Another Houdini stunt on war’s eve

AT 4.48pm yesterday, on the eve of the biggest news event of the year, the fax machines in newspaper offices across the country whirred into life.

With 250,000 troops massing on the borders of Iraq to fight a war which threatens to change the world order as we know it, it was as the infamous spin doctor Jo Moore inelegantly put it on September 11, 2001, a good day to bury bad news.

The paper that curled out of the fax machines stated baldly that former taoiseach Charles Haughey had settled his outstanding tax liabilities with the Revenue Commissioners.