Rebekah Brooks has now laid down several hundred jobs to save her own. She has also made way for the brand new super soaraway Sunday Sun. News International have evidently decided to gamble on the idea that there is no end to the gullibility of the British mass public.
But let us stop and consider. A great part of British newspaper history, a paper that supported imprisoned Chartists , has just been lost. With it have gone hundreds of jobs. It has been lost because the management of News International at the News of the World was either criminally involved or culpably negligent – there are no other choices. By their destruction of the News of the World, News Corp have proven beyond any doubt that they are not fit and proper persons to run media in this country. Ofcom must now act on this to use its powers to disbar unfit persons, and force News Corp to sell all its media interests in the UK.
This is all very dramatic lets hope its not the smokescreen for a libyan ground war
Worth seeing, Fry and Laurie’s take on Murdoch given current events: http://bit.ly/psFXlN
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebekah_Brooks
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“In September 2010, The Guardian revealed that, as part of the cross-party media committee investigating News of the World’s phone-hacking (a report entitled ‘Press Standards, Privacy and Libel’), Rebekah Brooks repeatedly chose not to attend to give evidence;[21] resulting in four members of the committee “considering asking the serjeant at arms to issue a warrant forcing Brooks to attend”; however they subsequently dropped this proposal because it was alleged their private lives would be investigated if they did so.”
@ Johnm, to be honest a Libyan Ground War woud be more likely to be used as a smokescreen for all this
Dreoilin,
Good news about the Hunt request to Ofcom. The point of my posting though is that they are indeed not fit to run BSkyB – but that I don’t then see how you can pretend they are fit to run their other media outlets.
Craig,
“Renault has become the first advertiser to publicly extend its advertising boycott to cover all News International newspapers”
(Guardian live blog again)
Great!! I shall make my next car a renault!
“but that I don’t then see how you can pretend they are fit to run their other media outlets”
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Agreed, of course. I saw some lawyer the other night saying that if Murdoch took over BSkyB, the board would change. And that therefore it couldn’t be determined in advance whether they would be ‘fit and proper’ or not. Whether that has a leg to stand on I’m not sure. I doubt it.
Sorry about that Harpie. Some nonsense of a commercial conflict with BBC World.com I suppose.
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There was a live blog on the Guardian last night. Many comments were removed. Wonder why!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/07/bbc-question-time-open-thread?commentpage=all
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I especially liked this one – I hope somebody asks “Why didn’t the police tell Jean Charles de Menezes to attend his local nick to be arrested the next morning?”
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You would imagine that this person would be concerned about the phone hacking and the involvement of the press. Not so it seems. Anton who describes himself elsewhere – ‘My name is Anton Tadeusiak and I study Journalism and English Literature at Salford University’ says this on medialens in reply to a post giving a link to Craig’s piece.
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Why the hell does he care about the paper or its hacks?
Posted by Anton on July 8, 2011, 2:54 pm, in reply to “Crag Murray: Plainly Not Fit and Proper Persons”
Why romanticise about the supposed former glories of an unfit and improper rag?
Why bother making naive demands of Ofcom?
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Azra,
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Wishful thinkin maybe. The Greek government’s willingness to serve as the enforcer of Israeli’s naval blockade of Gaza made it impossible for this journey to happen.
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Has Israel prevailed? No! – Inshallah – the creative and determined spirit of this team of committed activists, amplified and magnified is a starting point for many more, so let the numbers grow from acorns to the mighty oak of a free Palestine.
Mary, I’m pretty sure that’s it. It is aggravating, but nothing you have to apologize for! 🙂 I was happy to find that little bit of trancribed dialogue, though.
“What, I wonder, do they have on Cameron?”
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Tech, I’ve been wondering about that all day. *And* why he let Coulson into such a sensitive position.
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By the way, Irish staff of NoTW were informed of the closure by email.
Mary-are you a Fifer? (Just a hunch).
We are certainly entering some very odd ‘times’. I am partly mesmerized, part excited, part hopeful and part anxious by it all, I must admit.
People are saying things (and being listened to or read) that have been palpably unsaid for many years and one can but sense a growing confidence to tackle the obvious depths of w the deceptions that have been perpetrated on the British electorate, over the last 30 years or so, (and that includes the underhand system of privilege administered by the likes of David Manning.
Such behavior may not go unanswered in the future.
However I must admit I am anxious, as I cannot see any coherent political responses emerging yet – simply the scales falling away from many eyes, and the sense of wanting to ‘do something’ but having no viable entity or organization to attach to that discontent to. Opposition is essentially fragmented, dissipated and marginalized. It is so plain that the ‘opposition’ is just a part of a game, which is no longer productive of civil progress, (if it ever was) or of well distributed optimum benefits.
Sanity must prevail somehow, as the alternatives look very scary, and I think this is Ed Millibands ‘moment’ in history. He has distanced himself from the idea of a Labour party in cahoots with NI. But that is just a first small, if brave step. He will now have to win the BSkyB issue, which will be difficult as I think Hunt is capable of hanging tough, creating diversions and obfuscating. Cameron is also in too deep to distance himself now and he is now in the difficult position of promoting or ‘defending NI’,. N wonder they are desperately describing the issues as unrelated. If I was a Labour leader’s adviser, I would now have my eye firmly fixed on that that, as it is dagger, with the letters
C O U L S O N, directly pointing at the Cameron and Tory jugular.
Ed M also has to ‘win’ on the ‘inquiries’ being proposed i.e real teeth, and he has to ‘win’ on the control of the media by whatever replaces the PCC. It has to be replaced with an organization which is independent of both government, and the industry insiders that now dominate it. It will have t be aligned very clearly with public interest and have the capacity to inflict grievous harm on offenders, such as the ability to impose suspending production , swingeing fines, and powers of referral to prosecution of al levels of the organization. It must also regulate fairly on media behavior at elections.
The knives will no doubt be getting drawn and sharpened in Murdoch towers and Ed M is going to probably see sow real dirty stuff emerge and he may have to ruthless in his dealing with this, in purging his party of some really nasty but powerful elements from the Brown and Blair years. (What if his brother is compromised in some way- (I guess he will be a target now).
He now has to find in himself the intellectual resources to channel the energy of discontent and disgust at the impoverishment of our civil and civic life and the emergence of this country as a highly significant player in the spiv economics and mafiosa foreign policy, and quease-inducing celebrity culture of late capitalism.
tough times ahead.
PS things are moving incredibly fast. (Just seen some of above posts-wow!).
Phone hacking: Police probe suspected deletion of emails by NI executive; Nick Davies, Amelia Hill; The Guardian; 7/8/11
From the above article:
“It is likely to be seen as evidence that the company could not pass a ‘fit and proper person’ test for its proposed purchase of BSkyB.”
Mark,
Nasty scenes at Ben Gurion airport when #airflotilla activists tried to come in from various flights. I’ve been following the story here
http://twitter.com/ibnezra
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Picture http://twitpic.com/5mxuj1
Interesting article here which says that the closure of NOtW may allow it to shield all its documents from scrutiny by police, including even those relevent to investigations currently ongoing.
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Not sure why the police have raided The Daily Star offices. Why not those of NOtW which is where the truth surely lies?
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Could corrupt Met police officers still be shielding NOtW from scrutiny?
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Looks as good an answer as any. That’s quite obviously what they’ve been dong to date. The police have plenty to hide themselves too.
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We really need a root and branch investigation of the whole corruption of British politics and state that attended the Blair regime.
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http://www.theatlanticwire.com/business/2011/07/news-corp-vs-conspiracy-theorists-news-world-closing/39709/
dreoilin-
According to Former Met police chief Brian Paddick [see 3:47pm at The Guardian’s live blog] Ms. Brooks may soon be receiving “an invitation from the police that she can not refuse.”
Harpie,
I saw that. About time. She can hardly threaten this time that “their private lives will be investigated”!
OfCom? Is that the ‘Office of Miscommunication’ comprised mostly of former Channel 4 and BBC executives, some of whom are well-linked to and influenced by powerful pro-Israeli politicians.
Colette Bowe, the 63-year old OfCom chairperson, is reportedly paid £200,000 a year to coordinate the body’s different committees.
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I remember the Westland affair back in 1986, Colette Bowe leaked a memo – on instructions from Thatcher? – Mum’s the word there! – today OfCom are doing their damnedest to crash PressTV – perhaps the only news outlet to report on the atrocities in Bahrain and Yemen and finally reveal that things are not always what they seem, by way of documentaries and reports which give an alternative picture of events, especially concerning British domestic policy.
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PressTV’s rising popularity is perhaps a reflection that Murdoch no longer, like Britannia, rules the waves.
Have you ever heard of anyone categorically confirming something?
“In a statement in response, HCL Technologies confirmed that News International was an existing client …
“In light of some regrettable comments made over the last few days, we categorically confirm that HCL Technologies does not and has not stored any data either in the UK or anywhere else in the world. Accordingly, it is wholly impossible for there to have been any destruction of data held by HCL, and any suggestion to the contrary is misleading.”
herbie and Harpie, thats exactly what I feared yesterday when I first heard of the instant closure. The police will now be shut out and they can get rid of some more evidence.
This bumbling is planned. Imagine this conversation.
‘OK you shut it down, nobody will expect that, leaves you time to get on with the dissappearing, make sure you get all the stuff about payments, meanwhile we shall wring our hands for a while before finding a pretext to get it, You’ve got this weekend.’
If any of us would have ever contemplated such a hacking operation, our feet would not touch the ground before being carried away in cuffs, forever, but this was a racket for the police and a game for access to information, power and center stage by NI. They know how to steer vane politicians at election time.
The lure of getting full coverage in the Sun during the final week of the next General election must have young Milliband slobbering over his icecream’ what could he possibly want in return’…. he thinks.
NI will get BSKYB because they have responded and accepted the lame requirements and changes ofcom has set Rupert. So what needs doing Mr. cameron is, to sack Ofcom and annul its last few month decisions as unfit for a regulator, shouldn’t be that hard, they are loyal Tories after all.
Hi,
For the benefit of newer visitors, plus it doesn’t include historical reports of news Corp./Murdoch’s moral bankruptcy and Enron-like drenched ethos from the top-down.
Does the govt. not get sued often enough and lose (it’s a straw man
argument), ergo if our politicians had any self-respect, they’d just
state the bid is being denied/stop it , and then dare news Corp. to
sue, when 99.9% of parliament is in keeping with wider society.
The eu already said (as newscorp. sought) the takeover was only the
business of the uk govt.
+ Enron-like whole corporate ethos, global, top-down, multiple facets
still being missed:
http://m.theage.com.au/victoria/police-chief-in-clear-over-leak-as-murdoch-paper-accused-20100611-y3o6.html
http://www.nswpolicecrime.com/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=371
http://www.bloggerheads.com/archives/2011/07/rebekah-brooks-wade/#more-15850
http://mobile.slate.com/rss.jsp?rssid=411&item=http%3a%2f%2fwww.slate.com%2fdefault.aspx%3fdisplaymode%3d201%26id%3d2167464%26device%3drss
A company that would enable this, and no board resignations or
parliamentary investigations, instead even more consolidated power
allowed:
http://www.tvlicensing.biz/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2885
http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1194240&page=7
Posts 166 (penultimate section before sign-off), 172, 177 (page 8).
Almost no one, from regulator to competitor will remember, or even
know about it.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2011/07/above-the-law/
Are there files on our politicians, are they straight corrupt or are they being blackmailed by murdoch and co., Could someone post our countries Prime Ministers register of interest, is he still friends with Brooks, what has been discussed at previous meetings, is the CEO of news Corp. Europe headed for prison?
Kind regards,
MN
Looks like Geoffrey Robertson QC may have caught Cameron “misleading the House” on a very important matter:
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“For all the self-righteousness on display in parliament, MPs took their cue from the prime minister’s utterly mistaken assumption that there should be no public inquiry until police investigations had run their course. By which time – years into the future, as Scotland Yard virtually admitted yesterday, engulfed by 11,000 pages with 4,000 names (and that’s just for 2006) – memories will have faded and News International will be the proprietor of BSkyB.
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This is exactly the situation that the Inquiries Act of 2005 was passed to avoid. It permits a speedy and authoritative examination of a matter of scandal and concern, so as to allay public disquiet and ensure the scandal is not repeated. Such an inquiry does not pre-judge trials – it has no power to determine anyone’s civil or criminal liability. But its chairman has the power to require the production of documents and to insist that anyone – even Rupert Murdoch – attend for public examination. This power can be enforced by the high court, on pain of criminal sanction. Such an inquiry is set up by resolution of both houses of parliament, to examine a matter “of urgent public importance”.”
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/08/newsoftheworld-national-newspapers
Craig Murray: “A great part of British newspaper history, a paper that supported imprisoned Chartists , has just been lost. With it have gone hundreds of jobs.”
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Why is anyone wringing their hands about the fact that some NOTW journalists are being made unemployed? Did anyone care when Der Sturmer was shut down? These people knew what kind of rag they were working for. Sod ’em!
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And so what that in 1851 they supported the Chartists???? That was one hundred and fifty years ago? Do you think that anyone there was around at the time and still providing a principled influence on the NOTW??? No. Fuck ’em!
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Fuck the News of the World. It isn’t a great institution. It’s a piece of shit and has been for as long as I have known it.
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Oh, and is it not a good thing that Coulson has been arrested?
Hello all, goodness, this sort of discussion is really heartwarming, some excellent points being made, in response to your comments, Craig, about Murdoch’s NI. It is true however that NI has NEVER been fit to run any media outlet, it’s just that we are now gaining the irrefutable proof that it isn’t.
PS I haven’t seen Hugh Grant’s contribution to the debate, I don’t live in the UK. HUGH GRANT FOR PM!! Didn’t he prove his credentials in a popular film? A you can tell that particular American, RM, just what he can do with his paper. Perhaps a line in NOTW and SUN toilet paper might sell well in present circumstances, any entrepreneurs here?
Harpie
“If you make me come, I will destroy your personal lives”, who said that? Was it Mafia, oh I remember now, it was the Godmother right?
That’s the spirit, angrysoba! Sock it to ’em, man, sock it to ’em! I see the Daily Star is now under scrutiny. Yes indeed, things are moving fast – just shows you, “the higher they stand, the harder they fall, one and all” (Jimmy Cliff). Bring ’em all down! Break ’em up! The Augean Stables… the rivers are flowing, people. Clean out the Met. while we’re at it. Let’s start knitting, people…
“A number of charities have rejected the chance to advertise for free in the final edition of the News of the World on Sunday … RNLI, RSPCA, The Brooke, Care International, Thames Reach, Action Aid, WaterAid, Salvation Army, VSO, RSPCA, Oxfam and Barnardo’s have all rejected the offer.” [2.19pm]
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That’s a bit of a smack in the eye.