Pass De Story On De Left Hand Side

So how come the "exclusive" story of David Cameron smoking weed - gasp! - at Eton was in every Sunday newspaper first edition bar two? As we know, it originated with those remarkable sleuths at the Independent on Sunday, James Hanning and Francis Elliott, who have pubished a book called Cameron: Something Or Other and clearly know how to use a newspaper library. It was then sold by their publishers to the Mail On Sunday, where Simon Walters, political editor, wrote yet another exclusive that someone had given him. But how then did it get into the News of the World, the Sunday Times, the Sunday Express (what?), the Observer and the Sunday Telegraph? Theories exist. Was it a Conservative anti-spin spin operation, on the basis that they aimed to defuse the "exclusive" nature of the story and make it simply ho-hum, which it was? Did the Mail on Sunday leak it so they would not have to pay as much for the story (that has been known to happen in newspapers, you know)? The only trouble with the Tory theory is the inclusion of the Observer, but then it is so counter-intuitive that it makes sense and the editor is a Tory anyway. Or was it a disgruntled hack who had fallen upon the story before and had it denied by the Tory machine then got wind it was around last weekend? We may never know. But it might be worth hanging around with the boys in Victoria to find out.....