Like A Circle in A Circle, Like A Wheel Within A Wheel 88

 in Uncategorized by

Hat-tip to Mary for pointing me in the right direction.

For those of us who experienced a surge of naive hope that News International have been referred to Ofcom for a ruling on the “Fit and Proper Persons” test, here is a bucket of cold water. Rather than being disinterested public servants, the Board of Ofcom represent the political and financial establishments which are so irreversibly penetrated by the spores of News International. Many of them hold directorships of companies – like banks and insurance companies – which have a direct interest in seeing no further plunge in News Corp/News International share price. They are also beneficiaries of the policies Murdoch has championed – private equity firms and privatised utilities, for example.

Bluntly, there is no chance that a body of which the Chairman, Colette Bowe, is a Director of Morgan Stanley and of Electra Private Equity is going to pull the rug on News Corp.

Here is but a selection of some of the Directorships held by Ofcom board members:

Morgan Stanley
Electra Private Equity
Thames Water
Axa
Betfair Group
JJB Sports
Pace Plc – supplier of set top boxes to Murdoch’s Sky
Nujira Ltd – defence contractors to US military
Standard Life

That is just a selection. In addition, the Chairman is a director of the Wincott Foundation, a “charity” whose purpose is to spread the far right economic doctrines of Milton Friedman in Eastern Europe – to the benefit, ultimate if incidental, of Morgan Stanley and Electra Private Equity, in which she also holds directorships.

She is most unlikely to find the Murdoch influence pernicious, wouldn’t you say?

How on earth did we come to have a regulatory body for the communications industry composed of these kind of parasites? Why is it so overpacked with businessmen and so devoid of intellectuals? Again, to put that simply, why the Chairman of JJB Sports and no Eric Hobsbawm?

Our entire fabric of government is a sick fucking joke.

Allowed HTML - you can use: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>

88 thoughts on “Like A Circle in A Circle, Like A Wheel Within A Wheel”

1 2 3
  • mary

    @Mark
    The only angel hereabouts is the one on top of Guildford Cathedral!
    http://www.guildford-cathedral.org/gallery/external/angel
    .
    Said angel saw Surrey Police shoot dead an unarmed man on the steps of the cathedral a few years back. The man who was depressed thought of the cathedral as his sanctuary and regularly sought solace and peace there.
    {http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/surrey/7757930.stm}
    .
    As is usual in these cases we never get to read of the eventual findings of an inquest with rare exceptions like Ian Tomlinson’s death. Have we ever heard anymore about Gareth Williams for instance? And the nuclear scientist who fell to his death from a staircase in Vienna? {http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1224377/British-nuclear-experts-17th-floor-UN-death-plunge-suicide.html}. Answer No.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Mary, your apt (incipiently venerable, though not yet entirely seraphic) post reminded me of my monotonous and very simple question, one which I periodically post hereabouts. Does the UK state, or its outsourced agents, on occasion assassinate non-combatant British civilians, either outwith or within the territorial borders of the UK?

  • mary

    You really make me laugh Suhayl.
    .
    “Does the UK state, or its outsourced agents, on occasion assassinate non-combatant British civilians, either outwith or within the territorial borders of the UK?”….The answer is of course yes. Or else they bang them up for some crime they did not commit.
    Do you know of this organisation in Glasgow set up by Paddy Hill of the Birmingham 6 and John McManus to help with rehabilitation?
    .
    http://www.mojoscotland.com/index.html
    .
    btw Theresa May has still got Sheikh Raed Salah banged up. He did and said nothing.
    {http://www.middleeastmonitor.org.uk/news/press-release/2590-press-release-sheikh-raed-salah-denied-bail}

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Thanks, Mary. Yes, I know John McManus and have heard of Mojo. John also used to run a groovy literary and music festival in Glasgow (at which I read) and he much much else good work besides. He’s a good guy. That’s dreadful about Sheikh Salah. And yet, Royalty and our ‘leaders’ do business with, and seem in subordinate position to, real crooks, both at home and abroad. Shouldn’t Rupert Murdoch be banned from entering the UK? And arrested the moment he sets foot here? We all now have convincing evidence that he is a danger to the British public and that he is a flight risk. Arrest Rupert!

  • Jasper

    “Why is it so overpacked with businessmen and so devoid of intellectuals?”

    Forgive me but sod that.

    In a democracy, watchdogs should be made up of the public, run by the public, for the public.

    As should, y’know, the BBC.

  • Jonangus Mackay

    Arrest #Murdoch now! He knew. Any drugs ring boss would be busted by now for suspected conspiracy. http://t.co/tZdtQ4R #notw #bustMurdoch
    —-
    Operation Murdoch? Operation tWeeting:
    .
    Let’s get started. What’s your twit address/handle, whatever?
    .
    Let’s test the waters. Look what Avaaz achieved in days.
    .
    Time is ripe.
    .
    He’s here now. Rare opportunity.
    .
    Could catch on.
    .
    Kick off with the above.
    .
    Email to all.
    —

  • Jonangus Mackay

    my twit address:
    @JonangusMackay
    .
    If you don’t have an account, dead easy to start:
    www,twitter.com
    .

  • mary

    I think the revolting old monster is senile and has the hots for Rebekah.
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14100053
    .
    I wish she would get her hair cut or tamed. The flame haired beauty has to resort to the bottle now I noticed in a photograph. It is obviously an attraction to men but judging from those in her circle she is welcome. In the animal world isn’t it is the males of the species who display?

  • mark_golding

    So many deaths and not enough angels it seems Mary. Yet in many circumstances especially if we free ourselves and then using our sixth sense or extraordinary perception certain events become crystal clear.
    .
    As an example take a look at George de Mohrenschildt, a friend of Bush senior. There exist according to my source an MI6 file on him locked away for 100 years. Can you tune in and reveal what that file might contain? Not really a futile, delusive or nugatory exercise I believe. Many others will disagree.

  • mary

    Shale’s death Mark.
    .
    Credits: plus the Fairford Air Tattoo bike ride and Bristol squatters on the Conservative government’s proposal to criminalise squatting.
    Former squatter Kitty O’Donaghue and Bristol Housing Action Movement spokesman Ben Ritchie talk about the LibCon government’s plans to criminalise squatting.
    Kevin Lister explains next weekend’s Bike Ride To Fairford Air Tattoo in Gloucestershire.
    NATO’s Secret Armies: discussion with historial Danielle Ganser about NATO’s ‘Strategy of Tension using terror against European civilians and pretending it was the Russians or their agents, the notorious Operation Gladio.
    Tony Farrell was a principle police intelligence analyst for South Yorkshire police but he was sacked when he told his bosses what they didn’t want to hear, that the 7/7 London Bombings were not carried out by Muslim terrorists but by the enemy within.
    The strange death of David Cameron’s Constituency party chair Christopher Shale at the Glastonbury festival, assassination expert and barrister Michael Shrimpton believes that GO2, a rogue element in MI6, may have murdered him.
    .
    David Cameron’s aide was assassinated
    Posted by themediumdog on July 11, 2011, 1:54 am
    .
    http://www.radio4all.net/index.php/program/53018
    .
    Around two-thirds of the way through this show – the Bristol friday drivetime show which is good for a listen generally; this is the second hour. Go to the bottom of the page for the download/stream link).

    Also, earlier, is some interesting stuff about the role of NATO in post-war Europe, carrying out underground ‘terrorist’ operations which were then blamed on communist parties – this stuff is fairly well known.

  • mary

    Observer Editorial
    The moment the Guardian published its July 2009 story into the James Murdoch-authorised cover-up payments to Gordon Taylor and others, the Metropolitan police commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson, ordered a review of the original police investigation into phone hacking at the News of the World. That investigation didn’t last very long. Within hours Assistant Commissioner John Yates popped up to announce that no further investigation was necessary. He added that the original inquiry had been very careful; that it had only identified a few victims of “tapping”; and the police had contacted “all” the cases where there was clear evidence that their phones might have been hacked. He specifically ruled out the possibility that John Prescott’s phone was a victim. Mr Yates emphasised that the Yard’s decisions at the time of the original investigation had been taken in close consultation with the then head of the Crown Prosecution Service, Ken Macdonald.
    .
    That statement was immensely useful to News International as it braced itself for the follow-up to the Guardian story by other journalists
    /…..
    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/10/news-international-cover-up-police
    .
    How much was Yates’ ‘bung’?

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Mary, it varies – I mean wrt the animal kingdom and attractiveness vis a vis the sexes; in many species it’s the male but in others, the female. The red-head thing is interesting; there are some sources which suggest that ‘red-headedness’ in human eventually will disappear. I’m not a geneticist, but I’m not so sure, I think that such phenotypic features actually are more resilient than people think.

    Yeah. Arrest Murdoch – fine, he’s casting in his lot with those already tainted, let him too carry the can, the buck stops at him. Arrest Murdoch!

    Re. Shale, I note that the PM indicated an unknown cause of death – so he didn’t have a heart attack, then. If someone dies of a heart attack, there usually is clear evidence in the myocardial tissue; it doesn’t state whether or not he had coronary artery disease; if he did not, it’s rather unlikely that he died of a heart attack. If, on the other hand, someone dies of a sudden cardiac arrhythmia (rhythm disturbance) in the absence of coronary artery or other anatomical heart disease, then there might not be any physical evidence of it. There is a syndrome known as ‘SADS’ (Sudden Adult Death Syndrome’, or soemtimes, ‘Sudden Arrhythmic Death Syndrome’)) of which SUDEP (Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy’) is a subset. I knew someone who tragically died of ‘SADS’, a young person and pal, aged 19 years, who wanted to be a journalist and who collapsed while giving a speech at a conference; this clearly was due to natural causes.

    On the other hand, some years ago a relative of mine was found dead in Saudi Arabia. It was clear that they’d been horribly tortured and then murdered. They’d been openly threatening to blow the whistle on alleged criminal dealings of some sort (I do not know details). When they ran to the UK, my brother accompanied them from Glasgow to London, where it was clear too that they were being followed everywhere – up and down escalators, in and out of dept stores, everywhere – by ‘men of Middle Eastern appearance’ (as the BBC might put it). It sounded terrifying. Within weeks of returning to Saudi Arabia, they were dead. It was ruled ‘suicide’. I know, from what I know of the circumstances of their death, that it was grossly physically impossible for it to have been suicide. This was a cover-up of a murder, which leads me to speculate that at some level, the Saudi authorities may also have been involved/bribed in some way (surprise, surprise).

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2011/jun/27/christopher-shale-death-at-glastonbury

    Here’s a pathology essay on ‘unascertained’ causes of death:
    http://www.sonalkhirwadkar.co.uk/base/files/archive/uwcm/essays/Why%20might%20cause%20of%20death%20be%20unascertained.pdf

    The subject is by no means, clear-cut. “5-10% of all sudden unexpected deaths show no gross anatomic cause at necropsy”. I emphasise that I’m not a pathologist, though. The results of the toxicology tests will take some time to come in. One suspects they will show nothing; on its own, this ought not to be taken as evidence of ‘something’.

    Unless a link can be demonstrated b/w Shale and significant shady goings-on of some sort (beyond the normal stuff, rivalries, etc. that go on every day in all political parties everywhere), and unless there is some suggestion that he was going to blow some sort of significantly large public whistle on these goings-on (and internally or even externally complaining about poor recruitment policies to the Party does not amount to this), I think we’d be best to continue to reserve judgement on this one.

    http://www.sonalkhirwadkar.co.uk/base/files/archive/uwcm/essays/Why%20might%20cause%20of%20death%20be%20unascertained.pdf

  • mary

    Thanks for that Suhayl. Since writing I have been told that Michael Shrimpton is someone to disregard completely. The cause of Christopher Shale’s death though does remain unresolved.

  • conflictofinterest

    here is something else on this story but that indicates colette bowe’s arm of morgan stanley was providing direct advice to bskyb on this deal. It has references as well (including official documents with dates that show her very dubious conflict of interest) and they all check out, so why the deal was initially passed needs a strong investigation:
    http://wallofcontroversy.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/ofcoms-involvement-in-the-bskyb-takeover-is-already-compromised/

1 2 3

Comments are closed.