In an an email dated July 24th the Chief Executive of the hospital said, "Dear James, Thank you for attending on Friday. I am pleased we were able to catch the photographer so that he could 'drop you into the photographs'." This was almost two months before the story broke. She even then sent him a copy of the doctored photo about two weeks before the news of it emerged.
Unsurprisingly, Purnell has said that these emails were received by his constituency office but he was not informed of them until September 24th by which time everyone was talking about it. Now, in fairness I think that it's plausible for the emails sent a week or so before the news appeared.
However, for me at least, that plausibility is not quite as strong on the matter of the email sent in July which is pretty explicit about what is going on. Although I admit I am judging the minister by my standards on reading email and I guess he might have people to read it for him. In which case he should fire whoever failed to spot a nightmare of a story.
4 comments:
Didn't the previous Culture Secretary (Mrs Sh*t for Brains) use the same "I can't be expected to read important documents" defence?
Funny this should be used as an excuse at the same time as MPs vote that their emails are so urgent that they need to check them in the Chamber.
http://adamboulton.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/10/a-perfect-oppor.html#comments
Errrrr, the ST article says "Both emails were sent to the Minister's parliamentary email address..."
As an MP I'd have thought he'd need to keep his eye on that account since that's where all his parliamentary mail would be sent.
It's the usual "Sh*t I've been rumbled; I need some other poor sod to cop the blame" defence this tosser and the rest of this obnoxious ilk always employ when they're caught bang to rights.
Expect another limpet-like performance before the inevitable.
Err......you are not suggesting he was lying?
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