Plugging the leak

So did Liam Fox leak the letter? Only if he is suicidal. He’s been around long enough (having been a frontbencher from the Major years onwards) to know how the game works. Briefing journalists is one thing, leaking a private letter is utterly counterproductive. It will make it harder for him to get the settlement he wants, and it will damage him by making him look as if he were responsible for it.

I gather that the MoD is in a state of terror right now, with phone records and emails being trawled to find the guilty party. And whoever did this has such a crude understanding of media spin that they might well have been stupid enough to be caught. But in the history of Whitehall leak inquiries, the guilty party has never been discovered.

Those who have spoken to Fox this morning say he is in a state of apoplexy.