Writer fools the media over Brown’s tangerine throwing

“Robin” recalled how Brown had initially been polite during his visit to his workplace, a lamination workshop, but after an upsetting phone call, “We had just had tea and he threw a tangerine which he had, and it hit the machine, the actual lamination machine, and the actual fruit got stuck in the machine… we had to sort of stop the tour, and he got even more angry and he called the person that gave him the tangerine a ‘citric idiot’ and shouted.”

It was a loopy enough tale for Pierce to sound a note of caution – “we’ve got no corroboration from Number 10 on that, so Robin, we take that from you” – but the Sun had no such qualms.

“Gordon Brown came under increasing pressure last night after yet more damaging allegations emerged about his ‘volcanic temper’,” the paper roared on 23 February. “A factory worker claims that during an official visit to his plant the PM hurled a tangerine into a laminating machine after flying into a rage.”

Naturally, where the Sun leads, the Telegraph duly follows, and that paper’s website swiftly gave its readers a full account of the story under the unforgettable headline “Gordon Brown Accused of Throwing a Tangerine.” And the suspicious-sounding “citric idiot” quote? Both papers just quenched it, insisting that the PM had merely referred to the fictional fruit-profferer as “an idiot”.