Scapegoating Hoon was a bit like solving a crime by arresting the village idiot

For a long period in the late 1990s I worked for the Daily Express, a paper which vigorously supported the New Labour government. Once every six months or so Alastair Campbell, sometimes accompanied by Tony Blair, would turn up to give us our marching orders. At the end of one of these meetings I asked Campbell whether the rumours that he kept a diary were true. He moved his head away, did not look me in the eye. ‘No,’ he said. This is the trouble with Campbell. Though not without charm, or animal cunning or plausibility, he is untrustworthy. The extracts from his journal suddenly produced for the inspection of the Hutton inquiry last week must be treated with suspicion. Lord Hutton would be advised to check that no material was removed, inserted, changed or embellished. Even if the diary record has not been altered in any way, it should still be read as a partial record.