Ivan Lewis pays the price

Poor Ivan Lewis. Previously we only heard from this health minister when he cropped up to criticise Gordon Brown through some coded newspaper article. Now he’s on the front page of the Mail on Sunday, exposed for sending inappropriate texts to a former female aide. So where did this story come from? Strikingly absent from the Mail on Sunday’s story is any detail from the woman’s side. No text message is reproduced, or any basic content alluded to. If she had sold her story (and the Mail on Sunday has the deepest pockets on Fleet Street for this kind of thing) you’d expect some personal detail even if not in quotes. They also fronted up her parents, another sign that she is not the source. No, this story appears to have come from Whitehall sources. “It is understood No10 was told about Mr Lewis’s behaviour” says the Mail on Sunday.