Conspiracy theories kill

Andrew Neather of the Evening Standard was — and, for all I know, still is — a decent man. Although he worked as a speech writer for Jack Straw around the turn of the millennium, by the time I knew him he in the late 2000s, he had sensibly decided that bicycling was more interesting than politics. I could never have imagined him at the centre of a political controversy until 2009, when Neather wrote an article that sparked a conspiracy theory. As Joe Murphy, the Standard’s political editor, reported a week later:

“Pressure was growing today for an independent inquiry into claims that immigration was encouraged by Labour for political gain. It followed the charge by a former Government adviser that a policy change to welcome economic migrants was partly designed to wrongfoot Conservative opponents of immigration. Andrew Neather, a former speechwriter for Tony Blair and Home Office adviser, revealed in last week’s Standard that in confidential meetings ministers gave the impression they wanted to encourage multiculturalism for partisan reasons, as well as the stated aim of helping businesses fill vacancies in the booming economy.