It came as a bit of a surprise to see former BBC reporter Clarence Mitchell popping up on camera out in Praia da Luz. Tony Hatfield has been digging around, and it transpires that Clarence – whose day job is heading up Whitehall’s Media Monitoring Unit – has been temporarily seconded to the Foreign Office to handle ‘media relations’ out there.
In my view, it’s entirely appropriate for the Foreign Office to offer consular assistance to the McCanns… and given the unparalleled media interest in their plight, it’s entirely appropriate for that consular assistance to include the services of someone with significant media experience himself. But I’m intrigued as to the extent of his role. Someone is clearly doing a spectacularly good publicity job for the McCanns – they’re still a ‘top story’ nearly a month after Madeleine’s disappearance. Is this Clarence? Normally you’d expect the ‘family liaison’ job to be about keeping the family away from the media…