Tabloid phone hacking scandal involving kidnapped girl roils Britain

[The Minsky Moment]

Summary of the Brown material. It's important for a number of reasons - it's not just phone hacking, it's by the Sun and the Sunday Times, not the NOTW and Brooks is directly implicated to the extent that any last vestiges of plausibility in her denials have evaporated.

Running the story at all - regardless of how the information was obtained - is enough in my book to condemn her.
Why should it surprise that anyone so lacking in basic moral fiber to begin with would be complicit in (at the least in a hear no evil sort of way) fraudulent means to obtain the information in the first place?

The problem with races to the bottom is that there is always room to go down further.

[Gups]

His reach is international.

He's a Nazi.

His mother is still alive, she's 102.

On the other hand, he has also increased coverage of international affairs in every paper he has taken over, and underwrites more foreign bureaus than anyone.  If he goes down, there will be downsides as well as upsides.

That may be true in the States but it certainly isn't true of the papers he took over in the UK. Foreign coverage is limited to a g-string on hot east European bird.

[Grallon]

So what can Cameron do?  Or Parliament?  Do these revelations warrant criminal accusations?  Or civil law suits?

I read this morning that when asked what were his priorities, Murdoch responded "her" - pointing at Brooks next to him.  Caused quite a stir in Britain apparently. 

Is the man that powerful that he can have sitting govt members, police officers, the royals, etc under surveillance without being challenged about it?

Time to set an example: Off with their head!



G.

[MadImmortalMan]

a g-string on hot east European bird.

Wouldn't want to miss out on that!

[MadImmortalMan]

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-july-11-2011/have-no-fear--england-s-here?xrs=share_copy

[Richard Hakluyt]

Criminal trials Grallon, the only question is how far up the chain of command these will go.

[Agelastus]

...................of course they may have supped with the devil to an extent that precludes such attacks 

You forget that for politicians in general gratitude has a shorter lifespan than the average mayfly - as various Labour politicians (ignoring Brown, who has a genuine grievance for once) are demonstrating.

I'm still not overly bothered by all this; the laws under which they'll be prosecuted are already in place, newspaper scandals pop up every decade or so with disturbing regularity, and I find it hard to believe that anyone is really surprised that the law has been broken rather than simply skirted given the type of story typically carried by our tabloids, or even many of the supposedly more upmarket papers.

[Gups]

You seem to be in complete denial Agelastus. There has never been a newspaper scandal like this before. Not even close. If you think there has been tell me what it is.

This is massive, whether you think it's boring or not. We have already seen a long-running, big-selling newspaper closed. It seems likely that various senior journalists people will be imprisoned and itmay go higher. The PCC will certainly be replaced with a body that actually regulates the press. Most importantly the real hope is that thsi candal will see the press have lost its aura, for years politicians of both parties have been scared of them.

Finally, and I never thought I'd say this,but Millipede has actually looked competent, even actually quite impressive.

[Neil]

That's one thing in all those 'fascist England' stories that never made sense:  How they could possibly tame the British press.  I guess now they'll 'regulate' them.

England prevails!

[Neil]

You seem to be in complete denial Agelastus. There has never been a newspaper scandal like this before. Not even close. If you think there has been tell me what it is.

On the other hand, it's also only a newspaper scandal.  Television 'journalists' haven't been implicated, have they?

[mongers]

You seem to be in complete denial Agelastus. There has never been a newspaper scandal like this before. Not even close. If you think there has been tell me what it is.

This is massive, whether you think it's boring or not. We have already seen a long-running, big-selling newspaper closed. It seems likely that various senior journalists people will be imprisoned and itmay go higher. The PCC will certainly be replaced with a body that actually regulates the press. Most importantly the real hope is that thsi candal will see the press have lost its aura, for years politicians of both parties have been scared of them.

Finally, and I never thought I'd say this,but Millipede has actually looked competent, even actually quite impressive.

This.

[jimmy olsen]

Now this will hurt Murdoch where it counts.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/12/rupert-murdoch-bskyb-news-international

Rupert Murdoch facing BSkyB defeat as parties unite in call to drop takeover

David Cameron backs Labour motion urging Murdoch to withdraw £8bn takeover bid in wake of phone-hacking scandal


Rupert Murdoch will face the humiliation of the Commons issuing a unanimous all-party call for his scandal-ridden News Corporation to withdraw its £8bn bid for BSkyB, the great commercial prize he has been pursuing to cement his dominance of the British media landscape.

In an extraordinary volte face David Cameron will disown the media tycoon by leading his party through the lobbies to urge him to drop the bid.

Murdoch can defy parliament and press ahead with the bid, prompting a Competition Commission inquiry, but he risks finding himself ostracised by a political class that once scrambled to bend to his wishes.

In the latest of a series of strategic coups that has left Downing Street looking flat-footed, the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, tabled a Commons motion for debate this afternoon urging News Corporation to withdraw the bid "in the public interest".

With the Liberal Democrats certain to back Labour's simple motion, the prime minister took the rare and possibly legally questionable step to row in behind the opposition, even though only the day before Downing Street insisted he and the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, must remain impartial on the takeover.

Miliband will lead the debate and will argue that the bid has to be withdrawn at least until police and judicial investigations into phone hacking and police bribery at News International have been completed. That could be 2014.

Cameron's spokesman said it was for News Corp to decide how to respond to the vote, but added "we would always expect people to take seriously what parliament says".

A spokesman for the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, said the vote represents "an extraordinary unified statement of the will of the people. It is unimaginable that any public corporation or public figure will want to ignore such a strong statement by the legislature of this country".

Clegg first called for Murdoch to withdraw the bid on Monday, when Cameron had also said he thought Rupert Murdoch's priority should be to sort out malpractices exposed in his company rather than trying to clinch what could eventually be a takeover costing roughly $15bn.

First indications suggested that the News Corp chairman will ignore the vote in parliament, and will turn down an invitation to give evidence to the culture select committee next Tuesday.

In London, BSkyB's shares fell another 3% to 692p because investors fear Murdoch's bid could be delayed indefinitely or scrapped altogether.

News Corp, which owns 39% of BSkyB, is determined to keep the lucrative bid alive and on Monday withdrew its proposal to spin off Sky News as a financially and editorially independent unit. The move effectively forced Hunt to refer the bid to the Competition Commission.

The switch in tactics gave Murdoch the chance to capture BSkyB before a police investigation or judicial inquiry had been completed. A Competition Commission inquiry can only last six months, with a possible three-month extension, before a recommendation must be referred to Hunt. Hunt will abstain in the vote in an effort to preserve his political impartiality over the bid.

Privately Downing Street is frustrated at the way Miliband has shaped the political agenda in the past week, and Cameron will try to regain the initiative by setting out the terms of reference of two inquiries into the crisis.

Cameron is likely to announce the judge-led inquiry will go wider than previously thought, looking at the police investigation into phone hacking, and other malpractice throughout the newspaper industry, relations between press and politicians, the inadequacy of the original police investigation and wider issues of corporate governance.

Cameron and Clegg met Miliband in the Commons on Tuesday evening to discuss the terms of reference of the judicial inquiry. Afterwards, Labour said Cameron had acknowledged that the main judge-led inquiry, with witnesses giving evidence under oath, will have to be given a wide remit. A second inquiry into media ethics is likely to be seen as a subsidiary narrow inquiry.

Cameron also held discussions with John Whittingdale, the chairman of the culture select committee, and Keith Vaz, the chairman of the home affairs select committee. Vaz's committee criticised John Yates, the assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police, on Tuesday for his handling of the investigation into phone hacking.

Cameron is also expected to announce plans to strengthen transparency rules over meetings between ministers and media figures, including for the first time private social meetings. Until now ministers have declined to publish details of meetings with senior media figures, save those that are defined as business meetings. Ministers are also looking at new rules designed to oversee the future employment of former senior police officers. Andy Hayman, the Met's assistant commissioner in charge of the investigation into News International in 2005-6, subsequently ended up in News International employment.

The judicial inquiry is likely to look at why the last Labour government failed to launch an inquiry into phone hacking at News International. Supporters of Gordon Brown are furious that the cabinet secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell objected to Brown's private urging for a judicial inquiry in 2010. Labour backbencher Chris Bryant tabled a question asking Cameron "to publish the advice provided by the then cabinet secretary in early 2010 to the then prime minister on the case for a statutory public inquiry into the phone hacking scandal."

The debate will see an intense political battle between the Conservatives and Labour over which party did least to distance themselves from the Murdoch group.

The Lib Dems will relish reminding the public they shunned Murdoch, with its three most senior figures outside government writing to Murdoch to accuse him of tainted journalism.

The party's deputy leader, Simon Hughes, writes: "People working for your company have sought to cover up the many wrongs which it has committed. Your company has been accused of lying to the Press Complaints Commission, by its chair.

"Only yesterday the police accused News International of trying to undermine the ongoing police investigation into the affair. News International is simply no longer respected in this country.

"Given the history of the last six or more years, it should be of little surprise to you that many people in this country have no desire to have any more of our media fall into your hands, tainted as News International is by a history of completely unacceptable journalistic practices."

[Agelastus]

You seem to be in complete denial Agelastus. There has never been a newspaper scandal like this before. Not even close. If you think there has been tell me what it is.

This is massive, whether you think it's boring or not. We have already seen a long-running, big-selling newspaper closed. It seems likely that various senior journalists people will be imprisoned and itmay go higher. The PCC will certainly be replaced with a body that actually regulates the press. Most importantly the real hope is that thsi candal will see the press have lost its aura, for years politicians of both parties have been scared of them.

Finally, and I never thought I'd say this,but Millipede has actually looked competent, even actually quite impressive.

And if you really believe we're seeing a sea change as you describe, then I've got some nice land in Florida to sell you.

Newspapers have closed before (and in this case there's even a clone on the immediate horizon to replace it!) Journalists have been jailed for corrupt practices before. The odds of the public inquiry recommending the PCC be abolished is vanishingly low, both because of the Freedom of Press connotations and because it would be yet another QUANGO when the current government is culling them*. And politicians will be scared of newspapers (and all forms of media) as long as people continue to buy them; that fear you're talking about has been around for at least two hundred years.

All I can repeat is that I'm not particularly bothered by the scandal. The only thing I hope for is that the Inquiries don't prove to be that costly given the waste of tim I believe them to be.

----------------------

As for "Millipede" looking competent, that's not hard to do when all three main parties are singing from the same hymn sheet. Not that I've ever considered him incompetent myself; my problems with him (apart from political views) relate to his "baggage" (the unions that supported him.)

Of course, he's also part of the current "class" of politicians who've never done anything much but politics (a group that includes Cameron, one of the reasons I'm not his biggest fan either.) I suppose I'm old fashioned in thinking that a politician is more well rounded and capable if he actually has demonstrated skills and talent outside of politics, though .

-----------------------

As for previous scandals, Google-fu's not helping me at the moment (for obvious reasons) so I'll have to delay my reply on that issue.

-----------------------



*Although a law making all newspapers subject to the PCC and forcing them to pay subscriptions would be welcome as one of the biggest newspaper groups withdrew itself from the PCC's jurisdiction a couple of years ago.



Edit: And damn me for having my reply screen open for over an hour.

Pulled from Tim's post.

Cameron is likely to announce the judge-led inquiry will go wider than previously thought, looking at the police investigation into phone hacking, and other malpractice throughout the newspaper industry, relations between press and politicians, the inadequacy of the original police investigation and wider issues of corporate governance.

What a waste of time and money; the broader the reference the less the chance of action or positive change simply because of the increased potential for controversy (or, more explicitly, the wider the remit, the more vested interests involved.)

[Neil]

Of course, he's also part of the current "class" of politicians who've never done anything much but politics (a group that includes Cameron, one of the reasons I'm not his biggest fan either.) I suppose I'm old fashioned in thinking that a politician is more well rounded and capable if he actually has demonstrated skills and talent outside of politics, though .

Surely you must know that can never be.  In the information age, only those who have planned on a run for office from their youth can make it.  And if you make a mistake once, you're done.  Besides, the truly talented avoid public service like the plague, as dealing with a predatory media isn't worth it.

[Grallon]

Surely you must know that can never be.  In the information age, only those who have planned on a run for office from their youth can make it.  And if you make a mistake once, you're done.  Besides, the truly talented avoid public service like the plague, as dealing with a predatory media isn't worth it.

And what this tells me is how a self trumpeted elite should be harshly brought to heel when it's become so entirely parasitical as to be detrimental to the very survival of the body politic that gave it birth.




G.