Powered by Blogger.

Vanessa Neumann: MPs' expenses "source" named?

Friday, May 29, 2009

Someone on Twitter asked me the other day about Arcati's dear friend William Cash: I hadn't written about him for some time, I was reminded, and what was the fellow up to. I haven't the foggiest: still writing about the rich, I guess - and comforting his MP dad Bill Cash and sister Laetitia after this morning's news in the Telegraph, I suppose. Fancy getting the taxpayer to bankroll his rent for Laetitia's flat when he owned another flat already in London. Oh well. I've heard worse.

It is William's wife Dr Vanessa Neumann - the Venezuelan intellectual and so-called "Cracker from Caracas" after her Mick Jagger fling - who interests me more, to be honest. She and William parted a while ago. Vanessa now writes a blog on her elegant website, click here. I see in her bio she makes no mention of William: we learn of her four degrees, the six languages she can speak or read. Among other things she's editor-at-large of something called Diplomat magazine. Here she is rubbishing Hugo Chavez.

Happily, we learn that the pair (Vanessa and William, that is) are still on speaks. On May 17, 2009, she quotes William's good advice about attending a society birthday party in London: "'You must be prepared; that’s the key to these things,' said my husband, who is highly perspicacious but rarely prepared for anything." Such are the perils of intimacy: familiarity. See Katie and Peter, too.

The May 23 posting - on my birthday - grips the eye: she appears to name the "source" in the MPs' expenses scandal: one Heather Brooke, an investigative journalist. But hold on, not quite. Later in the piece, we learn that Vanessa is still unsure of the identity of the whistleblower despite this claim in her opening par: "The identity of the source remains a mystery. No longer."

Then again, in her last par she comments of the Telegraph: "[They] have reinvented themselves as the clever kids on Fleet Street and are the real winners in the scandal - except for maybe Ms Brooke, whose journalism career will now be assured." I'm confused. We can agree Brooke started the litigation ball rolling on MPs' expenses transparency in 2005, but does that justify Vanessa's headline: "Anonymous No More: Meet the UK’s Deep Throat"? Click here and tell me what Vanessa's saying. I haven't a clue.

No comments:

Post a Comment