Kelly Conspiracy Daily

But it has been a truly depressing August for anyone who cares about journalistic integrity. The Mail’s deranged campaign has dragged in all sorts of politicians and journalists who ought to know better.

Even for someone with as low an opinion of Michael Howard as me (since his 2005 election stunt of saying that Tony Blair lied in making the case for war, but that he would still have voted for it had it been phrased differently), it came as a shock to see him lending his name to the bananas brigade in the Mail on Sunday.

And to see the Daily Mirror put its reputation for combining populism with good sense in the bin on Tuesday (above) was a shame. As it was to see Paul Routledge, a once fine journalist on The Independent on Sunday, put his byline on such nonsense.

Even Agence France-Presse, the longest-established world news agency, has taken to writing of Kelly’s “apparent suicide”.

The most unexpected voice of reason last week was that of Peter McKay, in Monday’s Mail:

My problem with this conspiracy story is that Kelly had already voiced his doubts over Blair and Co ’sexing up’ the Iraq dossier to Andrew Milligan of Radio 4’s Today show.

He was in hiding from the furore this caused when he died. Why kill him after he had done his worst?

Roll on, September.

(Previous posts in this series here.)