Porn rag is me….does he know where the cigar has been?
The Romper’s chronicles show that Camerlot’s love of Tooting Norton is nothing new
I couldn’t bear the thought of reading The Insider again: but after MP Louise Mensch spectacularly misquoted our Piers last week, I was that man off in search of Morganite self-incrimination. As it happens, one of our guests in France left his other tome God Bless America here two years ago….that’s the effect his books have on people.
So as a form of Buddhist therapy (‘Every day, do something you don’t want to do’) I picked it up this tabloid pulp last Friday and began to read. Very revealing it was, too. What kept me going through the leaden prose was first of all, how utterly wrong the Moron has been proved about almost everything – ‘I sense that Gordon Brown is touched with greatness’ – but secondly, how much he gives away about himself and the set he has latched onto like some kind of persistent barnacle.
As Mr Morgan probably thinks an index is some form of rave pill, there isn’t one to his book. But I can tell you that it covers the period from 2006 to Obama’s election in 2008 (‘Obama is the right man in the right place at the right time’).
I particularly liked his reference to Jude Law, a chap less than enamoured about having his phone hacked: ‘Jude Law’s a strange little cove, isn’t he? Barely a week goes by without him whining about the press invading his privacy’. Spoken like a true tabloid pillock, and rather indicative, I think, of the much-raker’s utter lack of interest in the individual’s right to be left alone – without idiots yelling through his letter-box.
But back to Brown. I know you’d rather not, but bear with me because this does support a story I posted last year during the 2010 election. This was to the effect that (I’d been told by others nearer to the action) the Smearing Pro pretended his ITV interview with the PM was off the cuff….when it was allegedly almost entirely scripted. God Bless America makes one thing clear above most others: he is very close friends with Cyclops, and a keen supporter of his social ideas. Yet in the 2010 interview, there was a piece of vomit-inducing nonsense at the outset where he began, “Prime Minister…”, and Brown smiled benignly, answering “Oh, do call me Gordon”. The two men have been boozing partners since 2003 for crying out loud.
Following another piece of outstanding character analysis from Arse Ring Pong (‘Ant and Dec…two guys I respect enormously’) we then surprisingly get to something of real import. Anyone determined to believe that Cameron only became part of Murdoch Gulch in the last two years (’26 meetings since 2010′) look away now. Cutting out the sound of celeb names clanging to the floor, this passage from 14th December 2006 stood out in the canine testicles sense:
‘I escaped tonight to Matthew Freud and Liz Murdoch’s annual Christmas Party…..a long chat with David Cameron on the stairs. Cameron was half-furious and half-admiring of the way that the sensational breaking news this afternoon – Tony Blair being questioned by the police over the cash-for-honours scandal – had ‘coincidentally’ taken place at the same time former Met police chief John Stevens’ report into Diana’s death was being released.
‘”How does he f**king get away with it?” said Cameron.’ [Although actually, he’d asked].
I shrink from pointing out that this probably happened courtesy of yet another tabloid villain, Morgan’s fellow Labour supporter Alistair Campbell. But I do find the passage extremely significant. Cameron the young Opposition leader learning the trade: how to control news, how to deflect questions, how to distract the public….and of course, how to be sure and hang around the edges of Newscorp’s power vortex.
Just five months later, Cameron hired Andy Coulson.
I found it very hard to journey past page 74. This was partly a function of the self-aggrandisement of Porn-rag-is-me, but also because something on that page stopped me dead in my tracks. Something that may yet hang the Romping Arse.
Stay tuned.
The Slog 