THIS SITE HAS BEEN ARCHIVED AND CLOSED.

Hush descends on the Empire: Morrissey will speak for the first time tomorrow since the immigration furore sparked by his interview in last week’s NME.

The singer is expected to talk about the lawsuit he is filing against the music paper tomorrow morning (4 Dec), revealed a ‘blog posting by manager Merck Mercuriadis on fan site true-to-you.net.

The bulk of the post, though, is given over to Mercuriadis’s slagging of NME writer Tim Jonze, who stood by the magazine’s decision to run the feature this week, explaining that he had only asked for his name to be detached from the words because editor Conor McNicholas wanted to tone them down.

“It would be easy to feel sorry for Tim Jonze,” started Mercuriadis. “He is clearly out of his depth and has panicked to the point of admitting in writing that he will say anything to anybody if it gets him what he wants. Clearly integrity - journalistic or otherwise - means nothing to him and he has just spelled it out for every reader, publicist, band, editor and potential employer to know.

“It is arguable that he has just been a pawn in Conor McNicholas' zeal to make a name for himself at Morrissey's expense but on the other hand the level of collusion between the two of them would appear to be thicker than blood. We won't know until we get to court and start picking them apart.

“What we do know as evidenced by his posts is that Tim is prepared to say and do anything. Keep that in mind when reading his work and particularly this week's NME cover story.”

Furore! Moz-gate! Debacle! Fiasco!