Off-target

Trying to knock us off? Well, we may be a bit ruffled now, but we remain undeterred - the recent attacks against us having merely inflamed our determination and reinforced our resolve.

Also, the consequent pause I had to take from blogging over the past month gave me more time to ponder past events, so I would now like to recount how my first public disclosures about the Gaul RFI scandal were acted upon three years ago.

It was in the spring of 2006 when, after three and a half years of harassment, I decided that enough was enough and, taking advantage of the EU spring summit in Brussels (we were living there at the time) and having managed, on that day, to lose our regular ‘tail’, I sought out the press corps - gathered in the Belgian capital for the summit – and handed over leaflets containing a brief summary of the Gaul affair.

Soon afterwards, to extend the courtesy, I also approached a member of the British press who was familiar with the Gaul saga and who, I was told, had contacts with the largest of the Gaul protagonists: the right honourable John Prescott, Deputy Prime Minister at the time and MP for Hull East. During conversations with that journalist, when asked about the other beneficiaries of my disclosures, I mentioned the names of a few of those contacted, giving, however, an incomplete account of the total number of recipients. The astonishing reply that I got in return was: “But we did not count so many”.

Taken aback by such unexpected admission, I forgot to ask who we were or what that counting involved. It might have been interesting to know.

Nonetheless, shortly afterwards, I asked the same journalist – who claimed to know the Deputy Prime Minister quite well – to contact Mr Prescott and try to persuade him to come clean about the Gaul, so that we might resolve this disgraceful matter in a slightly more dignified fashion.

Yes, I know the whole idea was laughable, but, sometimes, like the cowslip whose pretty yellow flowers can spring up in ditches and bogs, so virtue and contrition might blossom even in the most unlikely of human forms.

Unfortunately, this time, nothing came out of it. Nothing good that is. Within days, however, the news broke about Mr Prescott’s affair with his diary secretary – a story that would entertain the British public for some time.

To be continued…