Madeleine McCann: No Tears In The Faction So Far
NOT easy to get a pun in on Madeleine McCann. The papers need to look sensitive and so stick with straight-talking speculation. No puns. No confusion. Just factual opinion.
What we at Anorak call Faction.
And today the Sun’s Oliver Harvey – chief feature writer – produces “I’m thinking the unthinkable”.
“My misgivings began with the lack of emotion shown by the McCanns in those first few days after Madeleine went missing.
“No streaming tears, no trembling lips, no sobs of despair.
“Now that unease has become an awful gnawing doubt.”
Wot No Tears?
Harvey wants tears. Lindy Chamberlain (see Guardian’s dingo headline here) never gave the press much emotion.
Neither did Joanne Lees, whose lover, Peter Falconio, was killed in Australia. Bradley Murdoch was convicted of murder. Lees was wholly innocent. But Lees never cried. She never gave the media what they wanted.
Of course, the Mirror sees tears. It sees all. It sees Kate McCann back home, crying in Madeleine’s room. And the Express saw Kate’s tears on the flight home.
But Harvey sees only dry eyes. And in a woman who has lost a child he finds that odd.
Says Harvey: “It hurts me to say this, but I now fear something is amiss with Kate and Gerry’s story.”
But he says it. Bravely. He may have tears in his eyes as he does so.
Just like the Mail’s Amanda Platell might have wept a little (we did) as she wrote of Mrs McCann: “I haven’t seen such creepy control in a woman since Lindy Chamberlain cried ‘My God, the dingo’s got my baby’.”
Ms Platell might note that Chamberlain had her conviction for the murder of her child, Azaria, quashed. The dingo did it. Anything’s possible.
The Possibilities
Says Harvey: “So is it possible the McCanns could bury their own daughter in secret and concoct a huge fiction to fool the world?”
Possible? Of course. Most things are. Remember the dingo?
Harvey goes on: “And for every theory there is a counter-theory. But I have other nagging doubts.”
And because Harvey is a feature writer at the Sun he gets to share his nagging doubts with the world.
He notes: “And what about the lack of tears from the couple?
“The couple had been told by experts not to show emotion in case the person believed to have abducted their daughter was watching and getting a thrill from their behaviour.”
Hmm…
And what about him? Harvey says: “Gerry’s matter-of-fact blog — sometimes describing the weather and runs on the beach — also seemed odd.”
Odd indeed. It may even be odder than the Sun’s anti-peado Find Maddie campaign which saw its sister paper the News of the World stick a giant inflatable wanted poster of the child on a Portugal beach. Odder than the Sun’s drive for yellow ribbon and stories talking of paedos and kidnap.
But what does it mean?
Harvey considers: “The McCanns may be blameless, heartbroken parents.
But my doubts — thinking the unthinkable — persist.
I really hope I’m wrong. For the sake of my faith in human nature, I really hope I’m wrong.”
Fingers crossed…
Posted: 15th, September 2007 | In: Madeleine McCann, Tabloids Comments (648) | TrackBack | Permalink
