It's another fine and frosty morning and I know I should be wrestling with a frankly intimidating backlog of work piling up on my desk - but another few minutes shouldn't do any harm.

The recent flurry of press activity around Crimestoppers founder, Lord Michael Ashcroft and offshore donations to the Conservative Party, reminds me of Gerry's alleged call to Alistair Clark on the night of May 3rd 2007. Who is Alistair Clark? Well it's never been resolved satisfactorily in my view. He cuts quite an elusive figure, shooting almost randomly across party divides, and assuming the kind of ambiguity more commonly associated with ghosts. Some would have us believe that he is a senior British diplomat ‘close to Gordon Brown’, but if the details supplied by Portuguese newspaper, the Correio da Manhã are anything to go by Alistair Clark is a Lecturer in Political Science & Research Methods at Queens University Belfast, whom Gerry met during his days at Glasgow University. Whether he did though, is not entirely clear (Belfast is also Dave Edgar's old stomping ground).

Clark completed his PhD at Aberdeen University, but whether he ever attended the University of Glasgow is another matter, as I cannot find anything as yet to either corroborate the claim or disprove it. What I do know is that Clark and Dr Colin Copus of Inlogov (a passionate English Nationalist if ever there was one) have acted in an advisory capacity to the Electoral Commission and are experts in electoral systems and voting behaviour, having already contributed some fascinating reports on the role played by fringe parties like the BNP, the Scottish National Party (no longer a fringe party as of 2007) and the UKIP. And I have a sneaking idea that this is where the greater weight of their respective sympathies lie. Clark is not a diplomat and as far as I can tell he has provided little or no assistance to Gordon Brown. And I can't say with any real assurance that any such call to Clark was ever made. But it is interesting he should be mentioned.

In their book, ‘More Similar Than They’d Like to Admit?’ the pair explain how the extreme and radical demands the fringe parties place on the political system play a vital role in setting the boundaries of debate – a claim that was more than adequately propped-up by the well coordinated grilling received by Nick Griffin on Question Time last year – which provided a terrific illustration of all this. Culture has tried to address the issue before: the ‘demonized other’ – not only one way of legitimising often extreme and radical thought or behaviour, but a way of slipping it into the social contract too; a way of packing all those pent up populist frustrations and having them mailed to someone else’s address. In this way, you might be able to accept fringe parties like the BNP as ancillary arms of the dominant parties: fall guys for want of a better word. They do the grubby, seedy work that the common courtesies of tradition preclude the mainstream parties of doing. Just watch that grilling of Nick Griffin again if you don’t believe me. It’s fascinating to watch. In complete contrast to their rather theatrical protestations they are all fundamentally agreeing with the not unduly baffled BNP leader. It’s like some political neurosis; they’re all externalising this shit onto Griffin – using him as device to make their own point. Rather like Arabs packing Madeleine into a taxi.

But I digress. It struck me that whilst Lord Ashcroft is the Chairman of Crimestoppers, Nick Ross is on the board of trustees at Crimestoppers too – and he, like, Alistair Clark, attended Queens University Belfast and still enjoys active contact with it (Ross and his wife, Sarah Caplan hosted Blair's 2001 Election Night Party - which Mitchell pal, Howell James also attended). Nick enrolled on the same course as Irish Activist (and Republican) Bernadette Devlin in 1968 and together they formed the People's Democracy and led  the student civil rights movement at Queens in 1968 and 1969 (Ross says he doesn't understand Devlin's subsequent travels into paramilitary politics, but then Devlin would probably never understand Ross's appearence in Are You Being Served?)

Now we all know that Crimestoppers played an active part in the Find Madeleine campaign but we might have forgotten that Jeremy Wilkins and his wife, Bridget O Donnell were also ex-Crimewatch producers - a show that was hosted, as you will recall, by Nick Ross (until his shock departure in June 2007).  Bridget and her husband Jeremy specialised in Crimewatch reconstructions but she was also responsible for producing the 'Making It Happen' initiative for Greg Dyke and the BBC Board of Govenors (including Sarah Hogg and Qinetiq's Baroness Neville-Jones - now a Conservative Shadow minister).

Irish lady, Bridget O Donnell also left TV Production in 2007. She is currently working on a book about a London Police Inspector who exposed British Sex Trafficking in the 1880s. She also writes for The Guardian, The Mail and Quintiessentially Magazine, a travel and feelgood club for New Romantics, Nouveau Yuppies, Sloane Rangers and those with heroically relaxed parenting skills. Editors include Annabel Heseltine - daughter of Conservative Politician Michael Heseltine:

"Quintessentially is first and foremost a club, a club for those who believe that life is too short to waste time on the mundane or second-best. Members are given a membership card which brings with it a huge variety of benefits, many of which are worth a great deal of money. "

The magazine was co-founded by spectacular voyeurism and Lads' Mags guru James Brown (Loaded, GQ, Bizarre, Fortean Times) and is loosely affiliated with the similarly Sloanish Mr & Mrs Smith - the travel guide Emma Loach occasionally writes for.

And when I think of Halligen and all this talk of laundering, of small companies being set up and small companies being dissolved, or of charities being used to funnel money from foreign donators - of crony related defence and security contracts being exchanged, of phoney private investigation contracts being exchanged – and of all that electoral trickery besides – I begin to wonder what all this might mean – and who really stands to benefit from any of this.

This is how I see it: a possible autumn election looms in 2007 – and the Madeleine campaign is in full swing. The autumn election gets called off – and the case is shelved. The election talk is revived in 2010 and suddenly the McCanns spring back into life, with the prospect of the case being reopened looking possible.

There seems to be some discreet relationship between the Find Madeleine Campaign and political manoeuvring of sorts.

The other night I had a dream in which Kate, Gerry and Madeleine had been packed into a small wooden horse and smuggled into No. 10 Downing Street by team of shifty looking arabs - one of whom looked liked Clarence Mitchell (in a fez). Everything was okay for awhile. Gordon Brown and his lovely wife Sarah were smiling. They assumed it was a gift from Tony Blair celebrating Gordon's new premiership. A handing over of power. Sarah said it was a symbol of Gordon's triumph - but at night, when all the party guests had gone home and pair had finally retired to bed out jumped Gerry and Kate with 50lbs of explosives packed beneath their coats and the whole place went bang.

Combing through the wreckage, however, Police found only the charred remains of David Cameron and his wife Samantha. No one knows what became of Gordon.

I'm not sure what happened to Madeleine.

One person told me she was sitting on a beach in Belize. And one person told me she'd been caught up in the explosion. Collateral damage either way.