The Labour government were, just four months ago, caught changing transcripts to say what they wanted them to say, rather than what was actually said. In that last case, Tony Blair’s words magically changed on two occasions: First he unadmitted a mistake, then he suddenly didn’t want to say his MPs supported him, so used some more magical speech Tipp-Ex.

This time, he seems to have passed a bottle of the enchanted correction fluid to his Foreign Secretary. More4 News have discovered that part of a Channel 4 News interview with Margaret Beckett has disappeared from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office transcipt. The offending piece, spoken and yet apparently not heard:

JON SNOW: Foreign Secretary, are you happy to discover that bombs and rockets and missiles are being sent through Prestwick Airport from the United States to Israel?

MARGARET BECKETT: No I’m not happy about it, not least because it appears that insofar as there are procedures for handling that kind of hazardous cargo - irrespective of what they are - it does appear that they were not followed. I’ve already let the United States know that this is an issue that appears to be seriously at fault, that we will be making a formal protest if it appears that that is what has happened. We’re still looking into the facts but I have already notified the United States that we are not happy about it.

Is it now official government policy to delete from the archives anything which, in retrospect, is a bit politcally awkward?

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I sent you this:

I’m not happy with all this bs spinning and never have been since NuLab came to power. The bunch of evil, mendacious, hypocritical etc…….

This is what appeared: I’m happy with all this spinning and have been since NuLab came to power.

» This comment was received at 07:53 on 30 July 06

Hey, if there was any spinning here, it’d probably in the opposite direction to that…

» This comment was received at 09:18 on 30 July 06

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