Murdoch scum

[sw2borshch]

Murdoch scum

Again I’d agree that he probably never authorised it. It’ll have come up in conversation at some point, he’ll have said “eeee, that’s jazzy” and that’ll have been the end of his involvement, until the chips started to feel gravity’s pull.

But yeah, unproveable.

[Bored Of Education]

Murdoch scum

I'm quite confident that such a trail never existed.

Yes, you are probably right. There may have been some link to RM knowing that Brooks was implicated in it but, again, that is not going to come out now

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

Murdoch scum

James' defense is grounded in him being a typical third-generation destroyer of shareholder value

beautiful.

[Come along, Min]

Murdoch scum

This is noteworthy, on potential corporate restructuring at News Corp.

"News Corp does not have one share one vote. This is a corruption of the governance system. Power should reflect capital at risk. Calpers sees the voting structure in a company as critical. The situation is very serious and we're considering our options. We don't intend to be spectators – we're owners," she said.

While the Murdochs own 12% of the company, their special B shares give them voting rights over 40% of the company. Calpers holds 6.4m shares.

[Bored Of Education]

Murdoch scum

Cameron has had a smooth ride from the 1922. No problems there for him.

[ursus arctos]

Murdoch scum

A potentially important step.

Last night the company relented and said it would allow the lawyers to disclose at least some of the information they hold to detectives and MPs. While the move could help to solve the mystery of the company’s response to the scandal, it remained unclear how much information would be disclosed, and whether it would be put in the public domain.

[Nefertiti2]

Murdoch scum

Yes, never a good idea to dump on your lawyers

[ursus arctos]

Murdoch scum

WTF?

At Rupert Murdoch's tabloids, refusing to play ball meant being pushed to the sidelines. One reporter who said he went through that was Charles Begley, News of the World's Harry Potter correspondent in 2001 when Brooks was its editor.

The then 29-year-old reporter said he wore a Harry Potter costume to work and officially changed his name to that of the fictional boy wizard, all part of the paper's attempt to tap into the Pottermania sweeping both sides of the Atlantic.

On Sept. 11, hours after the fall of the Twin Towers, Begley was stunned to be chewed out by News of the World management for not wearing his costume. He said he was then ordered to attend the next news meeting in full Potter regalia.

Shaken by the demand, Begley never showed up, and soon afterward parted ways with the paper.

[Bored Of Education]

Murdoch scum

Yes, never a good idea to dump on your lawyers

Now this could be good - if he survives to write the letter

[Etienne]

Murdoch scum

ursus, that's quite an old story (I mean, in terms of reporting, not when it happened) which has got bumped up to prominence by the scandal.

Here's the Telegraph 2002 story on it.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Murdoch scum

Which "old principles" of the Tories is Cameron ditching?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Murdoch scum

I counted 3 dodged questions.

1) Which company did the vetting?
2) Discussions about BSkyB (not to mention cutting the BBC, and Ofcom)?
3) What exactly did the people say when they warned you? "Ongoing conversation" isn't an answer.

And who apart from Neil Kinnock (and he didn't) has suggested this government controlled press you keep mentioning?

[DCI Harry Batt]

Murdoch scum

Is this not really the clincher?

Andy Coulson did not face the rigorous government security checks into his background that most recent Downing Street press chiefs have undergone, it emerged on Wednesday.

The former News of the World editor was granted only mid-level security clearance when he was appointed by David Cameron as his director of communications, so avoiding "developed vetting" involving a detailed interview by government investigators looking for anything in his past that could compromise him.

[ursus arctos]

Murdoch scum

I think that they can spin that, assuming that he was never given access to highly classified information.

It would, however, significantly limit his efficacy as a spokesperson and media advisor if Cameron couldn't discuss such matters with him until they became public.

Of course, it may be that Cameron hired him for other reasons.

[DCI Harry Batt]

Murdoch scum

Yeah I don't mean it's the nail in his coffin or anything, just that, for anyone who cares, this makes it perfectly obvious what was happening here.

[David Agnew]

Murdoch scum

The Sunday Times claimed Rebekah Brooks told Cameron that Cameron should apoint Coulson as press secretary (instead of Cameron's original choice Gito Harri) "to strengthen links between the Tories and News International". Presumably, she told Cameron not to get Coulson fully cleared so he could plead innocence when all this shit came out.

[Come along, Min]

Murdoch scum

Principles in the sense of direction, appearances, appeal.. I'm not talking about a Clause IV equivalent, more a situation where they aren't feeling that they are still the party of being tough on crime, or the party of spending on defence. the perception that Cameron and crew will continue the perceived attacks on civil liberties like anti-smoking laws, health & safety laws, an attachment to centralist social policy like (for example) pushing for all women shortlists, that sort of thing, things that yer average lefty wont have to much of beef with.

There's an awareness of a Blair-admiring Bullingdon elite too. Many self made Tories are suspicious of it, believe it or not it doesn't come that natural to the voters who kept Thatcher & her men in government for 18 years, they are not as used to feeling like observers in their own party.

Cameron can point to the Lib Dem's for the various compromises he would say he had to make, but the suspicion is that he would have wanted to make them anyway, they might seem obvious, but they're real problems for your dyed in the wool traditionalists.

[Bored Of Education]

Murdoch scum

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose

The offical Scotland Yard portrait of Ronnie Biggs, released after the great train robber escaped from Wandsworth prison. Photograph: Metropolitan police
A newspaper owned by Rupert Murdoch, criminal shenanigans, a controversial relationship with Scotland Yard detectives and a furious response from the House of Commons. It all takes place in 1970 but details of an extraordinary sequence of events involving the great train robber Ronnie Biggs, the Murdoch empire and the Met police have only just been released by the National Archives.

It was the spring of 1970 and a young Murdoch was just settling in as the owner of the Sun and the News of the World. From Australia came news that another of his papers, the Melbourne Daily Mirror, had been contacted by a lawyer, supposedly acting for Biggs, who had been convicted of the 1963 great train robbery and jailed for 30 years before escaping over the wall of Wandsworth prison in 1965 and vanishing.

Biggs wanted to sell his story, using the money to set up a "trust fund" for his three children. To prove that the story was genuine, Biggs had obligingly appended a fingerprint and signature to each page of the manuscript. But how to check that the dabs were genuine?

This is when, according to Metropolitan police files just released, Scotland Yard became involved. The police were contacted by the the Sun's news editor, Brian McConnell, and invited to a meeting with the paper's editor, Larry Lamb, who had "in his possession a document regarding a crime of importance and wished to hand a copy to the assistant commissioner crime".

At the subsequent meeting at the Sun, Lamb handed the documents to Commander Wally Virgo. "He also pointed out that each page bore a fingerprint and a signature and wondered if 'the Yard' could oblige by authenticating same," according to the police report of the meeting. "He went on to say that he realised that some parts of the documents were libellous but, having taken legal advice, his newspaper would not publish anything detrimental to the police."

But what about catching Biggs, at the time one of the most wanted men in the world? "Mr Virgo made it clear to the editor that it was his bounden duty to pass any information he might receive notifying the whereabouts of Biggs to police and this the editor said he would be happy to do... Mr Lamb emphasised throughout that he had no personal contact with either Biggs or any person who might be considered his agent."

The Yard obligingly checked out the 77 typeset pages. A Commander Peat identified the fingerprint as probably those of Biggs although he thought it could have been taken from a cast or stamp of the original.

Mr Frydd of the Forensic Science Laboratory was very sceptical about the signatures which he deduced were "not in the least bit likely to have been made by Ronald Biggs." He concluded they had "certain possible female characteristics".

Advice was taken from the Met solicitor who reckoned that they could not stop publication and, if they tried, it could "lead to unfavourable comment about the police".

Virgo was deputed to return the documents and confirm their authenticity and publication went ahead.

Then came trouble from Australia. A furious commissioner of police in New South Wales, Norman Allan, rang the Yard late at night on 19 April, having learned of the imminent publication of the memoirs in Australia.

"He expressed amazement that New Scotland Yard had supported this newspaper venture and felt that it was holding both his force and ours up to ridicule," according to the Met record of the call. "He pointed out that, whilst police in both countries could not find Biggs, a solicitor had been able to receive from him his story with his fingerprint and signature. He felt that the police by confirming the authenticity of the fingerprint were in fact enabling Biggs to obtain further money to assist in his escape. He did not for a moment believe that any money from the story would be placed in a trust fund for Biggs's children."

The publication caused outrage in Britain, too. Arthur Lewis, the Labour MP for West Ham North, asked the home secretary, James Callaghan, whether he had "considered the information... showing that a newspaper has paid either Ronald Biggs or his agents money in relation to the mail bag robbery, whether he will take action against the newspaper concerned for aiding and abetting a convicted criminal".

Allan suggested the Murdoch papers were "giving comfort and aid to an escaped prisoner."

The CID seemed stung by any suggestion that they had been slow off the mark in pursuing this latest lead in the hunt for Biggs: "Police efforts to re-arrest Biggs are as intense now as ever they were. No effort is spared to achieve this object." They concluded, however, that no action could be taken against the Sun.

What Lamb and his colleagues were not to know was that Virgo came from the top end of the Yard's "dodgy geezer" scale and was soon to become a big story himself. He had been receiving £2,000 a month – plus Christmas bonus – in bribes from Soho pornographer, Jimmy Humphreys, who kept a meticulous note of all his payments. Virgo was arrested, charged, jailed for 12 years, cleared on appeal because of a misdirection by the judge, and died a few years later.

"I don't think [corrupt police] really thought of it in terms of corruption," said Peter Scott, the jewel thief dubbed "king of the cat burglars". "They just thought it was a perk."

Lamb, who gave the world the Page 3 model, died in 2000 and McConnell, who was shot and wounded when he came between a kidnapper and Princess Anne in 1974, has also gone to the newsroom in the skies.

Biggs had dealings again with the British media when the Daily Express tracked him down to Rio de Janeiro in 1974 but he avoided extradition by fathering a Brazilian son. Eventually, sick and broke, he flew back to England – courtesy of the Sun once more – to give himself up in 2001. He was released from prison in 2009 after suffering a series of strokes. This time there was no need to check his fingerprints.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2011

[Spearmint Rhino]

Murdoch scum

Calvert W. McCutcheon wrote:

Bored of Education wrote:

Calvert W. McCutcheon wrote:
Bored of Education wrote:
Calvert and Rob, the reason the pie flinger was such an idiot is because this was an unedited and lesser stage-managed questioning of the Murdochs and anything that wasted time (including some of the weak questioning about No10 back doors) that could have been used garnering some sort of hostages of fortune for the Murdochs was unwanted by pretty much everyone.

Nah, Bored, the pie-flinging was a momentary distraction nothing more. What sanctions are available to this hearing anyway?
The enduring image from this will be Murdoch's piss-poor attempt at humility gradually being consumed by his true persona of table-punching megalomaniacal arrogance.
Well, that and the thought of asking his wife 'what first attracted you to billionaire Rupert Murdoch'?

Still with Calvert on this Bored, didn't see it as anything other than a slight distraction.

You watched the news last night? I saw at least 5 minutes on each programme of that twat, his actions and his career so far that could have been far better used.

I was working last night but watched BBC24 news when I got in and didn't see anything about the pie-flinger, just a quick mention of his deed.
I thought they were treating it the way modern-day TV sports directors treat streakers/pitch invaders.
Still nothing much, though, is it?

Almost every newspaper front page the next day led with the pie-flinger, rather than with the evasiveness of the Murdochs/Brooks/Cops. That's why he's a complete twat.

A rare opportunity to actually hold these cunts to account, and he disrupts it with student slapstick. If anything, he helped Murdoch.

[Etienne]

Murdoch scum

The vetting of Coulson (or lack thereof) I think is really damaging for Cameron. It really reduces the credibility of his probation officer defence and suggests he knew Coulson had lots of skeletons in his cupboard.

[ursus arctos]

Murdoch scum

Combined with Llewellyn's "don't tell the PM" advice, it demonstrates that the Nixonian culture of "plausible deniability" is extremely well-entrenched at Number 10.

[Bored Of Education]

Murdoch scum

Is anyone actually checking the Sun every day? Every time I have seen it, the minimal amount of coverage of any NI news is laughable

The thought that any of the papers not being editorially directed by Murdoch is even more ridiculous on this evidence.

[ursus arctos]

Murdoch scum

Bored, why does it have to be Murdoch? There are plenty of other NI executives who have a massive interest in downplaying the story (just as there are at the Mail).

[ursus arctos]

Murdoch scum

Interesting review of the US press coverage.

[David Agnew]

Murdoch scum

When I bought Private Eye (and WSC of course) in WHSmith's earlier, they gave me a free Times. For balance, presumably.