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. Coincidence, I’m sure, but lightening does tend to strike Labour enemies of our Prime Minister. So tonight, like a long line of Gordon Brown irritants, Ivan Lewis sleeps with the fishes.
UPDATE: So much for my conspiracy theory. Turns out the girl’s story was known in Whitehall and there was a race on to reach her – a race won by the News of the World, which got her quotes and her picture for their first edition. She then scarpered, before the Mail on Sunday or anyone else could reach her.
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