Want to hear a joke about Madeleine McCann, the four-year-old British girl who vanished on holiday in Portugal?

Portuguese secrecy laws forbid police briefing the press. So instead of facts and official news we get speculation and watching the parents, Kate and Gerry McCann.

When the story first broke, we were invited to empathise. Their Madeleine became “our Maddie”. A family’s private grief was turned into public spectacle.

Star footballers were signed up, as were Hell’s Angels, MPs wearing yellow ribbons and ministers meeting deputations. It was as if the missing child were this year’s Make Poverty History campaign. And then the official Madeleine Wristband went on sale.

In the Houses of Parliament, MPs were revelling in mawkish sentimentality, wearing yellow ribbons with pride. They cared. And they wanted one and all to know it.

At the Vatican, we were the voyeurs at the biggest show in town. Pope meets McCanns. Or, to out it in order of newsworthiness, McCanns meet Pope. Read More »