The Cherie denials

Shortly after Gordon Brown's speech, up at Labour conference, I bumped into Charles Lewington, who had been Tory Director of Communications when I was John Major's Head of Research. We agreed that the Cherie incident reminded us powerfully of our experience in the Major years - ten minutes of good publicity after a speech, followed by a fiasco.

Downing Street's afternoon was then spent as so many of ours had been - furiously (and unsuccessfully) denying the fiasco had actually taken place.

Why weren't we believed when we did this? Because the fiasco-maker had been so rude about Major or his policies off the record, that no one believed their denials on the record. In fact, journalists were relieved to be able to report what they knew to be true but had previously been unable to put in the public domain.

What happened to Cherie yesterday? Same thing.

Last night, I was told of two separate and recent incidents in which she savaged Gordon Brown to journalists (both virtual strangers, not confidantes) and was protected by the fact that the reporters felt the conversations were not properly on the record.

As a result, most journalists both believed that the story was true and did not accept the denial, or didn't care whether it was true since it put in the public domain statements she has been making anyway.