Chapter 187: Chapter 187 Death of Weapons Expert
It has to be said that the news brought by Chris completely disrupted Barron's rhythm.
Barron was not prepared to let the Viscountess get pregnant. After all, this would really make the relationship a little messy...
But just like he said, this kind of thing may be concealed for a while, but it is destined to be difficult to conceal for too long.
If Chris insists on giving birth to this child... then she really needs to think carefully about how to tell Bonnie about this.
Fortunately, Bonnie was still producing the first season of "Love Island" in Spain at this time, so Barron still had time to prepare.
…
Just when Barron was in trouble with Chris's pregnancy, something happened that also caused trouble for the current Prime Minister.
On July 18, a male body was found in a grove in Oxfordshire. The body was confirmed to be David Kelly, a weapons expert from the British Ministry of Defense.
The grove where the body was found was only five miles away from David Kelly's home.
The final autopsy showed that this weapons expert from the Ministry of Defense died of suicide. Well, it was not the kind of suicide where he was shot eight times in the back, but he did commit suicide by cutting his wrists...
It was also because of his suicide that the BBC and the British Prime Minister were widely condemned.
The reason is that David Kelly had previously had contact with BBC reporters.
As a weapons expert for the British Ministry of Defense, David Kelly once participated in weapons inspections in Iraq.
As early as February this year, Kelly talked to BBC reporter Andrew about the upcoming war to overthrow Saddam.
On May 22, the two met again in a hotel in London. They talked about the war that had just ended and the situation related to Saddam's weapons.
Then on May 29, BBC reporter Andrew said in a Channel 4 report that a "senior intelligence official" told him that the intelligence about the war to overthrow Saddam was fabricated.
And in an interview with BBC reporter Andrew in The Independent in June, he also said that Prime Minister Brown's press director Campbell should be held responsible for the false intelligence that Saddam could launch weapons of mass destruction within 45 minutes.
Both the Prime Minister's Office and Campbell later denied the claim and demanded an apology from the BBC.
This incident continued to ferment with the participation of many media. In addition, as of now, the Saddam regime has long since fallen, and Britain and the United States have still not found the so-called "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq, which has once again aroused anti-war sentiment in Britain.
It was not until July 9 that Defense Secretary Hoon wrote to the BBC chairman demanding to know who leaked the intelligence to the BBC reporter. Later, someone claimed that Kelly was the one who leaked the information to the BBC.
On July 15, Kelly claimed that he was not the one who disclosed the key facts to BBC.
On July 16, when Brown was visiting the United States and was asked about the incident in an interview, he claimed that the British Parliament and the BBC should reveal the person who leaked the information.
So on July 17, Kelly committed suicide, presumably because he was overwhelmed.
According to the Sunday Times published on July 20, the newspaper had interviewed Kelly before his suicide and obtained several emails from him before his death.
Kelly once told reporters that after he was forced to be involved in the scandal of counterfeiting banned weapons in Iran, he felt like he was "put in a meat grinder" and was under unbearable pressure every day.
On May 29 this year, BBC reporter Andrew reported that a "senior intelligence official" of the British government once told him that the intelligence on the Iraq War was "fabricated" by the government.
This incident immediately triggered a fierce dispute between the British government and the BBC over whether Iraqi intelligence was exaggerated.
Not long after, the Ministry of Defense suddenly pointed out that the senior government official who provided the source to the BBC was David Kelly, an weapons expert who had participated in the weapons inspection of Iraq.
So Kelly suddenly became the central figure of the whole incident.
On July 15, he was forced to answer questions in the House of Commons, but he firmly denied that he had provided information to the BBC.
In the email, Kelly said he had thought the Department of Defense would take the blame for him, but what he got instead was a notification from the Department of Defense that his identity would be made public.
He expressed "great shock" at this because he had always thought it would be a "secret that would not be made public."
After British Defense Secretary Hoon revealed Kelly's identity, his name immediately appeared in newspapers and magazines across the UK, making him feel the pain of "betrayal and disappointment."
Kelly also expressed his desire to leave the "stifling environment" in England in an email.
Obviously, this time, in addition to the BBC's report being criticized for being slightly inaccurate - the BBC confirmed on the 20th that David Kelly was the "main source" of information providing them with information about the British government's tampering with Iraqi intelligence, while before that, both the BBC and Kelly himself had denied it.
The other most questioned parties are the British government and the Prime Minister at that time.
When Kelly committed suicide, Prime Minister Brown was leaving the United States and flying to Japan to start his Asian tour.
He was very anxious when he suddenly learned the news of Kelly's death on the special plane.
The prime minister's spokesman said the prime minister was deeply saddened by Kelly's death and hoped that the British media would exercise restraint.
Although the prime minister has appeared calm in public about Kelly's suicide, there is no doubt that he is facing enormous pressure from the domestic opposition and British society as a whole.
At present, British public opinion almost unanimously believes that Kelly is the scapegoat of the Brown government.
Glenda Jackson, a Labour MP, even said that Blue, Campbell and Hoon should all resign because if Blue continues to serve, the British government may face greater embarrassment as the investigation gets closer to the truth.
However, Barron knows that although this incident is a big blow to the current Labor government, it is impossible to drive it out of office.
Even when he discussed this with Cameron, Cameron himself was relatively sober and believed that this time it would at most hit the Labour Party's support rate.
This is indeed the case. According to the latest opinion poll results released by The Guardian on the 22nd, only 39% of British people still trust Brown, a drop of 12 percentage points from a month ago.
Blair's personal evaluation dropped to minus 17 points - at the beginning of the Iraq War ending with the victory of the US-UK coalition forces, Blair's score once rose to positive 7 points.
Meanwhile, the ruling Labour Party currently has a public approval rating of just 36%, just two percentage points ahead of the opposition Conservative Party, which had a 12-point lead two months ago. The Conservative Party's approval rating is 34%.
Although analysts pointed out that Kelly's death was the most serious crisis the Brown government had encountered in its six years in power and the government's credibility suffered a serious blow.
But even now, Labour's support rate is still higher than that of the Conservative Party, and it is far from the time to oust it.
For this reason, in this whirlpool of public opinion, although the media controlled by Barron also had many related reports, they were still very cautious in their wording.
They did not become the "vanguard" against Browning's policies as clearly as they did before the Iraq War.
Since it is impossible to defeat the opponent by this, it is better to gain some benefits for yourself.
For example, when the Prime Minister ended his visit to Japan and South Korea and arrived in China, his team included Rob Pike, CEO of Cavendish Hotel Group, and Nathan Ellington, CEO of Argos.
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