Andy Coulson, the Met Police and Murdoch

[Santino]

Don't make me come up there, you two.

 

[ferrelhadley]

The Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulson is under renewed pressure as it was announced that MPs will hold an emergency Commons debate about newspaper phone hacking tomorrow.

As the Speaker, John Bercow, said he would grant a debate on phone hacking, Clegg refused to say whether he believed Coulson's insistence that he did not know about the illegal practices that took place when he was editor of the News of the World.

Story keeps bubbling away.

 

[Streathamite]

looking at how qualified and evasive clegg's and cameron's support for him was, I'd be shitting bricks right now, were I coulson.

 

[Santino]

Clegg doesn't know what 'refutes' means either.

 

[butchersapron]

Long list of them.

 

[Teaboy]

looking at how qualified and evasive clegg's and cameron's support for him was, I'd be shitting bricks right now, were I coulson.

They know full well (as does everyone else on the planet) that there is no way Coulson didnt know. However they are not sure how far this story is going to go, better hedge their bets at this time.

Coulson is a dead man walking, even if he survives this he'll be quietly ditched later.

 

[agricola]

I agree with DB on this about the Police being in a no-win situation here, not only for the reasons he states but because (as Nick Davies well knows given that he filled Flat Earth News with evidence proving it) this NOTW story is the tip of the iceberg - they (Fleet Street) are all at it (or if not this, one of the other dark arts), the cost of any comprehensive investigation (both in terms of the financial cost, the amount of officers and time that would have to be devoted to it and the press heat it would draw) into this state of affairs would be much greater than any benefit the police would get. Certainly the political backing that such an investigation would need to be a success would evaporate quickly, if indeed it was ever present in the first place.

 

[Gingerman]

This has the potential to be a huge scandal. The met look like they've let the NOTW get away with murder, the NOTW look out of control, and The tories look like their sp-indoctorindoctor's a crook.
Oh goody!

Could be a massive win win situation,Oh goody indeed ,as one insider at the NoTW said even the office cat knew what was going on, Coulson really insulting our intelligence if as editor hes claiming he knew fuck all about it

 

[Gingerman]

I'm impressed to see Labour getting so into it. You know, now they're in opposition.

They dont have to keep Uncle Rupe sweet atm,not until they are in Gov again

 

[kyser_soze]

Coulson's making an attempt for most implausible deniability possible. As if the sub eds & journos would've kept the whole thing secret from him to protect him so he could reasonably say 'I didn't know shit all guv'.

The biggest issue is members of the Met (and other police forces) who take money from the press in return for information, and how someone in the met has clearly moved to prevent their scam coming out.

 

[Santino]

Can anyone think of a situation where quite so many people have been 100% sure that someone was guilty of something?

 

[Teaboy]

Coulson's making an attempt for most implausible deniability possible. As if the sub eds & journos would've kept the whole thing secret from him to protect him so he could reasonably say 'I didn't know shit all guv'.

He's got some way to go to top Piers Moron's effort over the city slickers crap, and Moron got away with that one so theres hope for Coulson yet.

 

[ferrelhadley]

The private investigator jailed in the News of the World phone tapping scandal, Glenn Mulcaire, planned to write a book which would allege that the hacking of voicemails took place with the knowledge of senior staff.

A detailed synopsis of the memoirs, seen by The Independent, reveals that Mulcaire was prepared to implicate others at the newspaper by stating that, as well as taking instructions from the royal correspondent Clive Goodman, he was also routinely commissioned by executives.

The book, provisionally titled Hear to Here: The Inside Story of the Royal Household Tapes and The Murky World of the Media, was never published because Mulcaire signed an £80,000 confidentiality agreement with the News of the World after he sued for wrongful dismissal following his conviction. But Mulcaire, who was was paid more than £2,000 a week by the newspaper, did write a five-page synopsis with a would-be author. Due to the gagging order, the document is the only time Mulcaire has explained his actions in his own words.

The book never published.

 

[ymu]

Interesting piece: The News of the World's special relationship with the police

The introduction of this new approach had a polarising effect. On the one hand the old school detectives brought up in the corrupt culture simply retrenched and refused to co-operate. In their eyes they had lost their power – their ability to manipulate the press. On the other hand a new generation of officers, emboldened by the support of their boss, seized the opportunity to develop closers ties with the press and in the process many of them became media stars in their own right.

Gradually, over the years, those two positions have changed. The numbers of policemen who will do anything to see their name up in lights have dwindled and the hard men have gained the upper hand. They will pay lip service to the need for openness in the interests of good public relations but in reality they are intent on merely passing on snippets of information to news-hungry hacks only when it suits their own purposes.

Throughout all this the News of the World has become something of a special case. In the upper echelons of Scotland Yard there is a recognition that, as the biggest-selling Sunday newspaper in the world, the paper wields enormous power and influence over a large number of readers. There is genuine admiration for the way in which the newspaper has successfully conducted undercover operations which have brought major criminals to book over the years. As a result there is undoubtedly a cosy relationship between the yard and all of Rupert Murdoch's News International titles. Several retired commissioners and senior officers have found space as columnists or regular writers in the Sun and the News of the World.

 

[Dan U]

Can anyone think of a situation where quite so many people have been 100% sure that someone was guilty of something?

Gary Glitter and those kids

 

[agricola]

Coulson's making an attempt for most implausible deniability possible. As if the sub eds & journos would've kept the whole thing secret from him to protect him so he could reasonably say 'I didn't know shit all guv'.

The biggest issue is members of the Met (and other police forces) who take money from the press in return for information, and how someone in the met has clearly moved to prevent their scam coming out.

Not really - Yates himself acknowledged that such incidents have gone on, the problem is that the punishment for such corrupt officers and staff for being bribed by the press is usually very light indeed (for instance, Motorman saw a CAD operator and a corrupt former detective get conditional discharges despite corruptly accessing Police and other records on a huge scale).

The scandal here is not Coulson, and it will not be fixed by sacking him and then everything going back to normal.

 

[Streathamite]

They know full well (as does everyone else on the planet) that there is no way Coulson didnt know. However they are not sure how far this story is going to go, better hedge their bets at this time.

Coulson is a dead man walking, even if he survives this he'll be quietly ditched later.

indeed, I reckon someone in Downing St is preparing a facesaving resignation letter for him right now. how sad...

 

[Barking_Mad]

Spin Doctors can't 'become the story', as soon as they do they have to go for the grubby party's own good...

 

[laptop]

If I was John Yates ... I would be tempted to re-open the enquiry and now, in view of the specific new allegations about other reporters, senior management, etc. change it's parameters to include the whole of the NotW...

If I were John Yates, I would about now be being instructed to be ready to re-open it...

The big downside of this (apart from the cost!) would be that it would take for ever to complete and, politically, that would be portrayed as "kicking it into the long grass" ...

And this is why. As pointed out somewhere in the Guardian this morning, a re-opened police inquiry would put off a Parliamentary inquiry (particularly a Committee on Standards and Priviliges inquiry, which has and may use powers to subpoena) for a very long time.

 

[ferrelhadley]

Another new witness.

A senior former News of the World journalist goes public to corroborate claims that phone hacking and other illegal reporting techniques were rife at the tabloid while the prime minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, was deputy editor and then editor of the paper.

Paul McMullan, a former features executive and then member of the newspaper's investigations team, says that he personally commissioned private investigators to commit several hundred acts which could be regarded as unlawful, that the use of illegal techniques was no secret at the paper and that senior editors, including Coulson, were aware that this was going on.

McMullan, who is now landlord of the Castle pub in Dover, was deputy features editor when Coulson arrived at the paper as deputy editor in 2000 and says he [McMullan] spoke regularly to Steve Whittamore, the Hampshire private investigator who ran a network which specialised in selling confidential information to newspapers from phone companies and government databases among other services.

He believes Coulson was right to allow his reporters to invade privacy in order to nail wrongdoers: "Investigative journalism is a noble profession but we have to do ignoble things." He says that at the time, reporters did not believe it was illegal to hack voicemail and were quite open about it. "Most reporters did it themselves, sitting at their desk. It was something that people would do when they were bored sitting outside somebody's house. I don't think at the time senior editors at the paper thought it was an issue. Everybody was doing it.

Oh fuck toast.

"Even if it was just a car crash or a house fire on a Saturday, they'd call Glenn, and he'd come back with ex-directory phone numbers, the BT list of friends and family and their addresses, lists of numbers called from their mobile phones. This was just commonplace. He was hacking masses of phones. We reckoned David Beckham had 13 different sim cards, and Glenn could hack every one of them. How could senior editors not know that they are spending £2,000 a week on this guy and using him on just about every story that goes into the paper?"

Guardian

 

[ferrelhadley]

No more pissing about with whether it is a intercept if they have already listened to the message we have allegation of violation of the data protection act for a start.

 

[ferrelhadley]

And amist all the fuss let us not forget that Andy Hayman took a paid work from News International after his exemplary handling of this case in 07.

 

[laptop]

No more pissing about with whether it is a intercept if they have already listened to the message we have allegation of violation of the data protection act for a start.

Not to say the Computer Misuse Act, which is rather widely drawn.

Too tired to re-read it, but I seem to recall that if I find your password taped to the underside of your monitor, using it is arguably an offence against that Act.

And mobile phones are computers...

 

[FridgeMagnet]

No more pissing about with whether it is a intercept if they have already listened to the message we have allegation of violation of the data protection act for a start.

It *is* completely irrelevant in ethical terms. If the law is fucked up enough to try to excuse it on some stupid basis like that, the law is utterly broken.

 

[ferrelhadley]

*Wonders if anyone was fool enough to violate the official secrets act?*

 

[laptop]

*Wonders if anyone was fool enough to violate the official secrets act?*

To know we'd need the list of tappees.

Especially the secret names thereon

 

[MikeMcc]

This has the potential to be a huge scandal. The met look like they've let the NOTW get away with murder, the NOTW look out of control, and The tories look like their sp-indoctor's a crook.
Oh goody!

Aye, but the previous government were also quite happy to keep it quiet when it origonally appeared and was convienient. Me-thinks that a certain Mr Murdoch has been told (politely) to fuck off by the new government.

 

[detective-boy]

... and the press heat it would draw...

What is actually quite interesting here is to observe the print media's approach to this. The tabloids know they are all at it and if a major investigation, with widely set parameters, there will be dozens of reporters, editors, etc. nicked (along with the dodgy middlemen, private detectives, ex-cops and even some serving ones probably) and it will royally fuck tabloid end of Fleet Street. But they are all so corrupt and backstabbing anyway, there's loads of ex-reporters out there with an axe to grind and who couldn't give a fuck other than to settle old scores. The "quality" end of Fleet Street is egging the police on towards a full investigation (though some of them would undoubtedly be caught up to some extent too), along with the broadcast media.

But it is funny to watch the tabloids trying to be outraged at the "lack of investigation" and hinting the this is because the police are "corrupt" when, in fact, the last thing they actually want is a proper investigation ...

 

[ymu]

Aye, but the previous government were also quite happy to keep it quiet when it origonally appeared and was convienient. Me-thinks that a certain Mr Murdoch has been told (politely) to fuck off by the new government.

The Tories tell Murdoch to fuck off? Yeah, right.

This has blown up again because of a report in the NYT. No sign at all that the Tories are gunning for Murdoch, nor any likelihood that they will.

 

[detective-boy]

If the law is fucked up enough to try to excuse it on some stupid basis like that, the law is utterly broken.

If what actually happened doesn't actually amount to an offence it is hardly "some stupid basis", is it ...