Nikki Shales praising the press yesterday

Tony Williams’ verdict was a lot closer to the truth than Nikki Shale’s

East Somerset coroner, Tony Williams, ruled yesterday afternoon that David Cameron aide Christopher Shale’s death had been caused by heart disease. He had no drugs or drink in his system….that is, the toxicology report was negative. And it only took 14 weeks to find out.

Shale’s widow Nikki rejected media speculation that followed her husband’s death in June, including the hypothesis that he could have taken his own life. Most observers rejected that hypothesis within hours: they were far more interested in the Coroner having asked for a toxicology report.

She said: “It was always obvious to us, and confirmed very soon afterwards, that my husband, my darling husband, died of natural causes. It has been a cause of great regret to our children, to Chris’s family and all our friends that so much inaccurate speculation has appeared in the media with regard to the circumstances of his death. This has really not helped us at a very, very difficult time.”

So there you have it: it was all the media’s fault.

Bollocks. The main person to blame for both the toxicology check and the speculation is the Prime Minister, David Cameron: did he not live a life rather too close to the South American quickstep, nobody would’ve been remotely interested. (The other reason for the report was stratightforward: Shales was at a pop festival, and there are usually drugs at a pop festival. No, really – there are. Really).

‘Inaccurate speculation’ is one of those daft phrases people come out with when looking for a scapegoat or a distraction. Speculation, by definition, is indulged in because certainty is not available. Certainty was very much in doubt in this case, because the festival organiser said it was probably a suicide, and Mr Shales worked for a bloke who does drugs, while living alongside a fast set who also seem, as it were, to take drugs.

But Mrs Shales perhaps inadvertantly raises the main objection media observers have in this case: ‘It was always obvious to us, and confirmed very soon afterwards..’

Setting aside the fact that I’m not sure Nikki Shales has a degree in autopsy, the obvious question here is, “Then why wasn’t it confirmed to the rest of us?”

When I raised this point at Tooting Norton HQ twelve weeks ago, a snotty voice at the other end said, “Because it’s none of your business”. Wrong: you cannot live in the public eye and die in private. There was a large memorial service for Christopher Shales, attended by David Cameron who gave a very obviously sincere eulogy. I have no doubt his late aide deserved that. But by being who he was, he forfeited the right to a news blackout if, poor man, he was unfortunate enough to be found dead in a pop concert toilet.

I we must have a culprit, then the person to ‘blame’ for his death was Shales himself, who put on an enormous amount of weight as he got older….which only exacerbated a congenital heart condition. Personally, I don’t blame him at all: if you know that your life is likely to be brief, then make the most of it. Good for him. But ultimately, the Shales family caught the backwash of a Government Executive culture totally unable to do anything in a straightforward manner….and, for a long time, perilously close  to the sort of tabloid proprietor who would’ve relished the line, ‘Top Tory topped in toilet – had he tooted?’

We have the likes of Lord Fondlebum, Alistair Dumbbell, Kirsty McCommie and Andy Coolspun to thank for 24/7 dissembling. Shales himself was a part-time spin doctor to Camerlot: the last thing he wrote was about spinning the image of the Conservative Party. His death is tragic, but Nikki Shales is well out of order in blaming the media. I’m afraid that words like sword, live, die, heat, kitchen, devil and long spoon apply here.