Dr Martin Roberts: Pop Goes The Weasel

EXCLUSIVE to mccannfiles.com

By Dr Martin Roberts
29 April 2010


POP GOES THE WEASEL


Is the McCann bubble finally fit to burst? Given the McCanns' accusation of inertia on the part of police investigators in Portugal and the UK, the only recourse they, the McCanns have, it seems, is the further globalisation of 'brand Madeleine'. There is, after all, a limit to the number of stratagems any business can employ in order to increase its revenue: cut costs, raise prices or broaden the market base. The disingenuous 'pay peanuts, get monkeys' argument so often trotted out in defence of executive remuneration, most recently by the banking sector, rather mitigates against option (a) here, whilst raising the prices of T-shirts and wrist bands wouldn't go down too well on the PR front; hence plan (c) is favourite.

"We have targeted specific areas of the world to help further our search" announces the Director's personal assistant (it's quite an eye opener, by the way, to discover just how many PA's gain their exalted posts as a result of horizontal promotion). The minutes of this boardroom meeting however contain conspicuous contradictions.

"The court case in Portugal over the past ten months, which led to the injunction against Goncalo Amaral's book and DVD, has been a significant step forward.

"The damage caused in Portugal, by this book and 'documentary', to our efforts to find Madeleine may not have been apparent in the UK but we believe it has been highly detrimental."

Whilst libel is absolute, detriment, in this instance, is cumulative. Our Oscar didn't wait for a year and more before calling his adversary to account (although, with the benefit of hindsight, he might have wished he had). The McCanns were clearly advised that it would be best to allow some detriment to accrue before they did anything about the libel. No 'nipping it in the bud' for them.

For a period in history the Portuguese were the world's navigators, with more than a few colonies to show for their efforts eventually. That the rather far-flung former Portuguese territories will have been influenced by the opinions of Goncalo Amaral, encouraging or discouraging citizens to go out looking for Madeleine, is unlikely. Madeleine in East Africa or elsewhere vaguely tropical is something of a long shot anyway, given no evidence whatsoever that she was 'taken' from Praia da Luz even, never mind Portugal.

So what's with the targeting of areas around the world, when set against the overriding concern with public opinion in Portugal? Well, a yen's as good as a buck to a blind economist. What the McCanns want is not people's vigilance but their cash, to pay for the two-man search team already on the ground and, more importantly, the campaign directors' expenses. For people to donate to a good cause they have at least to be under the impression that it is a good cause, and Goncalo Amaral's critical book was simply bad PR, even in Portuguese. It would have been even worse PR had it made it into English, as it was on the verge of doing before the McCanns were granted their injunction.

"We don't think it is right that, as parents, we have to drive the search." says Gerry, but that being the case, then someone has to pay for it don't they.

For once I agree with Gerry. It is not right that the McCanns have to drive a search - any search. But they are doing so because the police forces of two nations have, so we are given to understand, previously decided that it is not right for them to drive the search either. Now what would have been the basis for those prior decisions, I wonder? Have the British too taken the view already adopted by the Portuguese, that the 'search' for Madeleine is futile, or are we to suppose that, like some position in a three-dimensional game of chess, the disappearance of a child from her bedroom is a puzzle of such complexity as to defeat the combined intellect of a handful of investigative agencies (with due allowance for the fact that certain of these agencies were disposed to making more of a contribution than others)?

What the world's police forces clearly need in order to maximise their effectiveness is an under-employed G.P. or two:

"Mrs McCann, a GP who gave up work to concentrate on the search for Madeleine, said: 'We do this in medicine. You know, if there is a case that you don't seem to be getting the diagnosis, somebody will come in and review it. They'll go back to square one... and that's where you find out what else needs to be done and it will help point you in the right direction.'

Unfortunately, those 'not getting the diagnosis' in this instance appear to have been the on-looking orderlies. The patient certainly knew what had befallen her and the diagnosticians were in agreement. Doctors, it seems, have a problem being consistent within themselves in any case.

She (Kate McCann) said: "I wasn't expecting it because all I could see was our daughter has been taken and she is being subjected to something terrifying."

As they say on findmadeleine.com: "There is absolutely nothing to suggest that Madeleine has been harmed" (only 'being subjected to something terrifying,' which, for a young child, is a notch more harmful than witnessing something terrifying as it befalls someone else).

But these doctors, at least, do share a degree of consistency. They consistently rely upon the media to disambiguate their various non-committal statements, and to employ constructions culled from the Madison Avenue school of English, to the extent that their two remaining young children are now being schooled in the very same evasive logic:

Gerry said: "They believe it was a man that took her. It was a naughty man and we need to try and find them. So part of what they say is that mummy is working to try and help find Madeleine."

Not 'to find', nor 'help find', but 'try and help find.' Hence any failure in the attempt is one remove at least from the task in question. Mummy is clearly capitalising on all the prior experience she has gained in 'helping to fight the symptoms of...'

Nor is there a logic quite so fuzzy as Gerry McCann's. The following remark, made recently to Lorraine Kelly and quoted in the Sun Newspaper, was not made in the context of any dialogue on the subject of abandonment or anything like:

"But I think probably, more than anything, I'd say if we could turn back the clock and change what happened then obviously we wouldn't have done it."

From this one can only infer that the McCanns themselves did whatever ‘happened.'

Concerning production of a pack for Brits travelling abroad, Gerry said: "It is very much about keeping her image out there. Who knows who will end up seeing her. But if you don't have an image of her out there it is less likely."

Well, it's no wonder that doctors repeatedly find themselves 'going back to square one' if this is any indication of their perspicacity. The likelihood of Madeleine McCann's being 'seen' by anyone at all is as much related to the distribution of her picture as it is to the time you or I might get up in the morning. 'Recognised', maybe. But that is not what Gerry says.

However, the 'weasel of the week' accolade belongs, on this occasion, to Kate McCann, and her response to Lorraine Kelly‘s inevitable question as to whether they really thought that Madeleine was still alive.

Kate said: "Certainly, in my heart, I feel she is out there.

"There is nothing to say she isn't. So we carry on working and thinking like that."

Rather than discuss, yet again, Gerry McCann's own juxtaposition of the phrases 'out there' and 'alive,' we might focus our attention on Kate's significant omission of the complement, 'alive', and remind ourselves of Kate's previous assertions, as recorded in the Sunday Mirror of 5 August, 2007:

"I never thought for one second that she'd walked out. I knew someone had been in the apartment because of the way it had been left.

"But I knew she wouldn't walk out anyway. There wasn't a shadow of a doubt in my mind she'd been taken."

There's no doubt whatsoever. Madeleine had been taken (away) and was therefore 'out there.' Three years on and the only certainty Kate McCann appears able to express is that, in her heart (not her mind any longer) she 'feels' Madeleine is 'out there.'

How in heaven's name can Kate McCann not be certain that her daughter is 'out there.' Having been exported from the holiday apartment, where else can she be? Of course she's 'out there.' What remains to be determined is whether she is 'out there alive.' So, unless or until it is established, beyond all reasonable doubt, that Madeleine McCann is not out there, the 'search for Madeleine' operation can continue, masterminded from a Head Office in a UK suburb somewhere (Knutsford, Cheshire by all accounts) where a two-man team can co-ordinate the international (nay global) campaign, when they're not quite so busy exploring, evaluating and pursuing their more recently acquired file full of 'leads;' something, of course, neither Portuguese nor British police forces are particularly interested in doing. Which is where we came in.

Half a pound of tuppenny rice...

Thanks Jill, that first one you posted was doing my eyesight in !!!!