Andy Coulson, the Met Police and Murdoch

[tbaldwin]

Are there any updates on this story? Looks like the Tories are going to keep him despite him being massivelly implicated in phone tapping.

 

[Pickman's model]

Are there any updates on this story? Looks like the Tories are going to keep him despite him being massivelly implicated in phone tapping.

you're not familiar with google then.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=co...lnt&sa=X&ei=BkyXTMWrFYeMswb9pLVk&ved=0CBYQpwU

 

[Streathamite]

Its actually Paddick and Chris Bryant who have instigated this action, with Coogan (and others) taking separate action against the NOTW - as is clear from the article. The presence of Bryant (who as I said above is one of the most odious of the New Labour creatures - as his voting record and cheerleading for the immensely wasteful Defence Training PFI scheme demonstrates) is questionable, especially as his claim is much weaker than Paddick's.

now John Prescott's getting in on this

 

[Santino]

Drip, drip...

A private investigator paid by journalists to illegally obtain information about celebrities and public figures has said he was a fall guy for the powerful newspaper groups he worked for. Steve Whittamore told Radio 4's PM programme that he had played "Oliver to the press's Fagin".

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/21/newspapers-fall-guy-steve-whittamore

 

[agricola]

Drip, drip...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep/21/newspapers-fall-guy-steve-whittamore

Whittamore is (or was) emphatically part of the wider problem, rather than just Coulson - as the report states the Mail and Mirror used him a lot more than the NOTW did, so one wonders whether this will ratchet up the pressure on Coulson at all.

God knows what he is whinging about though, anyone else who had directed as much corrupt activity as he is alleged to have done (and indeed was convicted of - he got access to the PNC via a CAD operator at Wandsworth) would be looking at a far more substantial prison sentence than the two years suspended sentence he in fact recieved.

 

[detective-boy]

God knows what he is whinging about though...

Whilst he undoubtedly got off ridiculously lightly, I got the impression that he was whinging about the fact that his paymasters (i.e. the journalists and media organisations that employed him to do what he did) didn't get prosecuted at all.

I must say I have some sympathy for that view. There used to be an old adage that the Courts treated handlers more severely than thieves on the basis that if there was no-one to receive something then the thief would have less incentive to steal it in the first place. That most definitely applies here - if the media didn't want the info. Whittamore et al wouldn't have been getting hold of it at all.

 

[Santino]

Might be given some fresh impetus by Dispatches tonight: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-58/episode-3

Nicely timed for the conference

 

[stethoscope]

Ta for the heads up on that Santino.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2010/oct/04/andy-coulson-news-of-the-world-phone-hacking

New phone-hacking witness speaks up

Another witness has come forward to claim that during his editorship of the News of the World, the Downing Street communications chief, Andy Coulson, knew about illegal phone-hacking by his staff.

An unidentified former executive will say on Channel 4's Dispatches programme tonight that Coulson often asked to hear what his reporters had discovered when intercepting voicemail messages.

According to today's Guardian report, the journalist's key allegation is this...

"Sometimes, they would say,'We've got a recording', and Andy would say, 'OK, bring it into my office and play it to me', or 'Bring me, email me a transcript of it.'"

The programme, which looks at the links between News International and the coalition government, is presented by Daily Telegraph columnist Peter Oborne, who joined the paper a couple of weeks ago after leaving the Daily Mail.

In a Mail article in July, Amoral spiv or true traditional Tory? Will the REAL Cameron please stand up, Oborne questioned Coulson's "sense of probity."

 

[agricola]

Might be given some fresh impetus by Dispatches tonight: http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/episode-guide/series-58/episode-3

Nicely timed for the conference

It is somewhat odd this. On the one hand, Coulson is clearly lying when he claims he had no idea of what was going on (given that he was the one authorising the spending on these types of things, he has resigned for it (or rather did after Goodman got nicked) and in any case the practice is endemic in Fleet Street as a whole). On the other hand, what Coulson is alleged to have done is about 1.1% as bad as what Campbell is known to have done in the same office (never mind what he actually did), as Peter Oborne well knows, and in any case occured prior to him working with the Tories.

 

[Dan U]

I assume Dispatches will be dismissed cos its an anonymous allegation

 

[Maurice Picarda]

And because it's mad Peter Oborne, last on telly for Dispatches complaining that Zionist lizards controlled the media and before that whining that the media were now controlling the lizards through a pervasive culture of spin.

 

[Proper Tidy]

Was shit. Dispatches is fucking gash.

 

[DexterTCN]

Didn't see it. Saw this in the grauniad about it:-

Dispatches raises an unresolved question over whether the officer who was in charge of the original investigation, the then assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, was himself a target of the News of the World.

When Channel Four asked him whether his name appeared anywhere in the evidence collected by his officers, he replied: "I have never been told whether my own telephone was hacked." Hayman now works for News International.

Nothing dodgy there, is there?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/03/phone-hacking-scandal-andy-coulson

 

[agricola]

And because it's mad Peter Oborne, last on telly for Dispatches complaining that Zionist lizards controlled the media and before that whining that the media were now controlling the lizards through a pervasive culture of spin.

Wrong on both counts, though hardly surprising given that its you who posted it.

 

[Maurice Picarda]

Wrong on both counts, though hardly surprising given that its you who posted it.

Oborne fronted the Dispatches on the pro-Israel lobby, yes? Prior to this, he wrote many books and articles about the culture of spin, no? So what are you disagreeing with? Or are you saying that he's a credible and universally respected figure?

 

[agricola]

Oborne fronted the Dispatches on the pro-Israel lobby, yes? Prior to this, he wrote many books and articles about the culture of spin, no? So what are you disagreeing with? Or are you saying that he's a credible and universally respected figure?

Now if you had said that you would have been a lot more correct than your first attempt. As it happens, in my opinion Oborne is a lot more credible than most in his field.

 

[trevhagl]

Fuck off dibble..they're (the police in cahoots with murdoch's lot) trying to keep people quiet. Halfwit.

I can tell when you're talking rubbish by the way...your posts look like a fucking appendice.

that programme last night, unlike the one on the unions , was brave and pro-democracy so respect!! It is frightening that Murdoch has not only New Labour bigwigs scared but even the old bill!

 

[stavros]

I just wish the Beeb would have the balls to analyse the Murdochian empire, given the shit they get from his "newspapers". A wider investigation into all the various owners of newspapers, Barclays, Harmsworth, Dirty Des, Lebedev, etc, would be welcome too.

 

[Santino]

The Dispatches programme is not available on 4OD or youtube.

 

[paolo]

I just wish the Beeb would have the balls to analyse the Murdochian empire, given the shit they get from his "newspapers". A wider investigation into all the various owners of newspapers, Barclays, Harmsworth, Dirty Des, Lebedev, etc, would be welcome too.

The Beeb are in a shitty position with respect to that. Now that the Murdochs have gained some currency to the idea that the Beeb are too big etc, it would look defensive and therefore 'prove' News International's position.

That's why it's very important that other media sources - e.g. C4 & The Graun in this case - continue to spotlight tangible issues with the Murdoch empire.

The Beeb hopefully won't be shrinking violets, but I doubt they'll lead the charge.

 

[stavros]

As I said, it's a wish.

 

[paolo]

As I said, it's a wish.

It would be my wish too. My frustrations were at the situation, not your post.

 

[stavros]

A more realistic wish, although unlikely with the Tories in power, would be to replace the toothless waste of space that is the Press Complaints Commission with an independent body with some balls to actually punish the outright lies which are so much a feature of our print press.

 

[teqniq]

A more realistic wish, although unlikely with the Tories in power, would be to replace the toothless waste of space that is the Press Complaints Commission

The Press Complaints Commission??? AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAHAHAHA. What are they actually for?

 

[detective-boy]

A more realistic wish, although unlikely with the Tories in power, would be to replace the toothless waste of space that is the Press Complaints Commission with an independent body with some balls to actually punish the outright lies which are so much a feature of our print press.

That is the absolute opposite of what they are likely to do, being clearly believers in the power and effectiveness of self-regulation (e.g. Bin Audit Commission, bring in audit by private sector companies paid for by the public body being audited. Bin Security Industry Authority, bring in self-regulation by organised crime - sorry, the security companies themselves...)

 

[stavros]

You've got to question a regulatory body which has Paul "Vagina Monologues" Dacre sitting on it, the editor of the most complained-about paper in the country.

 

[detective-boy]

Just got chance to watch the Despatches programme. No real surprises in terms of content ... but chilling confirmation for the point I have made a number of times previously about the media being able to harass and break anyone they like and, through veiled (or otherwise) threats to do so, preventing proper oversight. As I have previously said, the general fear that the media will slaughter you if you are in a "public" position and you upset them in some way prevents good people taking up those "public" positions in the first place as (like me) they know that their lives would not withstand the scrutiny that the media would give them, not because of any history of criminal or other wrongdoing, nor even of hyposcrisy, but simply of salaciousness and "morality" (bearing in mind that any sort of "kinky" sex, any sort of affair or dalliance or even association with a friend or relative who has a chequered history is sufficient for a front page splash, complete with misleading headline). This is bad enough (as it mitigates against us getting the best taking roles in public life) but, based on this programme it is even worse.

I had assumed that intelligent people would have done as I have done and self-assessed their situation before taking up public roles. But it appears there are people who have either been so naive not to have seen this issue coming or who have hoped it will never happen to them and who have taken up public roles and who are now being cowed by the fear from doing their duty. The Plaid Cymru MP bottled it. John Whittingdale MP, Chair of the relevant committee taking evidence bottled it. Perhaps even senior police officers bottled it. This is hugely damaging to our democracy.

The media are way, way, way too big for their boots in the UK. They are a cancer at the heart of our democracy and Murdoch is the most malignant part of that cancer. It may be too late to address the issue now. It will certainly be too late if we do not do so soon.

Depressing shit ...

 

[Dan U]

Gruniad asked for evidence by the Met

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/13/metropolitan-police-guardian-phone-hacking

The Metropolitan police have written to the Guardian asking for any new material the paper holds about phone hacking at the News of the World.

The request follows a Channel 4 Dispatches documentary last week that contained further evidence that the practice was widespread at the tabloid paper.

.....
Detective Superintendent Dean Haydon, who is leading the Met's review of the phone-hacking case, has written to the Guardian's editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, asking for any new material that may have come to light.

In his reply, Rusbridger points out that police already have access to evidence that would help with their inquiry, including transcripts of voicemail messages that were intercepted by News of the World employees from a mobile phone belonging to the PFA chief executive, Gordon Taylor.

"[The Guardian journalist] Nick Davies was able to reveal incontrovertible evidence of the involvement in phone hacking of other NoW reporters and executives: the material is sitting in your own files, and was obtained by lawyers acting for Gordon Taylor," Rusbridger wrote.

....
...
"The fact that three separate news organisations have been able to uncover this story must give you hope that you, too, could got to the bottom of it without too much trouble," Rusbridger told Haydon.

Letter is on the link, its quite amusing

 

[ymu]

That's very slow off the mark, eh?

 

[Dan U]

more diversions from dibble imo