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Vilified by police as an arrogant snob who'd called Downing Street officers 'f****** plebs and morons', Mitchell was forced out of Government They say a lie is halfway round the world before the truth has got its boots on. But when the lie is told by police the truth might never be known. Vilified by police as an arrogant snob who’d called Downing Street officers ‘f****** plebs and morons’, Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell was forced out of Government. Now it emerges that the email from Ruislip, Middlesex, condemning Mitchell — purporting to be from a member of the public who had witnessed his row with Downing Street officers — was actually sent by a policeman, Keith Wallis. Although he was nowhere near Downing Street on the night in question, Wallis’s accusations tallied with the official police log of the incident written by Toby Rowland — who, like Wallis, is a member of the Diplomatic Protection Group.  In other words, it now looks as if police conspired to lie about M

'Discrepancy': Paralympic dressage rider Lee Pearson, who won his tenth gold medal and received a CBE, was disappointed not to get a knighthood Olympic cycling hero Sir Bradley Wiggins says that he probably won’t use his new knighthood. ‘Except in a comedy way,’ he adds. Of course. How otherwise would he use ‘Sir’? Former London Mayor Ken Livingstone is even grander. He turned down a CBE, declaring: ‘I don’t believe politicians should get honours.’ Quite right, too. London 2012 opening ceremony mastermind Danny Boyle turned down a knighthood — as we might expect from a too-cool-for-school movie director. And Cherie Blair modestly accepted a CBE for her charity work when, for a woman of her well-known compassion, she was surely due to become a Dame. As a Republican, will she curtsey when she accepts her honour from the Queen? But the big story isn’t about Cherie or those turning down baubles. It’s the carping from Paralympians about Olympic medal-winners receiving more (o

David Cameron says he plans to fight the next general election and serve a full, five-year-term. Since we now we have fixed-term Parliaments, this means — if he wins — he would still be Prime Minister in 2020, the year of his 54th birthday. Coincidentally, the politician he models himself on, Tony Blair, was also PM for ten years, before retiring at 54. Leader: Cameron's approach is to emphasise that he has a job to do, not that he wants to reign for ever But Cameron will never be the equal of Blair, who led Labour to an overall majority in three Parliaments. So far, Cameron has led a Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition in one. It is unlikely that any premier will exceed Margaret Thatcher’s 11 years in office over three Parliaments, which ended in 1990 when she was forced out at the age of 65 by her own side. Blair might have surpassed her record if he hadn’t been bundled into multi-millionaire retirement in 2007 by Gordon Brown. For his part, Cameron’s approach is to e

Everyone in Britain talks constantly about the weather, observed an American visitor, who added: ‘But no one does anything about it.’ Good joke, but no one’s laughing. How can a smattering of snow cause the cancellation of hundreds of  flights and the temporary homelessness of thousands when, in countries with winters more harsh than  our own, aviation continues without difficulty? No one can explain it. Each year, we greet snow as if it was falling for the first time. Good lord, what is that cold, wet, slippery white stuff? Stranded: Fed-up passengers in the departures hall at Heathrow's Terminal 5 yesterday Ongoing delays: Heathrow claims poor visibility as well as snow-clearing on the two runways slows down arrivals and departures Sometimes, we blame forecasters for not warning us. At other times, snow-clearance equipment is blamed. Mostly it’s just hopeless excuses. As a nation we mulishly refuse to take seriously inconveniences to the travelling public. This year,

'A long-term option': Wealthy Tory MP Adam Afriyie is reportedly ready to stand against Cameron in the event of a backbench revolt forcing the PM to resign Japanese soldiers fought on in the Phlippine jungles three decades after the end of World War II. It wasn’t solely that they hadn’t heard of hostilities ending. Some were motivated by bushido — the 18th-century code governing samurai warriors that says: ‘Honour comes from death; disgrace from surrender.’ A absurd form of bushido is sometimes practised by MPs who fear losing their seats. Their credo is: ‘Honour comes from party chaos; disgrace from servile loyalty.’ Just when he must have thought he had settled his party, David Cameron is the subject of a ‘plot’ to oust him as Tory leader.  Wealthy Tory MP Adam Afriyie is reportedly ready to stand against Cameron in the event of a backbench revolt forcing the PM to resign. Afriyie insists he is loyal to Cameron, but when he was asked by a reporter if he was planning a

According to BBC lore, on April 18, 1930, a radio presenter announced: 'Good evening. Today is Good Friday. There is no news.' They then played piano music for a couple of minutes until normal scheduling resumed.Alas we don't live in this leisured way now. There is news 24/7. In our hyper-connected world, it happens and is reported simultaneously. This might be why the media is hyperventilating over plots against the Prime Minister, David Cameron. Because of a temporary shortage of interesting news. Cameron's position as Tory leader is certainly delicate. But is he really, really, in trouble? Surely not News involving issues is all very fine - some refined people prefer it - but what most of us want to read about is people. Especially famous, powerful people in trouble. And Cameron's position as Tory leader is certainly delicate. But is he really, really, in trouble and about to be driven from office as leader before the 2015 election? Surely not. The party

Royal Bank of Scotland boss Stephen Hester’s £780,000 bonus is surely an insult to all of us. We own 81 per cent of the shares, and had to pay a £390 million fine for the bank’s global interest-rate rigging. A justification I heard yesterday was that Hester hadn’t had enough bonuses. ‘Stephen has had only one bonus out of four years, which we think is already quite a severe level of clawback through a different route,’ explained RBS chairman Sir Philip Hampton to the Sunday Times. Not enough bonuses: Royal Bank of Scotland boss Stephen Hester will pocket a bonus of almost £800,000 Clawback is the term — American in origin — which describes a government, or firm, demanding the return of money which has been dished out wrongly. For instance, huge commissions and bonuses paid for deals which turned out to be duds, losing billions for investors. The way bankers think is this: they deserve their bonuses, and if they don’t get them, that’s a form of clawback. How about some real claw