‘The Metropolitan Police Service has reached the conclusion that there are no grounds for pursuing a complaint against the Daily Beast newspaper for incitement to religious hatred.

‘Further, although it would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing IPSO investigation, the MPS has no complaint of its own to register regarding information released by the Daily Beast newspaper and will not be conducting any inquiry.

‘Lastly, allegations that the Daily Beast has been obstructive to MPS operations are spurious; and I would remind the public that spurious allegations direct limited police resources away from crucial operations.

‘On the contrary, the Daily Beast has uncovered valuable information about a highly dangerous extremist cell that the MPS has been hunting for some time. The vast and sophisticated Met operation to bring these men to justice would not have been possible without help from the Daily Beast.’

Will was somewhat settled by that, especially when he saw that the copy slightly cheesily described this guy as ‘courageous copper Nigel Willis’. He knew it was sentimental but he was heartened to think that the Beast and the police were laying aside their reciprocal mistrust for a greater good. And the prime minister was going to say: ‘Today we are all Beast readers!’ The Daily Beast was certainly looking a lot more desirable on his CV now.

The story was not a page lead, so Will set the first par to 8.5- rather than 9.5-point type, removed the indentation, held shift for caps and rewrote:

A NATIONAL newspaper has been denounced for using a national crisis for political point-scoring after it filed a ‘spurious’ complaint against the Beast’s coverage of the Burqa bombings.

The Russian-owned, Left-leaning

He checked the style guide. Yes, ‘Left’ was capped up.

The Russian-owned, Left-leaning Impartial, which has a circulation of less than 70,000, claimed the Beast’s coverage amounted to incitement to religious hatred – a claim the police have dismissed.

A complaint of this type involves complex legal arguments and can cost thousands to investigate. Xx

Xx, MP for Xx, said: [OUTRAGE GOES IN HERE].

He worked on, whittling the paragraphs to sharp points. The work calmed his fright and he kept his mind on it, as if each paragraph were a stake in the Beast’s defences. He noticed that he’d doubled ‘national’ in the opening par, and fixed it. The missing outrage was emailed to him. Curtis Arbuthnot, Tory MP for Bexleyheath, had given the reporter:

‘These accusations are outrageous. Not only do they cynically attempt to smear a professional competitor at a time of crisis, but its coverage, by accusing the Daily Beast of being “inflammatory”, insidiously implies that the Beast is to blame for the attempted attack on its offices because of its fearless reporting on radical Islam in Britain today.