OBFUSCATION, OBFUSCATION, OBFUSCATION..........

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 7:39 pm 

Warning: This is a totally one-sided and biased view of the McCann saga �?just like the newspapers give.

Last May, when I noticed a headline “Toddler snatched in Portugal�?(or abducted �?I don't remember which) together with a photo of those two now familiar faces �?Gerry and Kate McCann, my immediate thought was: 'In Portugal! What's that to do with us here in the UK? are we now going to have to suffer the agonies of parents all over the world whose children go missing?' Nine months down the line I realise that the 'abduction' of Madeleine McCann by a person, or a gang, variously described as 'paedophile', 'creepy man', 'man with no face', 'loner'; 'outsider'; predator; Moroccan gypsies'...and a number of other insulting epithets, has a great deal to do with us as a nation, or, more accurately, a great deal to do with the ways and means by which the population of our once great country is being manipulated and controlled. The ceaseless and hypocritical focusing of attention on children, making them icons and untouchable is a ploy that has been used by the government and media for a long time in order to create division and repression as children have been given power without responsibility and adults responsibility without power. 'Celebrity' and, of course, the old standby, sex are other diversionary tactics.

This unhealthy concentration diverts attention from the things that are happening, or not happening, in the country, and really matter to the majority of us: the fact that our city streets are unsafe, admitted even by our own Home Secretary; the fact that Northern Rock is being bailed out by the public to the tune of billions of pounds and then handed over to someone filthy rich, like Richard Branson (yes, the same Richard Branson who has committed £100,000 to the McCanns in the event of a trial); the fact that Gordon Brown promised a referendum on the EU ...where is it?; the possibility (far-fetched, but maybe not) that when he went to China recently he gave them a lease on the UK for several trillion Yen �?or just enough to last him until the next election in 2010....But, no worries. Just stick a picture of a female, as deshabillé as possible - Posh Spice, pregnant Angelina Jolie, pregnant (or crazy) Britney Spears, drugged and maybe pregnant Amy Winehouse �?or the photogenic, and to some - sexy - Kate McCann (and that child she lost...oh, yes, Madeleine)... on the front page of the newspapers, and Brown and his drones can quietly go about their business.

So for months now we've had to read endless, usually dredged up, stories about the McCanns' 'search' for their 'abducted' daughter everywhere (everywhere except where she went missing) and about their “agony�? “heartbreak�? “anguish�? “despair�? “grief�? and their spokesperson Clarence Mitchell's accusations of 'ludicrous smears' and, of course and most importantly, reported “rage�?from the McCann camp (when things weren't quite going to plan).

But there is more to this tale. It is a success story, a mystery and a red warning light. The McCann circus got off to a good start. The loss of their little girl either to a paedophile abductor, or because of an accident or murder, or even because she had been hidden, to appear again at the 'right' moment, was turned into a corporate venture in no time: a Fund collecting money from the public, with carefully worded small print allowing the McCanns to use the money for their own purposes (two mortgage repayments so far to our knowledge), the web-site selling tat �?T-shirts, wristbands, posters with the copyrighted 'Madeleine' and eye coloboma logos. And this is only the beginning. If the couple's 'arguido/a' status is lifted what glittering prizes are a little way down the line? The USA, Oprah Winfrey, books, tv shows, possibly government funded children's ambassadorial job for Kate, political opportunity in the Labour Party for Gerry...a film, already under discussion - a remake of “Gone with the Wind�?would be appropriate with Kate as Scarlett �?and Madeleine? Well, she's the one who's gone with the wind �?as Kate said on a recent tv programme “Whoosh, clunk, and she was gone!

Now, to the 'mystery' which is this: Why did the British government under Blair send out paid personnel to help Mr and Mrs McCann? One, the couple's spokesperson Clarence Mitchell, former Head of the government's Media Monitoring Unit, is still helping to obstruct the course of justice by spin and obfuscation. He is now being paid £70,000 a year for his efforts by double glazing multi-millionaire Brian Kennedy. Why did Gordon Brown, who had ample opportunity to rescind Blair's thoughtfulness towards the McCanns, not do so? On the contrary, he put himself out considerably to help the McCanns with long phone calls, arranging meetings for them with our Home Secretary Jacqui Smith (the one who is scared to go out on the streets at night) and with David Miliband the Foreign Secretary. It was only after the couple were made suspects by the Portuguese police that Mr. Brown drew back a little and refused them the high level meeting they wanted when they fled from Portugal back to the UK in September.

Nonetheless Brown is generally thought to have leaned quite hard on the Portuguese Prime Minister Mr. Socrates at the time of the Lisbon Summit last November �?to perhaps go easy on the couple...to obfuscate a little, give the Brits time to...well, time to what? After this visit to Portugal by Mr. Brown in November, the British press were even more vociferous in their support of the pair calling the Portuguese police variously “Keystone cops�? “Blundering�? “Sardine Munchers�?and a lot of other choice names. This despite the compelling forensic evidence gathered by the Portuguese and British police and important phone interceptions, which they claimed, on 4th August last year, had given them the evidence that Madeleine was dead.

Why has our government gone out on a limb to help the McCanns? It is unprecedented. Why have UK newspapers not only vociferously supported the McCanns but also viciously attacked the Portuguese police and our oldest ally Portugal itself?

I can only think of one reason for each of these questions. I think the government has a vested interest in helping the McCanns to hide the truth and the newspapers have a vested interest in keeping this story running at whatever cost to the integrity of journalism and to our nation as a whole. To take the newspapers first. They no longer reflect opinion, they lead it. Remember the 'News of the World' in 2000 and its editor Rebekah Wade, when a mob of people in Portsmouth were whipped up, after the child Sarah Payne's murder? Ms.Wade had published photos and names of known sex offenders in the area. As a result two men facing sex offence charges committed suicide and the mob eventually stoned a pediatrician's home, knowing no better. In a country with an increasing number of people who don't or can't think for themselves or evaluate things and situations, it is easy to inflame and indeed, suppress opinion; to create action and more often, inaction. The media is now a weapon, and it is being used to control us. Newspapers are not now there to report news, they are there to make it. And this is the reason why the pro-McCann saga goes on and on. It suits the newspaper editors, it suits the government. And they're in this together.

Now why the government has stuck its neck out for this pair of nonentities is quite hard to determine. Is it perhaps because Gerry McCann is a Scotsman? Scotland has been flavour of the month for years now but more so now that Brown is in charge. Is it because Mr. McCann is on COMARE, an organisation which assesses the links between nuclear power and childhood cancer and Gordon Brown's brother is with EDF, the company charged with progressing the nuclear industry in Britain? Or is it because the couple are perceived to be middle-class? Yet here is the dichotomy: to be 'middle class' in the UK now is like declaring yourself a leper. The middle classes are reviled, denied, abused - leaving the country in droves for more welcoming climes; almost non-existent, so why should being middle-class help their case and bring them such comfort and support from government? After all, we're living in the age of the child, and they harmed a child, while on holiday in Portugal, by leaving her alone with her two siblings every night in a dark miserable apartment, in order that they could drink and dine with their friends. Most people would regard this, at least, as a punishable offence but the McCanns haven't been censured and they haven't been reviled by the media for their gross neglect or had their other two children removed as would surely have happened if they had been a 'normal' working-class couple.

So, assuming they are not being helped and protected because Gerry is Scottish or Kate is from Liverpool (which is well-known for producing very sensitive people), or that they are 'middle class' one wonders what is the reason? Perhaps a clue was given by a relative of the McCanns: “We've pulled in a few favours�?he said. What favours, I wonder. And favours given to who by whom? Is the reason the government appears to be so keen to protect the McCanns and stall on the investigation because the McCanns may have some knowledge which might be damaging to someone in the upper echelons of power? We can only speculate what this might be in connection with their missing, presumed dead, little girl.

Isn't it also a little strange that Gerry McCann's first call after the disappearance of the child was not to the police but to his best mate from Glasgow University Alistair Clark (now Professor of Political Science & Research at Queens University, Belfast and Assessor of English Working Government). Mr. McCann's delayed reaction allowed the village of Praia de Luz and their friends to trample all over the apartment thus conveniently destroying the forensic evidence. After receiving McCann's call Clark then phoned the British Ambassador John Buck, and Sky News. Kirsty Wark of the BBC became involved then Jill Renwick (another media type) who knew John Brown (Gordon's brother) and finally the great man himself.

So, to the warning red light I mentioned. I see the McCann case as a catalyst. The British newspapers over the last nine months, especially, of course, the gutter press have sunk lower with their biased and abusive reporting of this saga than one could ever have imagined. Yes, we on the outside have been able to pick up a few bits and pieces of information but, speaking personally, most of what I have gleaned has been from erudite and informed people on this forum, for instance, or from translations from foreign newspapers or from my own gut instinct, observation and reading between the lines. As for the government �?they already had a reputation for mendaciousness and cover-up, for statism and control, and for clearly demonstrated utter ineptness. Since Brown's ascendency, in my opinion, things have got worse. So the conclusion one comes to is that we, the public, are regarded as being like the proverbial mushrooms �?'keep them in the dark and feed them xxxx!' In this the government is ably assisted by the media. We must heed the red light, and resist it all.