If ever proof were needed that our political system is a pretend democracy, the abysmal performance of today’s select committees should remove any doubt. The lack of any tenacious or forensic questioning on just what people knew and just when they knew it, was startling. Rebecca Brooks apparently very seldom visited the paper she edited and had no idea what happened there. Nobody had any idea why they might be meeting the legal costs of assorted criminals. Nobody asked Brooks straight out exactly how much she knew about payments to coppers.
Most sycophantic of all was Louise Mensch, in her helpful attempts to ask questions revealing that all the News of the World did was the same as the rest of Fleet Street, and it had some good effects, like combating paedophiles. I lost count of mentions of Sara’s Law and paedophiles – no mention of the mob they incited to attack a paediatrician, though. These MPs are so used to asking servile questions at Prime Minister’s Question Time, they don’t seem to realise how they look to the rest of us.
If anybody had any doubt that most MP’s, News International and the top people at the Met are all part of the same corrupt governing political class, the scales must surely have dropped from the eyes now. What a pathetic bunch of parasites.
Sorry if I imagined this, but didn’t Murdoch Sr start talking about a payment to Max Clifford later on in the testimony before being urgently hushed up by his son not THAT long after saying the name Clifford meant absolutely nothing to him earlier on?
Of course I may be hallucinating like Louise Mensch who seemed to think that the Murdochs and then Brooks both needed an ally in the committee.
Bravo to Tom Watson for walking out
Thought it would be a waste of time so I spent the afternoon enjoying watching the Tour de France.
I seem to remember that the committee last week were talking about “having been misled by News International” at the last hearing, so am surprised that they didn’t land better blows today. I watched snippets of live feed this afternoon but was at work, so sadly could not watch it all.
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What items in particular were NI said to have misled Parliament about?
Maybe I was expecting too much but it seemed like a terrible damn squib to me. I was nodding off when the episode with the paper plate + shaving foam happened, and I nearly jumped out of my skin. Now I fear that Vronsky may be right in what he said, on a previous thread …
*damp* squib
It is akin to an out of control rollercoaster with no brakes. Have some sympathy with a few of them though Craig. No doubt there is blackmail happening to some. For others, they have become embedded in the system and genuinely fear speaking out or doing something out of turn. With good reason too I might add, as we all surely know. When you have a great number of drones towards the top of a corrupt system, all turning a blind eye and believing that they – as insignificant individuals – can do nothing to change it, then the system is completely screwed. That’s is the depressing situation we have arrived at. Of course, there are a number of self-serving sadists in there too, but let’s not lump them all together. Anyhow, yes, our ‘democracy’ is largely a sham.
And didn’t someone high up in the security services not so long ago state that ‘they were out of control’ and that ‘some elements were a law unto themselves’? My memory is hazy, but i’m sure I read that somewhere.
Brooks, with her campaign of hysteria against “pedos” that still echoes throughout the country, didn’t have the good effect of “combating pedophiles” in the slightest, in fact it did the opposite. It did drive the known ones underground, so they no longer received treatment, and the authorities couldn’t keep tabs on them. The police themselves called it reckless, so it must have been extremely irresponsible. They pleaded with NI to stop this campaign, because it did exactly as predicted – caused vigilantism, made all the known “pedos” disappear, and caused disastrous results with mistaken identities. Not to mention the mob of slack-jawed halfwits chasing out a paediatrician who’d put up a brass plate to that effect, which happened a fair bit apparently. What else would you expect from Sun/NOTW readers?
Indeed a ‘damp squid’ Murdoch Snr rejected any personal involvement claiming the NOTW was less than 1% of the business! Hmmm without small fish you end up with dead sharks. Brooks on her knees protecting her assets for future use – Murdick Snr one sentence, “this is the most humble day of my life” meanwhile the proceedings are halted by Mr Plod rushing across ‘the set’ in an attempt to disrupt the plot – all very farcical.
Our political system, call it what you will, is currently configured so that professional liars, borderline sociopaths, and corrupt individuals… rise almost without effort to positions of power… like second-rate actors in bad provincial play.
This form of corruption, in the sense of rotting away, has now become the main characteristic of our entire way of life and culture, politics is only part of the decay we see all around us. Why is this happening? What’s wrong with our culture, our civilization?
It’s a big subject, but basically our civilization has become truly decadent as it begins to fall apart. Being dishonest has become a qualification for public life, not a disqualification! This is a characteristic of an empire, or culture, that is in terminal decline.
The ruling elite begins to actually believe in their own propaganda, or mythologies, and this is disasterous; but it’s also a comfort and an attempt to escape from the harsh reality of decay and collapse.
What strikes one about the Murdochs, Brooks, the coppers, and many of the secondary characters in this grotesque farce is that they are all second rate minds, though incredibly ambitious, arrogant, powerful, and not least extremely greedy.
‘What strikes one about the Murdochs, Brooks, the coppers, and many of the secondary characters in this grotesque farce is that they are all second rate minds, though incredibly ambitious, arrogant, powerful, and not least extremely greedy.’
You have nailed it writeon. And I would say the same of the primary characters, whoever they maye be. They are no more than dumb gangsters or street corner punks. Just another stupid flock of sheep. I once said on this blog that we live in a plutopaedomofosociopathocracy and I stand by it 100%. In short, a manipulatocracy.
[OFF TOPIC]
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“Three battle ships and seven commando boats of different sizes and types were scrambled yesterday to intercept a small bucket named Dignite–Al-Karame (Respect), three nautical miles from the shore.
“At least 150 soldiers were sent to sea early morning in order to carry out the mission: to prevent ten citizens of the “Freedom Flotilla,” alongside three crewmen and three journalists, from reaching the port of Gaza …”
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/flotilla-diary-sailing-on-a-bucket-surrounded-by-commandos-1.374100
i couldnt believe my ears when yvonne ridley on presstv claimed that brooks was a very nice person indeed and is free of any wrongdoing – you see she’s not that kind of person. you what??
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everyone should know by now that these committees are always overly hyped up and always end up as an anticlimax which usually defuses the public hysteria / interest in the issue.
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quite clear from collective amnesia we have moved to collective not me guv it was the teaboy ..
“Democratic”
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This word does not exist in any physical form anywhere in the world, never has in the governance of mankind at anytime in the history of mankind, illusion is a word that exist in physical form, has done since the dawn of mankind.
Ukanian Creed, now apparently circulating among growing legions of the unfaithful:
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“I believe in one Rupe, maker of trash upon earth, his only son James, who knew nothing about anything, suffered under Vaz, was crucified by the Guardian, but rose again with the Sun on Sunday, to reigneth with Clarkson over in Chippy, for thine is the back door, the phone-tap and cheque book. For ever and ever. Ad nauseam.”
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Dept of Homeland Security said to have been warned by at least one post-modern cult watcher at KCL that this antinomian heresy could spread to New World.
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What a depressing performance by the team wearing the colours of the people’s representatives. The Culture, Media and Sports Committee were lamentably unfit for the contest (with an honourable exception for Tom Watson). So many aimless kicks upfield (silly questions that invited the answer “No”), so many full tosses from incompetent tossers, so many wide fairways missed, such flat-footed movement around the ring, such lack of coordination, absence of subtlety, no aggression, lack of leadership.
This unprofessional spinelessness had the unfortunate consequance of making the Murdoch team appear genuinely concerned to atone for the excesses of their underlings. (“Ah, Mr Murdoch/ Mr Murdoch/ Ms Brooks – so your motto is that the buck stops outside your firmly closed door”; “How creative a media mogul you are, taking complacent solace from your ignorance.”) Why did no-one indulge in the sledging that was obviously needed to rouse Rupert from his fake torpor? Successive questions should have had the rhetorical coda – “Is this the action/ inaction of a fit and proper person to run anything that matters?”
Only paper to reproduce faithfully Matthew Freud’s cynical pre-cooked front page headline word-for-word? The Sun.
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With that exception, PieCo killer not only succeeded scoring direct hit with foam flan, but also dislodged keystone of News Corpse PR strategy:
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Most front pages instead run a version of one of the most memorable headlines ever — when in the early 70s the obese 14-year-old Guru Maharaji was ‘pie-killed’ in Detroit. That hit, unlike yesterday’s on Mr McGoo, was caught by the cameras. The resulting Detroit Free Press splash:
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BOY GOD HUMBLE IN FACE OF PIE
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Just hope, for his sake, Mr Marbles doesn’t have a famous rock star for a stepfather.
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Why on earth were Murdoch and his sun allowed to sit together, giving each other ‘moral’ support, when surely they should have been interviewed seperately?
That is one succinct, lucid, and accurate analysis of what passes for parliamentary oversight in this sham democracy of ours. Thank you.
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It needs saying where it will be seen and read by those with good reason to be worried about masses of people experiencing similar Eureka moments – in sync.
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The sheer trusting dream-like gullibility of the inhabitants of these islands has long been a source of wonder to me. Let’s hope this assists in relieving them of their illusions.
If only someone like Michael Mansfield could have been made an honoray MP for the occasion!
When Rupert Murdoch leant forward and assured the committee (to appreciative laughter) that if only Britain were like Singapore, where MPs are paid a million dollars a year, our MPs wouldn’t need to have stooped to fiddling their expenses, I would have liked to ask him:
“So, how much do you think a nurse should be paid, Mr Murdoch?
“And how much do you think a policeman should be paid?”
Iain, of course, it was clear to all that they were simply part of the fabric of collusion. Everyone I’ve spoken to seems to agree that this was a deliberate farce.