The Downing Street spin machine remains in good health, in spite of Gordon Brown’s much-professed claims to be cutting back on it.

That was the clear conclusion from yesterday’s newspapers and broadcasts, which, depending on your source, attributed plans to shake up the police stop-and-search laws to either David Cameron or Mr Brown.

The Conservatives took an early lead in the race when The Sun led its first edition on an interview with Mr Cameron in which he said that the Tories would scrap restrictions on the police to carry out search operations. The Daily Mirror carried nothing on the story in its early editions but it and several other papers soon caught up. Only for them it was the Government, and not the Conservatives, who were planning action. That was also the line taken by the BBC and other broadcasters. How could this have happened?

When news began to circulate at Westminster about The Sun interview several reporters contacted No 10, knowing that a review by Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the former Northern Ireland Chief Constable, had pronounced on the subject. No 10 was in luck. Jacqui Smith, the Home Secretary, had only hours earlier given a presentation to the Cabinet on the Government’s response to the Flanagan report, due to be announced next Monday.

Government sources decided that Mr Cameron should not get the credit for something the Government was going to do anyway. Plans to brief about Monday’s announcement were instantly brought forward, to give the Mirror, the BBC and others a swift rundown on what the Government was about to do, and not what the Conservatives would do if they won office.

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