Knowledge that a secret exists is half of the secret, and Westminster loves nothing more than guessing what a secret might be. When The Spectator’s website revealed at 6 p.m. last Thursday that a major Conservative story was about to unfold, there was a flurry of frenzied speculation. One Cabinet member even called 10 Downing Street for clues. No one knew. Several theories were flying (George Osborne resigning, Samantha Cameron pregnant) yet none was as bizarre as the truth: a shadow cabinet member had just been arrested by anti-terror police in a leak inquiry.
Once, such a development would have sent Conservative central office into spasm. This time, Damian Green’s arrest was played to perfection. When the news broke at 9 p.m., David Cameron was declaring outrage at the police tactics. The word ‘Stalinist’ was quickly slipped into the news stream, a word which is second only to ‘Mr Bean’ in Westminster as code for Gordon Brown.
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