Madeleine McCann And McGuckin: Max Clifford, Robert Murat And Portugal Is No Spain
MADDIE WATCH – Anorak’s at-a-glance guide to press coverage of Madeleine McCann, with special guests the McGuckins.
British media massed in Portugal for the one-year anniversary of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are filling in the blanks by watching the telly. Eamon and Antoinette McGuckin flicker into life. Now read on…
THE GUARDIAN: “Holiday couple insist they were not drunk”
Friends in their village in County Derry, Northern Ireland, said the McGuckins had been the victims of “media paranoia” generated by the first anniversary of Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.
You can never be too careful. There could have been three more Maddies.
Their children – aged one, two and six – were temporarily taken from them last weekend by the Portuguese authorities. The McGuckins said they were saddened and traumatised by the furore.
Portugal – bring the kids and get away from the kids.
DAILY MIRROR: Watching the parents. And what do we know about them?
“The couple live in a £450,000 house in Maghera, Northern Ireland.” Such are the facts.
DAILY MAIL: “’We were ill, not drunk’, claim Portugal holiday couple who had children seized”
Last night, a statement released by the McGuckins failed to state how much or what had been drunk, only that it was not “an excessive amount”.
Semantics. Well, Mr McGuckin is a “former bank manager”.
The incident has caused outrage in Portugal, where the year-long investigation into Madeleine McCann’s disappearance has already raised questions over standards of British parenting.
Let’s bomb Portugal, or at least give our young offenders a free holiday there.
BELFAST TELEGRAPH: “Did Derry duo pay for McCanns’ mistake?”
Lindy McDowell plays tabloid bingo and wonders…
And here we come to the crux of the matter. Two words — Madeleine McCann.
Was she there?
Coming as it did in the same weekend that marked the first anniversary of the little girl’s disappearance, the story was always going to make front page news.
And the opinion pages, it would always make the opinion pages, Lindy.
And fitting as it does the current Portuguese perception that parents from the UK are neglectful and selfish, the McGuckins were not going to win much sympathy from the authorities.
Me, I’d just like to hear their side of the story. I can’t help feeling that if this couple had chosen, say, a resort in Spain, we would never have heard a word about it all.
Yeah, you can pissed out of your head in Spain, allegedly, and the Spanish just step over you. Those are people you can trust.
Which brings us back to the question about the furore this week — was it really about the family from Upperlands? Or Madeleine McCann?
Well, we’d say it was about the McGuckins. But most things are about Madeleine McCann so it’s more likely about her and those “sardine mumching” Portuguese scum.
THE SCOTSMAN: “Holiday parents deny being too drunk to look after children”
The incident happened just 45 miles from Praia da Luz, where Madeleine McCann went missing from her family’s holiday apartment just over a year ago while her parents dined nearby.
Maybe they were drinking to forget?
IRISH INDEPENDENT: “Holiday parents insist: ‘We did not drink excessively’”
In a lengthy statement, released through friend and SDLP councillor Kate Lagan, the couple said that on Friday night last – the night it was alleged they were drinking during happy hour at a local bar — they left their apartment in an Algarve holiday resort at 7pm and went to a play park with their children for a half an hour.
The McGuckins have friends in politics. And a media handler. It’s the in thing.
MIDULSTER TODAY: “Max Clifford ‘more than happy to meet with McGuckins’”
PR guru Max Clifford, the man who represents Robert Murat?
He says that he’s happy to meet with the McGuckins. “It’s a good story and it’s important that they get their side of it out there,” he says.
Madeleine McCann: A child of our time
Posted: 8th, May 2008 | In: Broadsheets, Madeleine McCann, Tabloids Comments (669) | TrackBack | Permalink
