Just as most people were packing up for the weekend, the Twittersphere and, eventually, the Mainstream Media were lit up with the story that Chris Huhne had apparently sent out a private text message to his 8,007 Twitter followers, including many of the great and good of “Fleet Street”.
The message said:
From someone else fine but I do not want my fingerprints on the story. C
So what was this “story”? – we are all now wondering.
Think about it.
Chris Huhne had obviously been having a private text exchange with (that ubiquitous Huhne Aunt Sally) “a staff member” (if you believe what Huhne told the BBC’s excellent Peter Henley; the Independent speculates that the person on the other end of the exchange was the Sunday Telegraph’s Peter Hennessy).
So, the other exchangee was not a novice to the world of media stories, one can reasonably assume.
I think it is then safe to take the next step of logic and assume that there was a plausible assumption on the part of both exchangees that Huhne’s name might be published within the story as a named source. Otherwise, Huhne would not have thought that it was necessary to say that he did not want his “fingerprints” on the story.
So, taking that line of logic, the story concerned was probably quite inconsequential, bearing in mind that someone reasonably experienced in press matters (i.e. the exchangee other than Huhne) was reasonably expected (by Huhne) to think that there was potential for Huhne’s name to appear in the story. Otherwise Huhne wouldn’t have bothered to state the opposite.
Unless, of course, the story was so explosive that Huhne needed to state, for the absolute avoidance of doubt, that his name shouldn’t be on the story. In that case, we can look out for a monumentally earth-shattering story coming out in the next 48 hours which would have made Huhne’s enemies look very bad, were it not for the fact that everyone will now know that this is the Huhne “fingerprintless” (not) story.
This “#tweetfailgate” story would not have taken wing so much, had it not fed into the general assumption that Chris Huhne practises media manipulative skullduggery behind the scenes.
However, as I said when I supported Chris Huhne for the LibDem leadership (a position of which I am still very proud), thank goodness that the LibDems have a few people, like Chris Huhne, who know their way around the dark arts of the media.
We’d be pretty lost if we were all a bunch of naïve idealists without the hard-nosed nous which people like Chris Huhne bring to the party.
Paul Walter blogs at Liberal Burblings
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11 Comments
The problem isn’t that he knows how to use the ‘dark arts’. It’s that he often appeared (in fairness less so now) to be using those arts against other members of his own party.
“he often appeared (in fairness less so now) to be using those arts against other members of his own party.”
Come, come, Anthony. Chris is a rank amateur in the internicine plotting stakes, operated by Party apparachiks ‘around the leader’ since time immemorial.
Nice try at spin here. Trying to get us all thinking about irrelevant aspects of the story.
1. Nobody particularly cares to whom he might have been addressing himself or what he might have been saying.
because….
2. People do actually care about the message itself, because it reinforces what they suspect about him – namely that he is a sneaky political animal with ambitions beyond his station, willing to knife people in the back to promote his cause.
3. The Hennessy name-check is a red-herring as you can only DM a follower. Hennessy isn’t one of them.
Apart from that… we also wondering if there is one rule for politicians in this country and another for ordinary mortals when it is taking months and months to being his speeding case to a conclusion. Any normal person would have seen the case proceed OR NOT far faster than this. It’s coming across like a banana republic with rich and influential people getting preferential treatment.
I fear that Huhne’s judgement is questionable. As a (then) party member I voted for him as Leader in the election won by Ming but I switched to Clegg in the most recent ballot because I was appalled at Huhne’s idea that instead of renewing Trident the country should take the even worse path of developing a cruder but truly independent “deterrent” along French lines.
I voted for Chris Huhne & I still think he would have been an even better LD leader than Nick Clegg.
Colin – are you serious? As soon as the coalition started he was busted (or outed hinself?) having an affair. The new DPM having an affair would have been embarrassing enough, but now he seems inches away from not even being in Government due to a possible arrest. All of this would have overshadowed any politics.
Just to be clear, I couldn’t care less what he does in his private life. Am just saying, all this bad news would have consumed his premiership.
I think he is probably the LibDems best minister, but he does seem to be gaining a reputation as being one of these dodgy always briefing against other politicians politicians, like Balls, Brown etc. And I’m not basing that on this recent twitter gaffe. It’s really a nothing story.
I could barely see a difference between Clegg or Huhne… I liked them both. When Huhne’s team did the ‘Clamity Clegg’ brief, I decided to vote for Clegg. I figured either Huhne is not much of a team player, or he employs people that make colossal mistakes.
I have to say, I’ve been very suprised that Clegg haters haven’t stuck using the ‘clamity clegg’ nickname!
“So, taking that line of logic, the story concerned was probably quite inconsequential, … Unless, of course, the story was so explosive …”
Unless, of course, it was somewhere in the middle …
@Chris Well, the story which he was referring to seems to have come and gone without so much as a ripple, so it appears to have been in the inconsequential bracket.
Huhne himself confirmed on the Politics Show this lunchtime that it was the Theresa May story in the Guardian yesterday regarding the cat anecdote. The story being that she lifted it almost word for word from the leader of the UK Independence party.
Thought it was quite a good story myself…
And his actions seem pretty reasonable – he pointed out a cheap shot to a journalist, based entirely on public information, and declined to be named in connection with it. That’s what he’s supposed to do.
#HuhneFatFingers