Would the Sun sub-editor responsible for this front page please stand up and take his punishment like a man? Shoot him if necessary – what is one life compared to the carnage caused by his actions?

He so upset Gordon Brown and his henchman Tom Watson, already brooding and vengeful over the demise of fellow Weegie Tommy Sheridan, that they tabled a meeting. Resolution was to be personalised in the form of the take-down of Sun newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch and his entire organisation. How dare they support a political party. Er, another political party…

A change of government should have seen the end of this posturing vendetta – instead it has escalated into the show trial of the century. Left wing luvies have lined up to say how appalled they were that the world is aware that they hire hookers in Los Angeles to relieve their frustration; ex Prime Ministers respectfully asked their opinion on the solution to it all – ‘What do you do with a Git like Media’? The original emotive ‘Murdered teenage Millie’s phone hacked’ has silently morphed into ‘Missing teenagers phone messages accessed with help of school friends and results handed to Surrey police’. Yet Prince Harry is still on the front pages dutifully concealing the Crown jewels…and the victims of surely the grossest media expose of all, Prince Charles and Camilla were never called or asked to say what they thought of the ‘Tampax tapes’.

It has been a total waste of money that we neither asked for nor wanted. This morning we are told that Gordon Brown has claimed in excess of 13k in expenses despite only speaking on behalf of his constituents four times in the present parliament – yet no one mentions the human cost of that Ego landing on Rupert Murdoch’s head? £46 million and counting. Enough to give every policeman in England a £350 bonus for ‘endurance in the face of provocation’. Why should we pander to that Ego? Give him that Sun sub-editor on a platter and tell him to content himself with that.

It is not the financial cost which so offends, it is the human cost. The lives blighted in pursuit of this show trial. Not the journalists, they could have been arrested by appointment if necessary; but the families; we have had dawn arrests with Sky in attendance, leaks galore; scantily dressed teenage daughters forced to stand and watch as policemen rifled through their knicker drawers before school,  seriously ill wives forced out of their sick beds so that policemen could search under the mattress, precious wedding photographs and children’s birth certificates seized, ancient private love letters read, at least two attempted suicides in the wake of jobs and incomes lost, and several nervous breakdowns.

An entire newspaper and all the lives that depended on it has been crushed. For what? To prove that newspapers can be ‘owned’ by politicians – and woe betide the paper that bites the hand that feeds it? We already knew that.

These things happen to others – the Great Train Robbers, the Brinks Matt crew – but for figuring out that half the population had the default 1234 password on their Vodophone or that underpaid policemen welcomed the odd tenner for divulging information that pleased your editor?

Yes, its a crime, it should be investigated – but the current circus is about humiliating the media and all who work in it, teaching them a lesson that they will never forget.

Certainly Watson, Brown, and his henchmen knew where the bodies were buried – they had been in power for 13 years, knew all about corrupt politicians and their relationship with the media. They were supremely unconcerned by it – until that Sun sub-editor clicked on Photoshop and produced that front page.

185 policemen are tied up in those inquires. It’s about time we sent the bill for their wages to Gordon Brown.

We are paying for it. Can we afford to, do we want to, does anybody care what we want?

Yardarm September 9, 2012 at 18:38

Levinson was selected because he would be a waste of time. Media and
politicians are two cheeks of the same fetid arse. The fat villain Maxwell: it
was only Private Eye who kept on that he was a crook. He wasn`t exposed by his
competitors, like Murdoch. Or the auditors, lawyers, accountants and directors
whose job it was. Conrad Black ? We sent him to the House of Lords; it was the
Yanks who sent him to the slammer. Only the lobby system could have sustained
a clown like Alastair Campbell. And who fought to bring into public view the
facts about MP`s thievery ? Heather Brooke, not the lobby system or any of
these other timeservers, careerists and finger wagging millionaire bullshit
mongers now pretending to be tribunes of truth and justice and scourges of the
mighty. Who actually went and said many of the practices of the City and
financial sector would drop us all in it ? Not many: Gillian Tett ? If you
want to hold power to account then the British media is as much use as an
ashtray on a motorbike.

right_writes September 9, 2012 at 10:11

Forgive me if someone got here first Anna, but as far as I can tell:

1: There is no law compelling anyone to buy a newspaper.

2: The prurient nature of some journalists is as nothing compared to the
“cut and paste” practise adopted by so many journalists and their papers, when
it comes to actually reporting on important stories, supposed professional
people are fed stories by those who have something to hide or embellish, and
they stick them in their papers… (no questions asked).

Perhaps we should tack this bill onto the debt account currently being
built up by our (un)representatives… Richard North was keeping a tally for a
while last year… I think he got bored when each MP seemed to owe so many tens
of millions of squids that they could never seriously be expected to pay up…
Unless of course, you were a Michael Heseltine, Shaun Woodward or Michael
Meacher type.

JohnB September 8, 2012 at 16:54

But it was all about bringing down a (somewhat) conservative media
group.
And it worked.
The field is now wide open for the left-leaning
‘consensus’.

Saul September 8, 2012 at 12:44

I’m a big boy now TMB there is no need to be delicate. Give it to me
straight, I can take it.

GildasTheMonk
September 8, 2012 at 12:55

Be careful what you wish for, Big Boy

The Meissen
Bison September 8, 2012 at 15:57

I posted that you were right about what the Bugle was on about and that
the Bugles was right about “renowned”.

Didn’t want to rule against AR in case she confiscated my limerick-prize
racoon!

Anna
Raccoon September 8, 2012 at
16:51

Have you grown into it yet?

Will adjust renown accordingly and many thanks.

The Meissen
Bison September 8, 2012 at 17:08

Have you grown into it yet?

Haha! Only spasmodically and when I think of you!

Anna
Raccoon September 8, 2012 at
17:14

That’s the spirit!

GildasTheMonk
September 8, 2012 at 09:22

I completely agree. General naughtiness, a visit from Inspector plod and
maybe a fine at the Crown Court. Problem sorted. Instead we have the Salem
Witch trials/Inquisition (poor Rebekah!) all designed as payback for the Press
because the Press had the guts to blow the gaff on stuff like Prestcott
shagging on a desk and the MP’s expenses. All designed to muzzle the Press so
Luvvies and the Political Classes can be free from real scrutiny. And at huge
cost. What rot!

gladiolys September 8, 2012 at 09:58

I have to disagree Gildas. The national press and the politicians deserve
each other. The press claims to hold politicians to account – but who holds
the press to account for their trespasses? I’d argue Prescott shagging on a
desk is tittle tattle and salubrious gossip (it maybe morally reprehensible
for a married man to do such a thing, but many a CEO has boffed a secretary
over a desk and not made it into the dailies – reporting him was politically
motivated). But Murdoch? Desmond? That odious pigshit Maxwell? Barclay
brothers? Dacre? They have their own political agendas and their fingers in
pies we should know about. If Leveson actually does that, I ain’t going to
complain.

The Meissen
Bison September 8, 2012 at 10:39

salubrious gossip…

salacious / lubricious ?

gladiolys
September 8, 2012 at 11:02

Thank you Mr Pedant! I’m getting my big words in a muddle. Salubrious
– health giving – well, at a stretch. How ill would either have to be
for that to happen? I should maybe have used lugubrious – looking or
sounding sad and dismal. But both your alternatives mean what I wanted
to say. Thank you.

Anna
Raccoon September 8, 2012 at
11:50

‘Scuse me Mr Pedant, but you are supposed to be sorting out renown
and renowned for me, not getting sidetracked onto salubrious
matters……

The Meissen
Bison September 8, 2012 at
12:02

I did that earlier but oh so delicately in order not to give
offence…

GildasTheMonk
September 8, 2012 at 12:54

Fair enuffsky! I like a good debate!

rogerh September 8, 2012 at 06:37

I hope the Leveson does prove to be a waste of time, I do not want the
press constrained and the better they are able to look into dark corners the
better. It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it.

Password=1234, mmmm, it seems to me the telephone companies were remarkably
un-curious regarding who was accessing voiceboxes and using the ‘engineering
code’.

Next, we have not heard much about mobile phone hacking – allegedly
difficult, but not if you buy a handy box from an Israeli company, not as easy
as voicemail but very do-able. For the talented a DIY job is possible.

Saul September 7, 2012 at 22:00

They broke the cardinal rule….they got caught.

Dembones September 7, 2012 at 19:08

IMHO to blame this particular front page and the sub-editor for the
consequences is like saying that a woman’s dress invited rape, a very poor and
distasteful excuse.

Robert Edwards
September 7, 2012 at 18:07

I’m not sure whether this is going off-topic or not. Some of the
contributions seem to me to be rather loaded, but a lesson for life, surely,
is to place the bullets in the chamber only if you are certain that they point
the right way…

Engineer September 7, 2012 at 19:05

Would it be be better for the nation to have politicians who fear the
press, or a press that fears the politicians?

Ex Community Service
Supervisor September 7, 2012 at 17:01

Thanks for another thoughtful post AND the discussion it triggers.

Belsay Bugle
September 7, 2012 at 15:40

Dear rob and gladiolys,

Why is paying for information bribery?
And what is corrupt about paying
an informer? Is paying a reward corruption?
Surely this talk of
‘corruption’ is misunderstanding the duties owed to the public at large that
pays the wages of its servants and the private actions of individuals or
companies?
Newspapers are not arms of the state paid for by the taxpayer
(unlike the BBC) but private companies separate from the state (that’s what
the politicians don’t like and want to curb) who are in business to sell
newspapers.
If they want to pay money to someone that is a matter for them.
If that payment causes a public servant to favour them or someone they wish
him to favour that ought to be a matter for the recipient, unless of course
the purpose of the payment is specifically designed to ‘buy’ him. But that’s
entirely different from getting information; what exactly would they be doing
that was corrupt by paying for that?

gladiolys September 7, 2012 at 16:30

“If that payment causes a public servant to favour them or someone they
wish him to favour that ought to be a matter for the recipient”…

as stated above, that leads to corruption. You can’t have a corrupted
public servant without someone being in partnership – the corrupter.

A good journalist gets information by digging through materials, having
good informants who know what is in the public interest, as opposed to
tittle tattle, who can get strnngers to talk to them by being genuine and
identifying the human aspect of any story.

Anything else is “chequebook” journalism. If a public servant wants to
top up their wages by selling information they acquired as a course of their
duties, they are breaking confidentiality clauses in their employment etc…
or would you like to see them scrapped so doctors can start blabbing about
their patients, because that would be a lovely little earner?

Engineer September 7, 2012 at 14:46

There does seem to be quite a lot of mealy-mouthedness surrounding all
this. Without doubt, some News International employees behaved disgracefully,
but anybody thinking that their competitors were not behaving just as
disgracefully must have been born yesterday. Most of Leveson’s fire seems to
have been directed at NI, and the Mirror Group, Associated Newspapers and so
on (so far) seem to have got off scot free. That’s not credible.

Another argument put forward by Watson and his accolytes is that we must
have media plurality, and NI controlled 40% of the print media. When it is
suggested to them that the BBC controls about 70% of broadcasting, they change
the subject. Talk about hypocricy….

m.barnes September 7, 2012 at 14:13

One of the huge ironies about the genesis of Leveson is that a Tabloid was
tabloided by a Broadsheet. The Guardian ran with a huge headline that had a
small kernel of truth in it inflated by shock-horror language and a Tabloid
closed down. It wasn’t the only reason that Tabloid shut down – it was the
architect of its own demise in many ways – not least its dreadful response to
the Royal phone hacking. It’s never the crime, it’s the cover-up as any number
of politicians could have told NOTW.
I have to disagree with the conclusion
here – sorry Anna! People were interested in an investigation. Whether that
was because of a tabloid move by the Guardian is another matter. The public
were angry and NI cut off the NOTW as a fire brake between that anger and the
other titles and businesses of NI. A very sensible business move that more
than one press shock! horror! headline has caused other businesses and
individuals to use! David Cameron needed an arms length method of calming
public anger and Leveson was it. I am not a fan of his but I suspect Cameron
played it right. Sooner or later the ‘politicans want to control our noble
free press, corner-stone of democracy’ card would get played and this way he
can deny that. I havn’t seen any appetite amongst politicians – apart from Tom
Watson who is having his Scarlet O’Hara moment about all this – for getting
involved in regulating the press.
Having watched Leveson quite a bit I have
not been fooled by the amount of noise created in the press about testimony
from famous actors. I have been more taken with the havoc wreaked by
journalists on ordinary people who have the mis-fortune to be caught up in
terrible events. There was a truly awful day of testimony from a Glasgow
couple who’s lives were ruined by a left-wing campaigning journalist who used
their daughters death to further his own political ideology. He was writing
for a broadsheet. That broadsheet defended him and ignored any idea that they
had a responsibility to that couple when using the murder of their daughter in
a public campaign. That simply isn’t good enough. And this couple had neither
the money nor the street smarts to negotiate their way through the PCC.
The
PCC didn’t do it’s job – and the press only have themselves to blame for that.
I am sorry, but that’s the bald fact of the matter. The editors and owners
followed the PCC right up till it came to covering up hacking (they lied to
it) and if a big story was on the go (sales trumps fines everytime). So the
PCC was discredited by their behaviour not anyone elses.
So here we are. I
don’t think anyone is up for government regulation on the Press. How would
that work? Having listened to Leveson he seems pretty smart. This isn’t a
trial so the dynamics of questioning are different, there is no
cross-examination of witnesses. I would be suprised if he came out with some
draconian regulatory solution and I am prepared to wait to see what comes
out.
I am certainly not going to be bounced into a position by the
anguished screams of the editor of the Independent because he doesn’t
understand inquiry communication procedure (or understands it very well and
wanted to try to create a storm for his own benefit).
Did we have to waste
money listening to Hugh Grant – well , no. His complaints were petty next to
what some others went through. However if the price is hearing the testimony
of ordinary people is to put up with his whinging then I am ok. Ruinously
expensive – yes. But lets be clear that the expense is as much down to the
demands of the press to be represented – the place is bristling with their
legal representatives all of whom have to be copied on stuff, accommodated,
given notice, whose appeals and procedural game playing dealt with, whose
questions must be put to witnesses. Maybe if the press hadn’t acted as though
they were above the law and common manners and ethics, maybe if they hadn’t
regarded themselves as untouchable because they are ‘the cornerstone of a free
democracy’ (thats an argument for another day) we wouldn’t find ourselves
here. But they did, so we are, so maybe they should shut up and grow up and
wait till Leveson reports before appealing to me for any synpathy.

Engineer September 7, 2012 at 14:56

I agree with you about the PCC and ordinary (non-celeb non politian)
people and their treatment at the hands of the press. The PCC is not so much
a toothless tiger as a pussy-cat with no claws that rolls over to have it’s
tummy tickled as soon as a newspaper editor hoves into view. Nevertheless,
the rest of the Leveson shindig is pretty much a waste of time and public
money, except to the political apparatchiks who think bashing News
International is a good use of public money.

Belsay Bugle
September 7, 2012 at 12:20

Richard,
I have read a bit of Russian history, but not enough for your
liking, so where would you recommend I start?

And I can’t see why newspapers should not pay money to whomsoever they
please; unlike with most organisations it’s their own money not
taxpayers’.

gladiolys September 7, 2012 at 13:15

Because it corrupts.

rob September 7, 2012 at 14:03

“I can’t see why newspapers should not pay money to whomsoever they
please;”

That is an interesting concept – why do we need laws to combat bribery in
that case? Or are you suggesting that newspapers are above the law?
Why
let the general public have their say on all the information gleaned from
Operation Motorman and see whether all payments made were in the public
interest or just to sell newspapers. Or more interestingly to try and gain
information which would be more valuable to withold?
Unfortunately News
international intitially tried to cover up (and the wonder there is, why if
it is such a non story?) and The Met having failed, for whatever reasons and
we can speculate why until the Court cases are brought to trial, to
investigate properly in the first instance are now leaving nothing to chance
being in the centre spotlight (helped no doubt by outpourings of grief in
the media).
There could be another reason why the press is going on the
attack – Leveson could only go on evidence supplied to it. One suspects that
there is much more to come out and journalists know that the best form of
defence is attack.

amfortas September 7, 2012 at 12:12

Crimes are committed every day in the Family Court by people paid vast sums
to snoop into the lives of others and cast quite irrational, rubber-stamped,
one-size-fits-all sentences – usually on Fathers – for ‘no-fault’ divorce.
THAT is a scandal that will not see an Inquiry any day soon.

Richard September 7, 2012 at 12:08

‘the odd tenner’?

From Sue Ackers witness statement

“In one case the public official was a prison officer at a high security
prison during the period when the payments were made and related stories
published. The individual’s former partner appears to have facilitated the
payments into their bank accounts. The former partner’s bank account reveals
numerous payments from NI, Trinity Mirror and Express Newspapers, between
April 2010 and June 2011 which total nearly £35,000. There were further
payments after the officer retired (in June 2011), the last of which was made
by Express Newspapers in February 2012.”

Anna
Raccoon September 7, 2012 at
12:09

Not a policeman!

gladiolys
September 7, 2012 at 12:20

But still e member of the criminal justice (?) system.

Zanshin
September 7, 2012 at 17:41

“Enough to give every policeman in England a £350 bonus for
‘endurance in the face of provocation’.”

“-… but the families; we have had dawn arrests with Sky in
attendance, leaks galore; scantily dressed teenage daughters forced to
stand and watch as policemen rifled through their knicker drawers before
school, seriously ill wives forced out of their sick beds so that
policemen could search under the mattress, precious wedding photographs
and children’s birth certificates seized, ancient private love letters
read, at least two attempted suicides in the wake of jobs and incomes
lost, and several nervous breakdowns.”

I think you have answered that yourself – a bonus for going in mob
handed??

Leveson, if you look away from the political cant of BOTH sides, is
still exposing the corruption that it was set up to do. As Richard has
said £35,000 is not “the odd tenner” and I would seriously question that
the same doesn’t apply to the police as well. I know they lack common
sense but even they wouldn’t risk their pensions for odd tenners.

Belsay Bugle
September 7, 2012 at 11:48

Oh and Anna, shouldn’t Monbazillac be renowned for its wines?

Anna
Raccoon September 7, 2012 at
11:52

I didn’t think so, but I’m prepared to take advice – where’s Pedant when
you need him?

The Meissen
Bison September 7, 2012 at 21:01

You called?

Certainly it is. A ‘pudding’ wine, sweet and white, in a region that is
otherwise better known for its reds: Cahors to the South and East,
Pécharmant and Bergerac a touch to the north and of course the Côtes de
Castillion and Côtes de Blaye as you go west in the Dordogne valley to
Libourne.

Glug

Saul September 7, 2012 at 21:58

I think the pedantic point was betwen renown and renowned as per your
blurb….

“Ms Raccoon lives in the Monbazillac area of South West France,
renown for its fine wines and gourmet food, so she frequently finds
better things to do than sit in front of a computer all morning. She is
liable to take off traveling at a moment’s notice. Consequently this
blog only gets updated these days when it is raining – and it doesn’t
rain very often round here…”

The Meissen
Bison September 7, 2012 at
23:08

Thanks Saul – I was mistakenly barking up the tree of oenophile
pedantry and you and Belsay Bugle have it right, I fear, in your
different ways.

Belsay Bugle
September 7, 2012 at 11:47

Yes I care a lot about it, but few in power care(d) what we want(ed), least
of all El Gordo.
Until I saw Leveson I didn’t think we had show trials in
this country.
The police ought not to be involved in all this, it’s a
disgrace. But could Cameron not have prevented it?

As for the usual police modus operandi of breaking down the front door
mob-handed at 5am, for something as piffling as guessing that the PIN was
1234? It is so grossly out of proportion (especially when the people
investigated are innocent at the time and may remain so) it should be
something they can be sued for, like false imprisonment, unless they can show
it was necessary.
“We wanted to ask you some questions, so we smashed our
way into your house in the middle of the night, without any
warning!”
Englishman’s home … castle?

What worries me is the damage that will be done to the press if politicians
act on any of Leveson’s recommendations, whatever they may be.
I don’t
trust Brian to understand the need for a really free press, as opposed to one
the lefty/liberals currently in power approve of. And I certainly don’t trust
politicians to forgo the opportunity Brian might give them to muzzle the
press.

Richard September 7, 2012 at 12:02

If you really think that journalists were arrested for ‘guessing a pin
number’ and that possible bribery isn’t a police matter you haven’t
understood much. And no doors were broken down. No house was ‘smashed into
in the middle of the night’. There a point here about the arrests – why
spoil your argument by needless exaggeration? Perhaps you are a tabloid
sub?

Having watched most of Leveson I thought the questioning was remarkably
restrained. Read some Russian history and you’ll understand what a show
trial really is.

Single Acts of
Tyranny September 8, 2012 at 05:26

A show trial is politically motivated, where the alleged crime is
against state ideology or politicians themselves, where the outcome is
pre-determined to make a political point.

I think BB was referring to these idiotic melodramatic ‘dawn raids’ the
cops insist in carrying out when they could simply phone the guy and say
“come down the station”

I don’t know if any doors were smashed in, nor do I know for sure that
none have been in the course of this as you apparently do.

Newmark
September 11, 2012 at 22:47

The reason for the dawn raid practice is that if the individuals
concerned were give notice of arrest or interrogation then they would
immediately destroy as much potentially incriminating evidence as
possible. The sensible ones will already have destroyed the
evidence.