Mirror:Madeleine McCann case on verge of being formally reopened.

Panda wrote:

I read that it was Tony Blair who asked the U.K. Ambassador to Portugal , John Buck, to go to PDL to aid the McCanns. There was a rumour that Tony's
Daughter had been admitted to Castle Craig for alcohol abuse. Castle Craig is run by a Peter McCann who appears to be no relation to Gerry. Obviously
this is just a rumour and I am more inclined to believe the rumour that Gerry is a fundraiser for the Labour Party which would be how he knew the
Blairs and Browns.

Autumn wrote:

Panda wrote:

I read that it was Tony Blair who asked the U.K. Ambassador to Portugal , John Buck, to go to PDL to aid the McCanns. There was a rumour that Tony's
Daughter had been admitted to Castle Craig for alcohol abuse. Castle Craig is run by a Peter McCann who appears to be no relation to Gerry. Obviously
this is just a rumour and I am more inclined to believe the rumour that Gerry is a fundraiser for the Labour Party which would be how he knew the
Blairs and Browns.

Panda you have frequently said that Gerry was a fundraiser for the Labour Party and this is how he got to know the Blairs and Brown. Have you got anything to back this up?

Panda wrote:

Autumn wrote:

Panda wrote:

I read that it was Tony Blair who asked the U.K. Ambassador to Portugal , John Buck, to go to PDL to aid the McCanns. There was a rumour that Tony's
Daughter had been admitted to Castle Craig for alcohol abuse. Castle Craig is run by a Peter McCann who appears to be no relation to Gerry. Obviously
this is just a rumour and I am more inclined to believe the rumour that Gerry is a fundraiser for the Labour Party which would be how he knew the
Blairs and Browns.

Panda you have frequently said that Gerry was a fundraiser for the Labour Party and this is how he got to know the Blairs and Brown. Have you got anything to back this up?

Hi Autumn , it was on 3a's ages ago , sorry, I wouldn't know how to find the post, but if true, it explains his probably attending Political Rallies and
fund raising events. Gerry's boss at Glenfields, Doug Skehan is a Fundraiser and maybe there is a connection there. The McCanns certainly knew how to raise money very quickly and set up a Company in 12 days which suggests he was very clued up on how to raise money.

Autumn wrote:

Panda wrote:

Autumn wrote:

Panda wrote:

I read that it was Tony Blair who asked the U.K. Ambassador to Portugal , John Buck, to go to PDL to aid the McCanns. There was a rumour that Tony's
Daughter had been admitted to Castle Craig for alcohol abuse. Castle Craig is run by a Peter McCann who appears to be no relation to Gerry. Obviously
this is just a rumour and I am more inclined to believe the rumour that Gerry is a fundraiser for the Labour Party which would be how he knew the
Blairs and Browns.

Panda you have frequently said that Gerry was a fundraiser for the Labour Party and this is how he got to know the Blairs and Brown. Have you got anything to back this up?

Hi Autumn , it was on 3a's ages ago , sorry, I wouldn't know how to find the post, but if true, it explains his probably attending Political Rallies and
fund raising events. Gerry's boss at Glenfields, Doug Skehan is a Fundraiser and maybe there is a connection there. The McCanns certainly knew how to raise money very quickly and set up a Company in 12 days which suggests he was very clued up on how to raise money.

Hi Panda, if Gerry was a fundraiser for the Labour Party I would expect there to be some info about this somewhere. I am not inclined to believe 'a rumour' without hard evidence to support it.

The End Is Nigh wrote:It still beats me how, at that very early stage, Healy & McCann not only foresaw the possible need for a Fund, but prioritised it - even over expending their own shoe leather in support of all those concerned for Madeleine's whereabouts.

The End Is Nigh wrote:Quite. I can find no counter-argument to what we have been discussing, but I do wonder how those who do believe the abduction propaganda account for the beginnings of the Fund.

Panda wrote:

I read that it was Tony Blair who asked the U.K. Ambassador to Portugal , John Buck, to go to PDL to aid the McCanns. There was a rumour that Tony's
Daughter had been admitted to Castle Craig for alcohol abuse. Castle Craig is run by a Peter McCann who appears to be no relation to Gerry. Obviously
this is just a rumour and I am more inclined to believe the rumour that Gerry is a fundraiser for the Labour Party which would be how he knew the
Blairs and Browns.

The End Is Nigh wrote:Quite. I can find no counter-argument to what we have been discussing, but I do wonder how those who do believe the abduction propaganda account for the beginnings of the Fund.

interested wrote:

The End Is Nigh wrote:Quite. I can find no counter-argument to what we have been discussing, but I do wonder how those who do believe the abduction propaganda account for the beginnings of the Fund.

I wonder how those who believe the abduction propaganda account for the fact that the parents of a "missing" child would require money for legal expenses.

cherry1 wrote:Bobsy sounds like you had a lucky escape then! I dont know anyone who would want to meet
Blair or Brown (unless you are a salesman for Pampers perhaps!)

Bobsy wrote:

Panda wrote:

I read that it was Tony Blair who asked the U.K. Ambassador to Portugal , John Buck, to go to PDL to aid the McCanns. There was a rumour that Tony's
Daughter had been admitted to Castle Craig for alcohol abuse. Castle Craig is run by a Peter McCann who appears to be no relation to Gerry. Obviously
this is just a rumour and I am more inclined to believe the rumour that Gerry is a fundraiser for the Labour Party which would be how he knew the
Blairs and Browns.

It doesn't follow that if you are a fund raiser for the Labour party, or any other party for that matter, that you get to meet the PMor his C of the E, I didn't

cherry1 wrote:kathybelle - The McCanns must either know something, or are involved with something that the British Government don't want to get out, for them to be treated in the special way they have been treated for the past 5yrs. What the McCanns admitted to, (and I'm not saying they were speaking the truth) was enough to sling them in jail, yet Gordon Brown moved heaven and high water, to make sure they didn't face justice.


I think this is the crux of the whole affair and it has to be something big - Amaral has said the government interfered, we have heard that financial records and medical records were not forthcoming, I believe the original diplomats who were out there who felt that the Mccanns may have been involved, were replaced with new people.

MaryB wrote:It's becoming clearer by the day which way this is going. That is the outcome of the review will be a recommendation to follow up leads of would be abductors and other suspicious people who might have been in PDL at that time. And then it will be up to the Portuguese authorities whether or not to re-open the case. Kate McCann is being invited to Downing Street. If they were going to be in any way blamed or implicated in this review this just wouldn't happen. That is my opinion.

http://www.zimbio.com/Gerry+McCann's+Blog/articles/0MGFNT9D9tM/Those+first+few+days+Especially+those+photos

Those first few days – Especially those photos
By Marosiala on June 11, 2011 | From slippingthroughmyfingers.com

T

here is much speculation about how the McCann family orchestrated the media, issued the photographs of Madeleine and started the ball rolling. Well let us have a look back at those first few days.
From the initial outset we know that Mark Warner were involved. As soon as Madeleine disappeared Mark Warner sprung into action. They had their crisis team deployed to Praia da Luz as soon as 5th May 2007.

We know included in that team were Alan Pike and Martin Alderton who counselled Kate and Gerry McCann along with their friends. Further reading about the CCP team can be read in a post on this site called Going for a Jog.

Alex Woolfall, who led that team from Bell Pottinger speaks to the Times in an article dated October 6th 2007. He clearly explains when they were called in and about them arriving in Praia da Luz. He also tells the Times whether he thinks they could be involved in what happened to their daughter, he says:

“That they could be involved and in any way be guilty - to me they would have to win every Golden Globe and every Oscar ever awarded,” he told The Times.

Well that to me means that Alex Woolfall who spent a considerable amount of time with Kate and Gerry McCann clearly states that in his opinion after witnessing their reactions, they're NOT involved in what happened to their daughter.

He then speaks of the behaviour of Kate and Gerry McCann as says:

They were behaving exactly as I thought someone in that situation would be. Mr They had not slept. They were trying to work out what to do that might help generate images of her. They were desperately keen to publicise her face.

Of course they were keen to publicise Madeleine's face, that is only natural, how could people search for a missing child if they didn't know what she looked like?

The next part is the part I find most interesting and that is the release of those first photos to the media. Many out there in cyberworld on forums and blogs, think the McCanns orchestrated the release of the photos and can't understand why they released the photos in such an order.

If you read the Times article it is simple, Alex Woolfall from Bell Pottinger created a portfolio of pictures from the McCanns' camera and passed it on to the Press Agency. We all know that the Press Agency then would release the pictures in what particular order they chose. Once that portfolio landed on the Press Agency news desk, the order in which those photos would be released was out of the hands of Alex Woolfall and definitely not in the hands of the McCann family.

The McCanns had photographs of Madeleine on their digital camera, which Mr Woolfall began transferring to a laptop computer. “I said to Kate, ‘Let’s try to identify pictures where her face is visible’. Downloading the images was a very difficult process for them. It was upsetting.

“They were trying to do two things at once: one, emotionally deal with what was actually, really happening to them; two, operate in some sort of logical way to help get her back.”

Mr Woolfall transmitted the photographs to the Press Association in London, from where they were distributed to the media. The portfolio included the now famous image of Madeleine wearing a hat on a tennis court.

As the famous tennis court picture was included it is, in my opinion, safe to say that the last photograph of Madeleine around the pool with her father and sister would have been on that camera and probably was included in that Portfolio. So how can it be faked, if it was downloaded from the same camera as the Tennis photo by Alex Woolfall?

Gerry McCann himself tells people exactly how the Media came into play, who was orchestrating things in those first days. When Gerry speaks at the Edinburgh Festival he tells of how Mark Warner and the Foreign Office played a crucial part in those first few days.



BBC INTERVIEWER From the outside it appears that you have been running, candidly, crudely, a very professional campaign with a lot of very experienced public relations professionals and so on. I mean, clearly that is accidental but how did that come about?

GERRY MCCANN Well its not at all, you know, we just happen to be a fairly ordinary family some of whom were quite good at, er, speaking on television. Of course, we had advice at the beginning from the PR people brought in by Mark Warner, Alex Woolfall, who gave us some excellent advice, you know. “What are your objectives, and how’s it going to help your search for Madeleine?” And then due to the massive media demand on us, not the other way round, not us asking for media, er, we were advised that we should have a family spokesperson and we asked the Foreign Office to provide that and they did support us and that was very, very important to protect us from the media in what has been incredibly difficult emotional circumstances. And then we, of course, did decide that we needed someone to help advise us, er, longer term for our campaign. And, er, with Madeleine’s fund we decided to appoint a campaign manager and I have to say we appointed somebody to plan our strategy sort of medium and long term if it was needed but actually her job has been full-time handling the media. (Video and Transcript courtesy of Headlines Blog)

Alex Woolfall explains to the readers of the Times, that what you saw on TV was not what it was like behind the scenes. The McCanns were not as controlled as the viewers were seeing on the various media clips.

Mr Woolfall was surprised by the reaction of British viewers to the couple’s demeanour. “I was struck at the perception of people who had watched Kate and Gerry: that they were very controlled and perhaps were not responding in a way people thought would be more natural. They were not at all controlled. When I was with them, they were between being completely distraught and trying to do what they felt was the right thing.”

I would like to conclude this post with a sentence from that Times Article which I think over the last four years has been proved very apt.

Armchair detectives have leapt to wild conclusions based on the few alleged details of the case to have emerged.

They surely have, armchair detectives who believe the thoughts and opinions of a convicted ex-detective, who was removed from the case; along with people who have never met the McCanns, their family or their friends, but are prepared to give assessments as to their guilt or not based on a few media clips.

The statements from people who would know first-hand if the grief shown by the McCanns, their friends and family was genuine or not, or if they were acting suspiciously or not, is brushed aside and classed as irrelevant, or put down to the "they are in on it" syndrome

Oldartform wrote:I always thought GM`s strong links with the labour party were, not because he was a fund raiser, but because his father, Jack McCann, was the high profile MP and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury - he died when G was young.

AnnaEsse wrote:

Oldartform wrote:I always thought GM`s strong links with the labour party were, not because he was a fund raiser, but because his father, Jack McCann, was the high profile MP and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury - he died when G was young.

That wasn't Gerry's father.

Oldartform wrote:

AnnaEsse wrote:

Oldartform wrote:I always thought GM`s strong links with the labour party were, not because he was a fund raiser, but because his father, Jack McCann, was the high profile MP and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury - he died when G was young.

That wasn't Gerry's father.

Thanks AnnaEsse - that gives me more hope.

EILEEN McCANN (nee Ferry) (69) Year 2007
Gerry's mother, Eileen, is originally from Crolly, near Burtonport in Donegal. She married the late John McCann from St Johnston. The family left Donegal in 1967 and settled in Glasgow although Eileen McCann still owns Peoples' Bar in tiny St Johnston, close to the border with Co Londonderry.

AnnaEsse wrote:

Oldartform wrote:I always thought GM`s strong links with the labour party were, not because he was a fund raiser, but because his father, Jack McCann, was the high profile MP and Lord Commissioner of the Treasury - he died when G was young.

That wasn't Gerry's father.