There was a very curious story that emerged over the weekend concerning our Prime Minister
A story written by veteran political reporter Simon Walters appeared on page five of The Times' early print editions ( And subsequently The MailOnline) , which claimed that the Prime Minister tried to hire his then mistress Carrie Symonds to a £100,000-a-year role as chief of staff when he was Foreign Secretary.
The story built on claims that first surfaced in Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft's biography of the Prime Minister's now wife - but corroborated these with three other sources. Dominic Cummings has also said it happened
And then the story was deleted from all publications which led to "Carriegate " trending on Twitter as speculation about the disappearance grew
The Times denied to that any discussions over between the Prime Minister and the paper's editor Tony Gallagher took place regarding the matter. but a ."Number 10 source confirmed that members of the Prime Minister's team spoke to the paper directly about the story after its initial publication.
Both papers are great supporters of the Conservative Party and to date no clear explanation of why the story disappeared
It does call into question whether our press really is as free as we like to believe. It also casts yet more doubts about the ethics of our Prime Minister