Jo Moore 'buried bad news again'

Hapless Transport spin doctor Jo Moore faced demands for her dismissal today amid claims that she ordered civil servants once again to "bury" bad news.

A formal complaint about Ms Moore's conduct has reportedly been made to senior officials at the Transport Department. If sustained and confirmed, it would make her departure all but inevitable.

Ms Moore was said to have ordered that four "friendly" newspapers be given details of the minutes of a critical meeting between Transport Secretary Stephen Byers and the chairman of Railtrack, John Robinson.

The minutes of the meeting were faxed to The Times, Financial Times, Independent and The Guardian on Tuesday afternoon, just as the spotlight was on Gordon Brown's pre-budget report to the Commons.

The manoeuvre brought furious charges that Ms Moore was putting in to practice the approach she suggested in her notorious email on the day of the terror attacks on America, suggesting that the tragedy was a good time to "get out anything we want to bury".

That incident saw Ms Moore formally disciplined and denounced by the Prime Minister for her "horrible and wrong actions". Ms Moore herself later went on television to make a fulsome apology and plead for a "second chance".

The meeting between the Transport Secretary and the Railtrack chairman, on 25 July, has come to be a central element in claims that Mr Byers misled the Commons.

The Whitehall version of the meeting says Mr Robinson warned Mr Byers that Railtrack was facing financial disaster - a claim Mr Robinson denies.

The minutes were demanded by the Commons cross-party transport committee, which is inquiring into the affair. However, when released on Tuesday, it emerged that no note was taken of the crucial exchanges. The Department claimed that Mr Robinson had asked for no minute to be kept on the grounds that the matter was "highly sensitive". However, that claim, too, is denied by the Railtrack chairman.

Whichever version is true, there was no doubt that the episode constituted a further embarrassment for Mr Byers, already under acute pressure over his handling of the Railtrack crisis. And the Tories were swift to claim that Ms Moore had, once again, tried to manipulate the news agenda.

Downing Street was dragged in to the row as the Prime Minister's official spokesman asserted that the selective briefing had been decided not by Ms Moore but by the Press Office at the Department of Transport.

That was disputed from within the department last night, with civil servants complaining that they resented being ordered to carry out "political dirty work".

Whitehall rules, in fact, deny most political advisers the right to give orders to civil servants.

Mr Blair's spokesman also claimed that the four newspapers were chosen because the Department "felt they were following the story most closely".