I do’t think it was a lucky guess, any more than D-Squared’s predictions of the results of the Iraq war were lucky guesses.
Experience and proven maxims do the trick more often than not.

Please rest assured that there’s no underlying fear, secret or otherwise. It just so happens that in this case John’s lucky guess happened to chime with what currently appears to be the facts on the ground – but my point was that this doesn’t really "prove" anything, except the extent of his cynicism.

I think my underlying semantic problem is that the phrase "proved right" implies a far greater level of certainty than can possibly have existed, either at the time or even now. I don’t think John was necessarily wrong to have used the phrase – other than creating an open goal for accusations of complacency – but I do think that it’s potentially misleading if presented as simply as that. The bottom line is that it was a lucky guess – hardly the basis for a conviction.

I’ve said on several occasions that our initial reactions to events such as these are always based on guesswork. None of us are really dumb enough – these days – to believe initial media reports about a controversial event. We all know by now that every report has the potential to be radically revised almost immediately after it’s been released.

So we all take what we hear and make educated guesses as to what really happened. This, of course, can tell us a lot about ourselves if we’re honest enough to analyse our reactions. And now that half the industrialised world seems to be publishing their reactions for everyone else to see, we can engage in a spot of pop-psychoanalysis on each other.

The point (I do have one somewhere) is that we are all left guessing about an event like this. In this case, john’s guess was proven right. Michael’s decision to attack the phrase "proven right" as being in some way inaccurate reveals (to me at least) his secret fear that john’s analysis of this event being proven right somehow ‘proves right’ the worldview / education which inspired that guess.

This fear is unfounded of course. You can’t make a call like that based on a single vindication.

The "proof" is provided by the outcome, not by the method of prediction involved.

ahhhh of course … and a policeman would also quite possibly have "wires sticking out" of his jacket.

And in turn, if it turns out that Blair deliberately obstructed an investigation, this makes the case for his resignation almost unchallengeable.

I am also pleased, if that is the right word in this context, that the policy of automatically having an inquiry when there is a Police killing has been so vindicated by Ian Blair’s attempt to delay one.

(I think my biggest beef was with the word "proven" – granted, you used it in a slightly different context, but it has the associative effect of implying that your original post was also "proof" of something or other. Which it clearly wasn’t, at least not at the time you wrote it.)