Crystal Tipps, the ex-head of the News of the World (now the News of the Next World) resigned. It took a while, but I understand she tried to resign sooner and her wrinkly boss, a small man in a big skin, wouldn't have it. She's been arrested now.
Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned. He cannot continue pretending to be a bastion of law and order with all that scandal around him, and more popping up all the time. So he's resigned too.
There is much cheering from the MPs who demand that these naughty people be held to account. Well, yes, they should be held to account. Resigning is the honourable thing to do under the circumstances, rather than clinging on and hoping all the anger will go away.
Ed Moribund wants to steal Murdoch's business from him because he's too powerful. He's not, not really. He sells news and sometimes his news is embarrassing for powerful people. If they don't want embarrassing stories in the news, they should refrain from doing embarrassing things. If Murdoch's papers were telling lies, they could prosecute.
The phone 'hacking' is not a sign of power. It's a sign of underhanded sneakiness and devious manipulation and if anyone was under the illusion that newspapers are above such things, then they've been living in a hole somewhere. Reporters have always used information slipped to them in plain brown envelopes, for which they slip back another envelope full of cash. Always. Dialling in to an unprotected voicemail is exactly what I'd expect them to do. They shouldn't be doing it, it's wrong, but reporters with scruples and ethics don't get the scoops.
No, it's not nice. The world is not a nice place. It's full of people who could give Gollum lessons in sneaking. Learn to deal with it.
Ed Moribund claims the moral high ground over reporters who listened in on phone conversations. Well, Ed, your party did this. A little more than listening in on calls, isn't it? Oh wait, your party planned to do that too, along with recording Emails and internet use for everyone. Everyone. Not just those linked to a news story. Ed, those 'untouchable and unaccountable' people are not just the rich. They are right through the system, the system your party built.
When MPs were caught, almost every one of them, with their hands in the expenses till, how many resigned in shame? What happened next? Oh that's right, some half-baked scheme to keep the punters quiet until it all blew over and the hands are right back in the till again.
Murdoch's lot could have done the same. They could have shifted people into backroom positions for a while until it all blew over. Sir Paul could have accepted a demotion and gone off to police some remote village in Wales where no newsmen ever go because nothing ever happens. They resigned when their positions became the target of hate and ridicule. It seems to me that those doing the judging have proved themselves even less honourable than those they judge.
Nobody comes out of this looking good but for those weasels in Parliament to proclaim themselves the arbiters of morality requires so much brass neck I'm surprised they haven't been beseiged by scrap metal thieves.
The brassiest neck of all is once more that of the Brown Gorgon, who is pursuing a personal vendetta diguised as a morality crusade, but not disguised very well. It's hard not to imagine him gleefully skipping back to parliament after his long absence, all set to put the boot into the man he blames for losing him the last election. Murdoch did not lose the last election for Labour. Labour did that all by themselves. But to admit that, the Gorgon would have to accept the blame and that will not happen.
The Cameroid, the Clegg and the Moribund are all salivating at the prospect of finally bringing the press under control. Currently I'd estimate that about 90% of what we read in the papers is either distortion, overhyped non-stories or lies. Once the Three EU Stooges have finished, there won't be a word of truth in any of them. They will report what they are told to report.
Murdoch can't win this. All three parties are against him and as soon as he tries any kind of defence they will throw the Dowler case at him and it's checkmate. He cannot deny that people in his employment interfered with a murder investigation. No way out.
He's not the only one who loses. New International is not the only news source that will be affected. Everything from the Times to the Beano will get the fallout from this. Every news source will come under government control.
Then they'll come for the bloggers.
15 comments:
Indeed LI, I too believe bloggers will be the next target. We ourselves have already been 'warned'. lt was in legal jargon that they thought would do the trick. Unfortunately for them, we are not the uneducated peasants they believe us to be. We actually DO understand the meaning of words and in what context those words are used.
We didn't read it as they thought we would read it. That is to say that their threats held no substance whatsoever.They thought we were dummies and we'd fall for it. Well tough, we didn't! We duly carried on doing what we have always done.
The way the current situation is going l can see us being faced with a far more dangerous foe. They will be armed with new laws and regulations that will give them the power to close us down and indeed prosecute.
Perversely it will be done 'to protect the public'. Dark days ahead ... something truly wicked come this way.
" Dialling in to an unprotected voicemail is exactly what I'd expect them to do. They shouldn't be doing it, it's wrong,"
Have to disagree Leg, it's not wrong. Infact it is very right and is what used to be called 'Investigative Journalism' before that got preoccupied with oranges, plastic bags and ladies undergarments or chasing adulterous deranged former Princesses through Parisian tunnels at hi-speed.
The job of a real journalist is to gather evidence, evidence that the police can't or won't or mayn't, of wrong doing by our Lords and Masters and the self declared Moral Apostles.
Even the 'hacking' (and why on earth is it referred to as hacking? It isn't) of Milly's phone was totally justified because it was very likely she'd just run away or her killer could easily have been her father or a neighbour. What wasn't justified and is inexcusable was the deleting of messages.
They tampered with evidence or potential evidence and for that they should go to jail and be thrown out of the Journalists Union, 'struck off'.
[/rant] and yes you're right, they are coming for the bloggers next.
Smoking Hot - while all this is keeping Parliament busy, the EU plan to replace both UKBA and the Coastguard with EU forces. Parliament is just a play-pen for trivial politics these days. The real stuff is out of their control.
Shinar - Perhaps I sould say 'immoral' rather than 'wrong'. Personally. I'd disapprove of sneaking into someone's voicemail but all I'd do is 'tut' at them for doing it. They crossed the line in the Dowler case, though.
As far as those in power are concerned, if they haven't the intelligence to change the default password on their phones, what the hell are they doing in charge of a country?
"if they haven't the intelligence ...what the hell are they doing in charge of a country?"
That's one of your English 'rhetorical questions' isn't it? I can tell these things. You don't really want me to explain the vagaries of the Electoral System or the fact that they got into power cos dear old Uncle Robert Mephistopheles Marduk told people to vote for them, do you?
LI ... there's little l can do about that. l can only fight the enemy that's in front of me. lf it comes to what you say, all that happens is the enemy changes uniform and headquarters. l'll worry about it when it happens.
...............
Rather you than me going to Wales ... can't stand the place!
"Rather you than me going to Wales ... can't stand the place!"
SBC has fond memories of the place and even lost his cherry there many decades ago.
Wales will always be for him memories of Brown Rice, heroin and Trivial Pursuit....well it WAS the 80's!
Other than that its basically Norfolk with added mountains and extra sheep shagging.
What's wrong with Wales?
I have no connection...just asking....
They can't get the bloggers as long as their hosting is out of country. Foreign nationals not living in the UK are especially immune.
The US Feral Government couldn't shut down wikileaks. What can the mice of the UK toadies do, make a really smelly fart?
In the worst case, you guys that actually live in the UK might have to move out of their physical reach. I understand that there are some holiday homes for sale in Spain and Portugal, cheap ;)
PS. As I stated before, my wife and I have placed the entire UK on the banned travel list. Croatia or Macedon would be a more interesting holiday, sans the brain-damage.
Oops. I accidentally put this in the comments for the previous post. So hear it is again, copied and pasted. Warts and all. Sorry. Except I've added to my titles.
Hear hear. the (I won't say "our") politicains these days haven't done an honest day's work in their lives. They come out of university having completed modules like "brownnosing", "blagging", and "expenses fiddling" (or so it seems) and get a non-job in the meeja or as a political aide until they can find some where to stand for election.
They're so far up the medias arses they could snort their cocain for them.
In his splendid little book "Up the Organisation" Robert Townsend said that the best boss to work for was one that had made enough of his own money that he could walk out of the door when pushed too hard in the wrong direction by *his* bosses.
Onee of the problems with this country is that too many politicians with too little talent are getting paid too much. They won't resign because they couldn't get a job stacking shelves at Tesco. Apart from those who can get "consultancy" jobs with big business. And because they have "little black books." Lets's see where those who resign go.
This might seem like heresy to some but I see a case for having in the Cabinet people who have made something of their lives outside politics, even if they weren't elected. At least they could fuck off when they were pushed in the wrong direction and hopefully wouldn't be coy about giving the real reason why.
Furthermore, if I were Speaker of the House of Commons and heard a member of the Government spouting a load of irrelevent shite to a perfectly valid question I would boot them out for disrespect until they were prepared to answer the question properly. I would allow the same question to be asked every single week to successive flunkeys until there was no fucker left on the government benches or until every single one of them apologised and answered the question properly. Oh, and stop their expenses as well.
Ah, that's better.
Sorry about the rant and probable disjointedness but I had to get it off my chest.
Love and kisses,
hangemall
agreed, the level of surveillance under labour was excrutiating for unaligned bloggers, and hacking into voicemails was the least of it - we suffered, and still suffer, 24-hour eavesdropping via mobile phones, gsm-tracking, fire-walling (systematic social segregation aimed at preventing the wider public from learning the sordid truth), installation of micro-spycams in private premises, computer hacking and monitoring, together with psychological intimidation. politicians, of all colours, do not genuinely wish to disclose the true-sordid extent of criminal gangster-tapping employed by the british media, because the politicians are themselves the most avid consumers of the hot gossip.
"reporters with scruples and ethics" - I think these are known as "unemployed journalists"
"No, it's not nice. The world is not a nice place. It's full of people who could give Gollum lessons in sneaking. Learn to deal with it."
That's basically the bottom line. All our thoughts and actions must be predicated on that fundamental truth.
A sad fact for those of us who in our younger, more innocent years were idealists but who have, over the decades, become hardened cynics.
"I used to be a socialist. But then I got mugged by reality..."
21:52
thanks, nisakiman, your pessimism puts yet another psychological plank in the politically painted-and-purchased propaganda fence which prevents the proletariat from gaining access to the facts. leaving aside the perves, snooping is essentially a commercial activity paid-for by a press in the pocket of the powerbrokers, such as moi, and our pals in parliament - but, alas, there will always be some nosey little buggers who do it for the personal satisfaction of 'knowing the score', and we must not forget that both they, and the truths they collect like trite transitory train-numbers, do exist in some direfully dank dunny-hole somewhere.
leg-iron's also depressingly deluded - the mainstream media has always been bought-out by the red-and-blue bully-barons, who, incidentally, had the blog-scene business disinfected, wrapped-up and pre-disposed long ago, hence the high-level of surveillance. just ask guido fawkes.
ps:
i'm deeply disturbed by the number of ostensibly red-blooded heterosexual males hanging-around who appear to enjoy making me the object of their voyeurism.
the murdoch scandal is murky beyond the understanding of mere mortals such as ourselves - the only certainty being that whichever the group of politicians, hackers and criminals behind bringing down the right-wing press and their government, it is expectantly lining itself up to take over exactly where the former cabal left off.
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