The dangers of employing SpAds

Excellent and disarmingly honest post from Guido earlier today in which he admits that the unhelpful and hostile attitude of Peter Hain's special adviser had spurred him on in his attempts to get the bottom of the permatanned one's financial affairs.

I think if we are all equally frank about it, this is a fairly common occurence in journalism. Most journalists would agree that if an official or press officer is being obstructive or difficult about something, it makes them all the more convinced there's a good story there, and hence all the more determined to get it.

Since train stories are all the rage in the blogosphere at the moment, I will relate an incident that occurred some years ago on a train journey from Newcastle to London in which I found myself sat opposite the special adviser to the then local government minister, Hilary Armstrong.

The man in question - I won't bother to name him as he no longer works for the government - sat in front of me with a briefcase on his lap and said words to the effect of: "There's something in here you'd really like to know about but which I'm not going to show you," and then preceded to spend the rest of the journey taunting me about it.

It was stupid behaviour on two counts. First, it was hardly calculated to endear me to his then boss, Ms Armstrong, and second, it alerted me to the existence of a report which I would not otherwise have known about, and which I eventually obtained by other means.

Only a few years earlier, the adviser in question had been a local councillor who was happy to use the regional press as a platform. It was clear that as soon as he graduated to national politics, the power went straight to his head.

Alastair Campbell aside, the very worst example of all of a spAd who did huge damage to her boss's cause was of course Jo "bury bad news" Moore, although this was not something particular to me.

Long before that shameful incident on the afternoon of 9/11, the woman brought in to soften Steve Byers' media profile in the hope of making him the next Labour Prime Minister had managed to alienate most of the Lobby, and there were very few tears shed over her spectacular fall from grace.

I would love it if they win something

Eleven years ago last week, I travelled up to Newcastle to take up the job of Political Editor of its morning paper, The Journal. The idea was that I would spend my first week up there quietly getting to know the region and its key personalities before starting in earnest at Westminster the following week.

Three days later, Kevin Keegan resigned as manager of Newcastle United, and the whole of Tyneside went crazy.

I found myself pulled off some worthy feature about what Mo Mowlam would do if she became Northern Ireland Secretary to do a ring round of local MPs for their reaction to the Geordie Messiah's shock departure. It was clear that very few people were going to be interested in reading about politics that week.

So the equally unexpected return of King Kev to St James' Park yesterday has brought back a few poignant memories for me.

KK was lambasted at the time for having lost a 12-point lead in the 1995/96 Premiership race - and for "losing it" with Sir Alex Ferguson during a TV interview, although I've always though that clip showed him in his best, most passionate light.

But the club has meandered terribly since he left, and Kenny Dalglish, Ruud Gullit, Sir Bobby Robson, Graeme Souness, Glenn Roeder and Sam Allardyce have all failed not just to bring in the silverware, but also - equally important to Newcastle fans - to replicate the excitement of Keegan's reign.

The gap between the Premiership's so-called Big Four and the rest has widened during his time away, but he will enjoy the challenge, although he will have to strengthen that rather porous defence that leaked five goals to Man U last weekend.

Keegan? Defence? Well, maybe not.

The Diana non-story

Like most rational human beings, I gave up on the Princess Diana "story" a long time ago. Although my very first reaction when I heard about her death was to assume that the secret services had bumped her off, the idea of the Duke of Edinburgh as some sort of murderous eminence grise is simply not credible.

So I reckon Roy Greenslade's call for editors to stop reporting the increasingly tedious Diana Inquest is probably quite timely.

But it seems to me there is a slightly deeper issue here to do with the nature of modern journalism which I am surprised that Greenslade, as a media commentator, does not address more fully. It concerns what I would term "journalism without context."

Only this week, for instance, we have witnessed newspapers and broadcasters alike getting all excited over the second-hand "revelations" from the Princess's allies that she did not think Charles would become King, ignoring the fact that this ground was extensively covered by the Princess herself in her notorious 1995 Panorama interview.

Similarly, there has been much made in recent days of the infamous "Mishcon letter" in which the Princess aired the fear that her car would be tampered with in order to cause her to have an "accident." This too has been in the public domain for a number of years.

Maybe the press and broadcasting organisations think that the British public really does have the attention span of a gnat, and that after a certain amount of time has elapsed, any old rubbish can be presented as news on the basis that we'd all have forgotten about it first time round.

Maybe they are adopting a "year zero" approach to journalism, where everything that happened before a given date is simply ignored. I have known this to happen on papers, for instance when the editor changes, and unscrupulous news eds try to hoodwink the new guy by presenting an old story as freshly-minted.

Or maybe it's just that news organisations everywhere are still in thrall to the idea - almost certainly mistaken if the sales figures of the Daily Express are anything to go by - that Diana still sells papers.