who was there, there was an awful lot of simpering in the mix. And it got worse when, after the 2001 election, he became the No 10 Director of Communications and Strategy and stopped giving briefings. The response of the hacks was almost comical - they became rejected love-sick teenagers, furious at being spurned, this time desperate to get revenge. Seems like old times.