Shaphan

Spying on Prescott

The Mail on Sunday today published the latest installment in the undoing of John Prescott.  One of its photographers just happened to be spending Thursday patrolling the boundaries of the DPM's official residence and took photos of Prezza playing croquet.  Or maybe the MoS pays a photographer to stake out Dorneywood, 24/7.  Or could it be that someone within the DPM's party - no, surely not one of the Special Branch officers - tipped off somebody else who tipped off the MoS.  One might almost suspect there was a deliberate campaign being waged to discredit John Prescott, for reasons known only to its perpetrators (although power might have something to do with it).

Correction:  The guy who took the pictures of Prescott playing croquet was a freelance photographer who sold the pics to an agency, not a Mail on Sunday employee.

Gary Trotter, the photographer who snapped Mr Prescott playing croquet at his country retreat, insisted the pictures were in the public interest.  He said he had been visiting Dorneywood over the past month in the hope of spotting Mr Prescott and had burst out laughing when he saw what he was doing. (link)

I didn't hear the interview Trotter is reported to have given the BBC, so I don't whether he was asked if he had been tipped off by anyone (not that, if he had been, he would likely admit to it).  I'm still struck by improbabilities and coincidences of the story.

Serving the Crown

I'm not obsessed by Tracey Temple, really, but the news today that she is returning to her job does fit with my thesis that she was serving the Crown acting under orders when she turned on John Prescott (pun intended).  According to the Mirror:

TRACEY Temple will keep her job at Westminster after her affair with John Prescott but will move to another department.

Tracey, who was the Deputy Prime Minister's diary secretary, will be back in work next Thursday.  Her PR agent Max Clifford said yesterday:  "She has still got her job.  Obviously not in the same place, but the same job, same level, same position, same pay and they are keen for her to. [sic]

"I think which department is one of the things she is going to be discussing over the next couple of days."(...)

Mr Clifford said Tracey had rejected numerous media offers which would have turned her into a millionaire.

He added:  "She's going to get back to her job, which she loves, and what is done is done."  But she wants nothing to do with ex-fiance Barrie Williams who revealed she talked of Prezza in her sleep.

Am I the only person who had trouble believing the story about her lorry-driver lover, Barrie, hearing her sleep-talking about her rumpy-pumpy with the DPM, then him reading her diaries and text messages?  No truck driver I know (not that I know any) would say things like, "I just can't believe that my darling Tracey has been sleeping with John Prescott behind my back", or "She had access to all of Prescott's offices and even recently visited his country retreat in Dorneywood, Bucks.", or "But you could have knocked me down with a feather when I realised Tracey and Prescott had become lovers".  Barrie didn't realise it in 2003, 2004 or 2005 but, in 2006, just before Blair's last major reshuffle, Tracey lets slip the big secret, and Barrie heads off to the Mirror?  No, I find that even more unbelievable than my original hypothesis that she worked for Security Service.  (And I wouldn't be at all surprised if 'Barrie' wasn't his real name, he's not a lorry driver, and that he's actually in a similar line of work as she.)

The presence of Max Clifford in the story only adds to the intrigue.  Last December I wrote a highly speculative piece, Rebekah Wade, MI5 and the G8 bombings - an hypothesis, about how the travails of Wade and her husband had distracted public attention from the Mirror's main story that day that all four July 7th bombers had been under MI5 surveillance one year before the bombing.  I ended it with:

And I also wonder at the role of Max Clifford, his part in Blunkett's, and others', downfall, and his role on November 3rd, 2005 - might there be more to Max Clifford than meets the eye?

He's now smoothing Temple's return back into the bowels of Whitehall.  I hope, and expect, he's being well paid for his services.

John Prescott and national security

According to the, er, Daily Mail:

The political commentator of the Labour-supporting Sun newspaper, Trevor Kavanagh, told Radio 5 Live:  "Learning that John Prescott's had an affair is a bit like learning that Simon Hughes is gay.  I mean, everyone knew he has affairs.  He's had a string of affairs throughout his life and this has come as no surprise."

Except, perhaps, to his wife, his constituents and to the rest of the country not in the know.  My question is this:  would MI5 have done background checks on the lovers of the Deputy Prime Minister to check they weren't also sleeping with, for example, a foreign diplomat?  According to, er, today's Sun, Tracey Temple had several other lovers on the go -  did MI5 do checks on any of them?  I don't suppose Prescott is entrusted with the UK's biggest secrets but he must surely know enough to be a valid target of foreign intelligence services.

If MI5 knew that the DPM liked to have a lady friend in London, and if it was on top of its game, it would have ensured that Prescott's lover worked for our side, for MI5, so that if he was ever indiscreet it wouldn't much matter.  It would also have meant that MI5 could have had some leverage over Prescott if it ever believed such a need arose.  I don't suppose Tracey Temple is working for the Security Service, but maybe she should have been.