While I was away, the Mail titles continued their tasteless obsession with the David Kelly conspiracy cult. The Mail on Sunday carried an interview with Detective Constable Graham Coe, the police officer who found Kelly’s body (right). Coe does not suspect foul play and said:

In my view he took his own life. Only he will know why he did that.

Hence the Mail on Sunday’s headline, “Detective who found weapons expert David Kelly’s body raises questions over his death”.

Apparently, there was not much blood at the scene. This has long (seven years) been a core part of the conspiracy theorists’ case, as repeated by nine of them in a letter to The Times today.* Why you would expect to see much blood on porous earth has long (seven years) puzzled normal people. As Kelly had also swallowed a bottle of co-proxamol, it is in any case beside the point.

The other puzzle is why The Times published the letter. It is not as if it would print one from supporters of David Icke, who are also convinced that Kelly was murdered, and who believe that the world is ruled by two-legged lizards from the constellation Draco, inhabiting the lower level of the fourth dimension – that is, the one closest to physical reality.

But it is the Mail’s obsession that is most offensive. It echoes the Express’s long-running compulsion to put the thinnest of non-stories about Madeleine McCann on its front page in its callous indifference to the grief of a family. This time, the Mail on Sunday did at least perform the public service of securing a quotation from Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat transport minister, which confirms his unsuitability for membership of the House of Commons, let alone of the Government:

This is important new evidence, which I am sure the Attorney General will want to investigate. It raises serious questions about the conclusions reached by Lord Hutton.

Anyone who wants to know why the Kelly conspiracy theories are hogwash should read my previous posts on the subject; the article in The Independent on Sunday by Tom Mangold, investigative reporter and friend of Kelly’s; and David Aaronovitch’s superb Voodoo Histories. Aaronovitch’s challenge to any of the fruitcakes who espouse the cult, to whose number I should add Nick Ferrari of LBC, to take part in a public debate is as yet unanswered.

*A letter reported, as an “Exclusive”, on the front page of today’s Daily Mail.

Photograph: Les Wilson