When back in November 2006 The Sun ran the “Brown’s baby has cystic fibrosis“ story sympathetically, Guido believed it had been planted by Gordon’s spinners. Why? Because they knew that on the very same day the Charity Commission would announce it was investigating the Smith Institute to discover if Brown’s tame think-tank/slush fund had broken the law in hiring Ed Balls and furthering Brown’s political objectives. This was a neuralgic problem for them (since confirmed in pollster Deborah Mattinson’s memoir and those recently leaked Balls memos).  At the time News International was in bed with New Labour and The Sun was forthright in backing Tony and Gordon.

George Pascoe-Watson had the byline on the Sun’s story. Guido has spoken to friends of GPW, he put it to them that far from being hacked, the story was planted to generate sympathetic coverage for Brown. The reply that came back was that it was nothing as exciting as hacking or spin from Damian McBride, it came from “a visitor” to the hospital. It has gone unremarked that the original story also includes what seems to be a birth card given out by the Brown’s themselves. The source is unlikely to be a hacker, more likely it is someone known to the Browns themselves.

UPDATE: You read it here first:

http://twitter.com/#!/tombradby/status/90738919527825408