Make your own coverage

I've also done Iraq dossier pieces this morning for Comment is Free and IndyMinds.

Also on IndyMinds, John Rentoul has chosen to disagree with the least significant non-revelation in he papers released yesterday. He has also shown that he doesn't understand the difference between "made available to" and "disclosed". How the spin doctors must love him.

Who says so?

I've done a piece this morning for IndyMinds, looking in some detail at a quite crass piece of spin from the Indy on Sunday's John Rentoul. His piece is a shocking example of the kind of thing I'm always banging on about here - the tendency to tell us what journalists "know", "feel", "hope" or "believe".

Steady now

I find myself agreeing with something John Rentoul has said today, on the anti-speed camera lobby:

when people complain about speed cameras and points on their licence I only wonder why the police shouldn't use hidden cameras and nick anybody who breaks the law. It seems pretty simple: either there is a good reason for a speed limit, in which case it ought to be enforced, or there isn't, in which case it ought to be changed. But instead of campaigning to change speed limits, the entire car-driving nation engages in the displacement activity of complaining that speed cameras are a means of raising revenue.

Not quite the entire nation, more a vocal minority egged on by the right-wing press.

Please go away

The Independent's John Rentoul is so predictable, you wonder why he bothers. The unreconstructed Blairite is touting David Miliband to challenge Gordon Brown. I watched Miliband in the Iraq debate a couple of weeks ago. Admittedly Miliband was defending an entirely indefensible position but he looked hopeless, quite out of his depth.

Blair not dead yet

As the Mail serialises another book on Blair by Blairite sycophant Anthony Seldon, it seems Blairites haven't entirely gone away. Mail on Sunday political editor Simon Walters allows a Brownite a chance at an unattributed "free pop" that nevertheless seems to sum up where the Blairites are coming from:

"Mr Blair's people cannot accept that they have lost power," said one. "These stories are a crude attempt to settle scores with no regard to the effect it has on the Government."

The Telegraph latches on the story without bothering to credit the Mail. It has a non-story within the non-story:

[Seldon] says that Mr Brown may have been involved in ensuring that Jack Dromey, a senior trade unionist and treasurer of the Labour party, complained publicly about the cash-for-honours affair – which caused Mr Blair huge political damage.

Dr Seldon writes: “A story reached Blair a few days later of a plan to remove him from office by effectively bankrupting the party and encouraging donors to say they would only be prepared to give money to get it back into the black if Brown was leader.”

“Blair himself never accused Brown of complicity but did tell him how outrageous he thought the timing of Dromey’s comments was. 'Well nothing to with me,” was reportedly Brown’s reply. 'Then again,’ sighs one No 10 aide, 'it’s never anything to do with him, is it?”

Meanwhile undead Blairite John Rentoul gives us more unsubstantiated drivel:

Within minutes of Sir Menzies Campbell's resignation on Monday, the question had moved on to the choice of Nick Clegg or Chris Huhne as his replacement, and how either would affect the balance of advantage between Labour and the Conservatives. It was the wrong question. The significance of Sir Menzies's sudden departure is that it tells us this: David Cameron already has the edge.