There are some good repositories of research devoted to the case of the missing Madeleine McCann, mccannfiles.com and others. Some blogs contain information that one doesn't see often, if ever. One poster to a Madeleine forum, Truth for Madeleine, writing as bugalugs tracked down the first mainstream press story about this case.
The current URL of the story in question is:
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/expat/e...ree-year-old-feared-abducted-in-Portugal.html
The dateline of this story is 12:01AM BST 04 May 2007. In Portugal the time would have been the same 12:01 AM, because that country is in the same timezone as the UK.
There is some dispute as to the exact time that Madeleine's disappearance was discovered and reported by Kate McCann. For the sake of discussion, let's say that the disappearance was reported at 10:00 PM on May 3, 07.
A British child goes missing in Portugal and exactly 121 minutes later a press story appears on the website of the Telegraph newspaper announcing that there is a child missing in Portugal and this announcement is made by the British Foreign Office.
Let's try to construct a timeline of events working backward from the precise moment at 12:01 AM when someone pressed the key on their computer to upload the story to the web.
12:01 AM 04 May 07: Story is uploaded.
11:58 PM 03 May 07: Story is typed up and proofread.
11:45 PM 03 May 07: Data entry staff receives email from editor containing story after having been phoned and alerted to situation.
11:35 PM 03 May 07: Night editor of Telegraph receives phone call from publisher or editor in chief informing him of the details of the story which he takes down over the phone. There is minimal discussion. He relays story and instructions to publish immediately to his staff.
11:15 PM 03 May 07: Foreign Office press officer phones Telegraph publisher and relates the substance of the story and requests immediate publication of it. He agrees to accept attribution of the story to the Foreign Office. There is some minimal discussion. The publisher agrees to print the story in accordance with long established protocols between the press and the FO.
11:13 PM 03 May 07: Mr. X, a functionary of the British Foreign Office at a level somewhere in support of the Minister of State for Europe, Geoffrey Hoon (in 2007), gives instructions to the FO press officer, above.
11:00 PM 03 May 07: Mr. X is instructed by a superior in the Foreign Office to relay the substance of the story of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann to the Telegraph through established channels.
This is irregular and it is difficult to understand the purpose of it. Mr. X would have remarked this undoubtedly. Usually such stories would be "broken" independantly by the press itself or through official statements from Interpol or other police agencies.
The "Foreign Office" attribution for the story is the sticking point.
Keep in mind that only a little over an hour has passed since the disappearance of the child! What if the child were to be found? Twenty minutes later the British Foreign Office might have to issue another press release with the happy news.
If the British ambassador in Portugal were the first member of the British Civil Service to hear of this story and wished to expedite press coverage of it, he would normally use backchannels of his own to alert the press and ask for an "unnamed sources" attribution of the story.
Keep in mind that even a quickly solved child disappearance is a winner in press circles. The ambassador would not have to twist arms to get the story published, or would he?
Does the press normally publish stories about children who have been missing only for a little over an hour?
10:XX - 11:00PM: Information and a request for assistance in the matter of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann moved from Portugal to a ministerial level in the UK where discussions took place and a decision was made to issue an alert to the press, with Foreign Office attribution, for a child who had been reported missing less than an hour before.
10:00 - 10:XX Madeleine was discovered to be missing and after searching for less than an hour, political help in the situation was sought in the UK and received.
This is truly impressive. Rule Britannia! Congratulations to the FO.
Over here in the boondocks of Canada our "External Affairs Department" doesn't have the balls to issue a press release when a child goes missing for an hour. Shame shame you "two bit" ex-colony of woodchoppers and fur traders. Take a leaf from the FO's book. Not a sparrow falls from a foreign limb without being observed and aided by the FO. And on such short notice too. Less than an hour and they are on the case. Truly incredible.
Strange though, that one doesn't hear the constant praise of the FO being sung by British travellers around the globe. I'm inclined, myself to believe that they are much like any other government department. Wily, but slow and deliberate.
If the British Foreign Office and its masters are wily, but slow and deliberate, isn't it more likely that the timetable for their deliberations and actions, actually started a day earlier than advertised, and that they only seem to be alert, quick and decisive, not to say impetuous, gallant and slightly hysterical?
But that is precisely the claim being made by the blog Unterdenteppichgekehrt, that Madeleine died on the 2nd. of May, 07, a day before the public became aware that something was wrong in Prahia da Luz.
) and then they refused to provide access to the credit card records. 
