NO 'Inquiry'... NO 'Probe'
Have just spoken to the Department for Transport's press office - aviation desk.
They confirmed to me - as a journalist - that a low-level "investigation" is underway, but insisted it was not a big issue as far as they are concerned. The press officer even volunteered: "It is not the full inquiry with a big table and a board of people or anything like that...the papers love to use this word 'enquiry.' But we are looking into what happened."
I was also told that Alistair Darling, the UK's Transport Secretary, has "Asked to know what happened." The Mirror's assertion that he has launched a 'probe' or some other kind of 'search for the guilty' is exaggeration, it seems.
My reading of what I have been told is that the Mirror's story was brought to Mr Darling's attention, and then he instructed an aide to find out whether this was something he needed to be briefed on further. I suggest Mr Darling is not as stupid as Paul Keetch MP, and that there is no need to panic just yet.
I suggest a 'wait and see' strategy. Judging by the lack of any follow-up this morning in any version of the Mirror I have seen - yes, they do print different versions - it seems even its journalists have lost interest, at least for now.
Dantruck
Last edited by Dantruck; 3rd March 2003 at 09:08.