You Read It Here First

Well, not entirely. Maybe not at all. But then you won't be reading this either, so... well...

A couple of quickies for you. We all like a nice quickie, don't we? I know I do. Oh yes...

Prince Harry. Sorry to do this to you, but I just wanted to point something out that seems to have been overlooked: no one in their right mind would pretend to imagine that they could brief the world news media on a story and then succeed in keeping it embargoed for months. This story was as bound to leak a the Sun (not the tabloid) is bound to run out of hydrogen. It was just a matter of time.

Consequently, while the British press congratulates itself and looks down its dirty nose at those terrible untrustworthy foreigners, we must assume that the Palace and the MoD and the Army all had a contingency plan worked out on the basis that the news WOULD come out. And then Harry WOULD come home. And it WOULD be more newsworthy that way. And very, very positive. Do you see?

I feel quite sorry for The Drudge. After all, they just picked up on what an Australian magazine did in early January. I wonder who was primed to get excited and spread the word once a more worthy source had gone public?

Meanwhile, you might recall I had a lot to say about the shambles that is the Department for Work and Pensions the other day. Would you know it, in the same week that the Gov. announces the advent of it's ludicrous 'kick the beggar' plans for welfare reform, the DWP is to have another 12,000 redundancies on top of the 30,000 previously announced. That would be 12,000 less people to do all the work HMG will need done on getting people off welfare. Presumably by ensuring that no-one is there to take your obligatory application phone call.

Unless, of course, they were thinking of farming the whole process out to, ohhh, I dunno, a 'financial services' based call-centre operation... i.e. a debt collection agency. Watch this space. Please. I want to have more 'I told you so' experiences.