certified Guardian moment.
I did some further detective work too, that isn't particularly shocking - it's just how journalism works, but if you've never given it thought before, this might interest you:
click here for detective work
The 'publication' they source, until about an hour ago, didn't lead anywhere. They report it's contents, but don't link to where it can be accessed. My first thought was that it was some very shoddy journalism. I went searching and found nothing initially. I tried again later and found it:
https://policyexchange.org.uk/publication/closing-the-back-door/
I then inspected the webpage's source code: "datePublished":"2024-02-05T00:01:01+00:00","dateModified":"2024-02-04T23:41:48+00:00",
It was modified on the 4th at 23:41, and It was published on '05' - today, at '00:01:01'.
The Guardian reported on it 9 hours ago. The Irish Times reported on it 8 hours ago.
Therefore, I can say without a doubt that The Guardian and The Irish Times colluded with the Policy Exchange think tank in advance, and these articles were probably lined up in advance of today. Perhaps those publications uploaded in advance in order to catch the Sinn Fein leader news cycle while it was hot, because they hadn't anticipated new leadership happening in that moment (the day before).
The Mirror also published an article on it at the time the Policy Exchange website went up about an hour ago, but I can't be arsed to check whether they're just regurgitating second hand info from the Guardian and Irish Times, or whether they're reproducing first hand info from the original publication.
Also, the think tanks leaders are ex secretaries of defence. The department of defense (offense, realistically) always has ties to top media publications.
I think the usual Guardian salary is between 28-70k (large range I know), but he probably gets underhand benefits from his connections to power, monetarily or otherwise.
I was speaking more to the think tank people that write the paper the columnist was referencing.
Ahh, true