Missing Milly Dowler's voicemail "hacked by News of the World"

[laptop]

Glad that was screen grabbed when it was, headline now "MP's split over "Murdoch unfit" verdict.

Subeditor is now "set to run whelk stall" but has a warm glow to keep them going

 

[stavros]

The 'fit and proper' test is shite anyway and Ofcom don't have a bollock between them. If they did, they wouldn't have let Britain's premier pornographer Richard 'Dirty' Desmond buy Channel 5 two years ago.

 

[goldenecitrone]

What we've all known for years, finally makes it into the newspapers. Better late than never I suppose.

 

[alfajobrob]

It just keep's on giving and giving...should have happened 30 years ago though.

 

[goldenecitrone]

Good to see the Tories are still backing Rupert, the grovelling little shits.

 

[claphamboy]

The 'fit and proper' test is shite anyway and Ofcom don't have a bollock between them. If they did, they wouldn't have let Britain's premier pornographer Richard 'Dirty' Desmond buy Channel 5 two years ago.

I would normally agree with that, another example is OFCOM allowing Global Radio to virtually kill off dozens of profitable local radio stations and replace with the Heart & Capital brands, networked most of the time from London.

However, OFCOM has proved several times that when it comes to dealing with Murdoch/News Int/BskyB they somehow manage to find their balls.

 

[London_Calling]

The full scores on the door:

Wilful blindness - 7 for, 3 against
‘News International and its parent company News Corporation exhibited wilful blindness for which the companies’ directors – including Rupert Murdoch and James Murdoch – should ultimately be prepared to take responsibility’

Unfit person - 6 for, 4 against
‘Rupert Murdoch. . . turned a blind eye and exhibited wilful blindness to what was going on in his companies. . . We conclude that Rupert Murdoch (below) is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company’

Lack of curiosity - 9 for,1 against
‘We have been told that . . . it was as late as December 2010 that James Murdoch (below) – and Rupert Murdoch – realised that the one “rogue reporter” line was untrue. This, we consider to be simply astonishing’

And:

Old bastard attacked by useless shower of piss

My sentiment exactly:
http://www.thedailymash.co.uk/news/...acked-by-useless-shower-of-piss-201205025183/

Finally:

News Corp shares closed up 0.9 per cent at $19.79.

 

[Balbi]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/02/leveson-phone-hacking-inquiry

I see the cost thing, and obviously Hunt can still be screwed by Part 1 - but the 'move along, nothing to see here' approach won't lend transparency.

 

[Balbi]

 

[sleaterkinney]

Cameron now

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/may/02/david-cameron-bskyb-news-corp

A senior aide to David Cameron discussed Rupert Murdoch's takeover bid for BSkyB with a News Corporation lobbyist at a Downing Street meeting, the Guardian has learned.

 

[DexterTCN]

You're not suggesting Cameron is fibbing about it? You're not saying it's troubling that he goes horse-riding with Rebecca, has Murdoch up the back door when he was elected, had Coulson as his Communications Direcor?

It's coincidence.

 

[DexterTCN]

Sorry, I was replying to a statement Dave has not even made yet, that it was all above board. heh

 

[sleaterkinney]

You're not suggesting Cameron is fibbing about it? You're not saying it's troubling that he goes horse-riding with Rebecca, has Murdoch up the back door when he was elected, had Coulson as his Communications Direcor?

It's coincidence.

I love this paragraph at the end

The Downing Street denied Number 10 "could have been feeding information to DCMS" about the what to do on the deal because of the Chinese wall and because "nobody in Number 10 was informed [about the deal]".

Oh. That's believable.

 

[DexterTCN]

I was actually going to quote that.

( partly for the grammar)

 

[gosub]

If there was a Chinese wall then there's a a set of written rules.. Rules I'd guess Osborne breached due to his chats on the subject with murdoch jnr

 

[DexterTCN]

When did they start saying chinese wall instead of firewall btw?

 

[ymu]

US Senate (committee on commerce, science and transportation) takes its first official steps:

In his letter to Leveson, Rockefeller asks whether some of the more than 5,000 potential victims of phone hacking by the now-defunct News of the World may have been American. "I am concerned about the possibility that some of these undisclosed victims are US citizens, and the possibility that telephone networks under the jurisdiction of US laws were used to intercept their voicemail messages."

He adds that he wants to know whether any News Corp business had "used hacking, bribing, or other similar tactics when operating in the US".

In a scathing attack on the Murdoch company, Rockefeller writes: "In a democratic society, members of the media have the freedom to aggressively probe their government's activities and expose wrongdoing. But, like all other citizens, they also have a duty to obey the law.

"Evidence that is already in the public record clearly shows that for many years, News International had a widespread, institutional disregard for these laws."

Jolly good.

 

[ymu]

When did they start saying chinese wall instead of firewall btw?

I don't think they're being used interchangeably, are they? The media has talked a lot about firewalls to protect Cameron et al - chucking some people to the wolves (Coulson) and keeping others in place (Hunt). Chinese walls are based on the idea that a company or organisation can engage in a blatant conflict of interest by simply stating that people working on opposite sides of the same deal won't talk to each other about it (honest guv).

 

[ymu]

Louise Mensch is lying toerag shock!

A Conservative member on the committee, Louise Mensch, criticised Labour colleagues for inserting the incendiary sentence, saying the committee had "not for one moment" discussed it before the final vote on Monday, the day before the report was published.

But the Guardian has seen a copy of papers circulated to committee members on 20 March that first set out the Labour MP Tom Watson's amendment, including the conclusion that Murdoch was "not a fit and proper person to have the stewardship of a major international company".

Mensch and the Labour committee member Paul Farrelly have confirmed that the papers were discussed at a meeting of the committee on 27 March. When the MPs arrived at Watson's amendment, the committee chair, John Whittingdale, announced that it would be too controversial to get a consensus agreement and should not be discussed until the final meeting on 30 April, when disputed amendments would be put to the vote.

...

Later Farrelly stood by his account, suggesting Mensch's version of events was correct in fact but conveyed a misleading impression. "I don't want to get drawn into personal arguments, as they detract from the strong corporate conclusions, including 'wilful blindness' at the organisation," said Farrelly. "The semantics of what was meant by 'not discussed until Monday' are all very well. But any implication that this was a last-minute bolt-from the blue from Tom is completely wrong."

The subject was implicitly discussed throughout the committee's long inquiry, Sanders said: "In a sense it ran through the whole inquiry – whether it was written down in those terms [or not]."

 

[ymu]

Superb.

 

[butchersapron]

Watson and Bagshawe have had a twitter spat this morning during which the former pretty much accused the latter of passing on the committees private discussions to James Murdoch.

 

[killer b]

this is going to end badly for someone isn't it?

 

[Santino]

Some kind of arrest made this morning.

 

[laptop]

Some kind of arrest made this morning.

"Former police officer", over corrupt payments (Elveden): BBC

 

[laptop]

Bloomberg business news take on Select Committee may not be unconnected with short-term share price movements:

Yesterday’s split among lawmakers on the U.K. Parliament’s Culture Committee over whether to criticize Rupert Murdoch highlighted again the closeness between News Corp. and Prime Minister David Cameron’s Tory party.
Conservative panel members insisted their refusal to support a finding in a report on phone hacking scandal that Murdoch was “not a fit person” to run News Corp. was based on a lack of evidence he knew anything about illegal activities within the company. The danger for Cameron, facing local elections tomorrow, is that voters may conclude that his party is siding with the media mogul.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...to-tories-highlighted-by-split-on-report.html

 

[London_Calling]

I may have suggested this once or twice before but....

tom_watson ‏ @tom_watson
The only way to resolve the @louisemensch allegations is publish the original draft of the report, all tabled amendments + list hospitality.

... what a complete shower that CMS Committee is.

 

[butchersapron]

this is going to end badly for someone isn't it?

News Corp was given private committee details, suggests Tom Watson

Watson, replying to Mensch during a Twitter spat following the Tory MP's appearance on BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday morning, said a letter sent by James Murdoch, News Corp deputy chief operating officer, "seemed uncannily to answer concerns raised in private discussions" by committee members.

 

[London_Calling]

Helpful article from Peter Oborne in The Telegraph. This titbit is worth repeating:

A fresh embarrassment concerns Rebekah Brooks, who providentially retained the text messages she received from the Prime Minister, which I’m told could exceed a dozen a day.

These may now be published, a horrible thought. Next year it is possible that some of Mr Cameron’s closest allies and friends, including Andy Coulson, the former Downing Street director of communications, will go on trial. Apart from anything else, these reminders of the Prime Minister’s poor judgment will reinforce the popular belief that he is arrogant, louche and only comfortable as a member of some elitist set.

Summary:

Here are the News International crowd: Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Peter Mandelson, David Miliband, David Blunkett, John Reid, Tessa Jowell, Michael Gove, George Osborne, William Hague. David Cameron, John Whittingdale and Jeremy Hunt (as well as Mr Hunt’s brainless sidekick, Ed Vaizey) should also be added to this list.

And here are the refuseniks: Vince Cable, Tom Watson, George Galloway, Iain Duncan Smith, Owen Paterson, Dominic Grieve, Ken Clarke. This is a much shorter list. My hunch is that their integrity has paid off and we are coming to the end of the Murdoch era, which was based around a cult of celebrity, collusion, criminality and deceit.

Something wonderful may be happening to British politics: the air at Westminster is becoming cleaner and fresher. Mr Miliband, always under-rated as Labour leader, has woken up to this defining story of our age much faster than Mr Cameron and his amoral strategists. That is why he has been able to convert the News International phone hacking and corruption scandal into Tory sleaze. The Conservatives need to wake up fast.

A good read:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukn...-Conservative-Party-sleaze-but-it-is-now.html

 

[Teaboy]

God I really hope this brings Cameron down, I've taken a personal dislike to him greater then any other British politician I can think of, even Blair and he's a fucking war criminal. Amazing really.

 

[magneze]

Can't happen soon enough.