I love my friends, and my friends love me
Is it too early to gain perspective and draw conclusions from the phone hacking scandal?
Perhaps, because one might argue that “the facts” have not yet been established. On the other hand, I have some cynicism about whether “the facts” ever really emerge.
I have to confess that in another life I was much involved with court cases of many different types, and it was rare indeed to find that the court got to “the truth”. It occasionally happened by accident, but with good lawyers involved it rarely did. One of the very purposes of good lawyers is to stop that happening at all costs.
Sometimes the wider, more instinctively understood picture is more important. I think we can form a view on this matter, but I am torn between two perspectives.
One is that the world is going to hell in a handcart.
The other is that it is no big deal. It’s just business as usual, albeit a bit of light has been shone on some murky practices which have always been going on.
Let me try to explain these two perspectives.
Are we going to Hell in a Handcart?
From the “hell in a handcart” scenario, I suggest we cannot look at the phone hacking scandal in isolation. It has to be set in the wider context of the relationship between narrow metropolitan elite, the press, and the police.
First we have MP’s of various standing and background, most of whom have been busily crawling up Rupert Murdoch’s arse for years, baying for blood as revenge for the expenses scandal, and indeed for daring to question them. Rank hypocrisy.
Indeed, one of the attacks on Miss Brooks over the phone hacking scandal I have repeatedly heard is the familiar “knight’s fork” as we say in chess. If she knew about it, she has to resign. If she didn’t know about it, she ought to have done, and ought to resign.
Maybe it’s right, but I find that particularly hard to swallow when so many MP’s have had to correct “mistakes” over their expenses. By the same logic a swathe would be cut through Parliament.
Leaving aside the hypocrisy is the issue of “political incest”. The great Tom Lehrer wrote a fabulously witty song (did he ever do anything else?) called “I got it from Agnes.” It begins thus:
I love my friends and they love me
We’re just as close as we can be
And just because we really care
Whatever we get, we share!
I got it from Agnes
She got it from Jim
We all agree it must have been
Louise who gave it to him….
Rare footage of it can be found here on Youtube, and embedded below:
Oh, how prescient when we look at the incestuous political world of Westminster and its suburb, the Cotswolds.
Dave goes for a Sunday morning ride with Rebekah.
Rebekah used to work for Andy,
who in turn works for Rupert.
Andy used to work for Dave too.
Rebekah is friends with Sam Cam,
but Rebekah is also friends with Cherie and Tony.
Tony liked Rupert a lot
but now doesn’t like him any more.
Gordon wanted to be liked by Rupert,
but was VERY upset when he heard
that people who worked for Rupert
had allegedly used naughty ways
to find out about his son being ill.
But Gordon kept cultivating Rupert,
because it would help him get back at Tony.
Indeed Gordon was so upset about it that he did….erm, nothing. Indeed, and as I understand it, he kept on writing columns for the News of the World and to quote from another of the Murdoch stable, yesterday’s Sunday Times, in his passion to overthrow Tony “he went out of his way to cultivate Rupert Murdoch and News International’s newspapers”.
Rupert’s minions have in fact been up to no good, and hacked the phones not just of wicked politicians but of a missing teenager, potentially increasing the stress of her desperate family.
The police have been involved, but amazingly, it seems, the full extent of the phone hacking racket never reached the public gaze.
Even more amazingly, one of the chief investigators goes to work for News International. And it seems that there may have been some inappropriate top ups to police pay from questionable sources.
Now it appears the Chief of The Metropolitan Police has received a “free lunch” in the form of a holiday at Champneys worth £12,000. I do not believe in free lunches, by the way. The universal order does not permit them in physics or politics. Somebody connected to somebody else procured this junket. And now he has had to resign!
And so it goes, on and on, round and round.
What we have here, then, is the byzantine machinations of a liberal elite, self serving, avaricious for power, as politically (and who knows in what other senses?) incestuous and poisonous as the Borgias, but with rather less class and style and wit.
Brown cries crocodile tears for intrusions into his private life. Millibandias, King of Kings, uses it all as a weapon to wound iDave. I heard a wonderfully offensive interview with him last week. I remember the line: “This should all be about poor innocent victims, like Millie [Dowler]. It should not be about point scoring between politicians. But David Cameron should now admit that….” bla bla bla.
Pass the sick bag, please.
And Dave from Oxford does not come out it very well either. What were you thinking employing Coulson?
Greedy. Posturing. Self referential. False. Intellectually dishonest. Corrupt. And at the centre of a spider’s web of influence and gossip, Rebekah Brooks, the seductress Salome of the former Fleet Street, Murdoch’s anointed adopted High Priestess.
But on other hand…..
Was the world was always thus?
Government has always been run by cabals and factions, and at one can say that all sophisticated societies will end up being dominated by an elite metropolitan political group.
One could say the same of Rome.
Birds of a feather flock together: they always have and always will.
The press and politicians have in modern times inevitably enjoyed a close relationship. But how could it be other in a functioning democracy?
When it comes to abuse of press power, there have been those more abusive than Murdoch – think of Lord Beaverbrook.
The British press have always been utterly ruthless in their pursuit of a good story: the Victorian press was particularly fond of tittle tattle and a good scandal, particularly if there was murder involved. And the press and the police have always worked together in … let’s call them mysterious ways.
Anyone who thinks the CID don’t regularly whore themselves to the press for a few pints or more and the odd tip off in return is living in cloud cuckoo land. And the Met is the most famously corrupt force in the land (allegedly).
What we have then is a storm in the Westminster tea cup, and not more than that. Posturing and point scoring, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. The Dowler connection has simply caused the public to “go off on one”, but all that is being revealed is how politics works, and probably has to work, and always will.
As the police might say: Move along here, there’s nothing to see…
As for Miss Brooks, she has been loyal to her boss, and was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Being a self evidently fiery (ask Ross Kemp!) red headed woman, she’s an easy target on many levels for the latently sexist press.
And from the distinctly overtly sexists point of view, I can see the attraction. . I’ve sort of been there, , she reminds me in many ways very much of someone I used to knows…
But I digress.
Conclusions?
Perhaps we are somewhere between the two stereotypes above. I don’t know.
What does this furore tell us about modern Britain, the way we are governed and how we react to that?
The whole mess has claimed another scalp, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson.
Where will it end? What does it signify?
My suspicion is Cameron will be fatally wounded by this.
Your views would be welcome.
Gildas the Monk
July 19, 2011 at 19:26
- July 19, 2011 at 09:16
-
Two points to add some persective:
1.
News International are notthe only ones who are accused of dialling
000 as the default pin number for a celeb’s voicemail.
The Mirror, Daily Mail, Guardian are also involved. See Guido’s graphe
here:
Are we on the verge of killing popular journalism.
2.
Lawyers seem to be gaining a lot of business, promotion and air time
from this debacle. Let’s have a look at one of them:
Mark Lewis
Mark Lewis, the “solicitor” for the Dowler family, was working for a local
law practice in Manchester. In June 2008 he took on a case for Gordon Taylor
(of the Professional Footballers’ Asociation) and won him an alleged £700,000
payout from News International.
He now labels himself as a lawyer
“… to high profile footballers and
boxers, as well as celebrities.”
http://www.thlaw.co.uk/thlaw_mark_lewis.htm
Months later Lewis is quoted as working as a consultant for the prestigious
legal firm Taylor Hampton in the heart of London’s legal district. He is now
referred to as a partner in the same firm.
Z-list celebs seem to be flocking to him for their share of the Murdoch
vulture-fest such as Sienna Miller (£100,000) and Sven Goran Ericson.
Lewis is even quoted as describing the situation in ways not too disimilar
to those ambulance chasing ads on day time TV:
—————————————————————————————
Lawyer Mark Lewis of Taylor Hampton Solicitors, with four active court
cases against
the tabloid, said the current compensation claims were just
the “tip of the iceberg.”
“Cases are coming forward all the time. My phone hasn’t stopped ringing
from both
journalists and potential clients,” he told Reuters.
“Anyone who has been in the News of the World, or knows someone who has
been in the
News of the World, ought to find out whether their phone was
listened in to, because
they are likely to have a claim,” Lewis said.
http://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUKTRE7373OH20110409
—————————————————————————————
Lewis says he came upon this legal treasure trove when he was the lawyer
representing
the Union of Football Players
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/hacking-away-news-corp-125874
—————————————————————————————
Some of Mark Lewis’s cases:
7 Jun 2011
£100,000 payout for Sienna Miller
May 2011
Represents Dennis Rice, Mail on Sunday journalist
http://www.nickdavies.net/2011/05/23/news-of-the-world-hacked-rivals-to-steal-stories/
~2007 – April 2011
Represented Dr Peter Wilmshurst in scientific libel
case against NMT
Mar 2011
Sued Baronness Buscombe, the Press Complaints Commission and
the Metropolitan Plice on the grtounds of misreprentation
.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/af6a87d4-5ba1-11e0-b965-00144feab49a.html
Jan 2011
Represents Paul Marsden, double turncoat Labour/Lib Dem/Labour
ex-MP in a phone hack case against the Mirror.
http://news.sky.com/skynews/Article/201009115909531
http://paulwbmarsden.blogspot.com/2011/01/my-phone-was-hacked-when-i-was-mp.html
2 Sep 2009
Testified at a Commons select committee
Jun 2008
Represented Gordon Taylor and won him a £700,000 settlement
http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/hacking-away-news-corp-125874
http://www.thelawyer.com/phone-jacker/1005437.article
2008
“Lewis also reportedly secured a further £100,000 for
Armstrong”
Jo Armstrong is a barrister and colleague of Mark Lewis and was
involved in the Gordon Taylor case.
http://www.thelawyer.com/phone-jacker/1005437.article
??
Mark Lewis, Taylor Hampton Solicitors: representing former England
football manager Sven Goran Eriksson
http://www.ibanet.org/Article/Detail.aspx?ArticleUid=194d5f14-d472-44fc-9d00-a0401cdca703
- July 19,
2011 at 05:51
-
“My suspicion is Cameron will be fatally wounded by this.”
I’m inclined to say ‘Great!’.
Until think about who’d replace him…
- July 18, 2011 at 23:34
-
When the dust settles, the world will still be turning and I’ll STILL be
paying bloody taxes, as to hell in a hand cart the worls is so f*cked up the
wheels will fall off long before it gets there and we will just have to walk
the rest of the way……
- July 18, 2011 at 22:59
-
A good summarization Gildas, but if you will permit me I think you have
missed the major point. Nobody really cares about phone “hacking” or private
information being released, the government has been doing this on a large
scale since 1939 (and probably before) without an outcry.
This furore is about one thing only, the liebour party retaining power over
the major news distributor to the peasants. This can only be achieved by TV
because most of the peasants and liebour voters can no longer read. Liebour
control of BBC news and broadcasting monopoly is being challenged by the
threat of a Fox news affiliate owned by News International, were such an
alternative viewpoint allowed it might confuse the peasants and cause them to
vote based on facts. Such an outcome is most undesirable and therefore liebour
are fighting a desperate defensive position. Everything else is gossipy froth
(which we all subscribe to).
However, relief has appeared as Cheryl Cole gallops over the horizon with
the cavalry, the serial bimbo has decided that she will not shack-up with
Ashley, and we can expect wall-to-wall coverage for the foreseeable future. If
Murdoch is the astute businessman I think he is, he could do worse than pay
her a considerable sum to get her tits out for page 3 in his Sun newspaper,
the peasants are easily distracted.
On that basis I subscribe to the Hell in a hand basket scenario. though I
believe you arrived at the destination some time ago, and as engineer posits
things are about to get much worse, as your politicians ignore reality.
- July 19, 2011 at 00:42
-
Cascadian, you have very squarely hit the nail on the head. This hue and
cry only got started in full cry by the Guardian backed by the BBC when it
looked like NI would get control of bSkyb.
-
July 18, 2011 at 22:52
- July 18,
2011 at 22:07
-
The supposed scandal is indicative of MPs, the Media and the Met all
swimming in the same incestuous cesspit.
Maybe when the UK becomes the target of the speculators that have sunk
Greece and the rest, our supposed representatives will get the wake up call
they deserve, but I have my doubts.
Shame the rest of us have to suffer for their vanity.
- July 18, 2011 at 23:22
-
Sorry, I am off-topic.
“Maybe when the UK becomes the target of the speculators”……. http://www.zerohedge.com/article/sigma-x-trading-suggests-european-contagion-may-be-shifting-italy-uk,
somebody is already betting against european banks because of debt
cantagion.
Could be speculative nonsense, but this site has a pretty good track
record of accurate financial prediction.
- July
19, 2011 at 01:37
-
It was bound to happen.
- July 18, 2011 at 21:32
-
A good summary of the 2 extremes Gildas… well done. I lean to the second
conclusion rather than the ‘we’re all dooooooomed’ one but that may be because
I have a distrust of extreme postions of any stripe.
I’ve been wondering
why I am getting a headache when I listen to this story now and I think it’s
because I want to scream at the self-perpetuating feeding frenzy of the whole
thing. And I am sorry to say I think a lot of the public have lost the plot on
this one too. Everyone seems addicted to the SCANDAL of it all and the
‘outrage’ bar keeps getting raised…. now all police everywhere are corrupt (as
well as all journalists, all media owners, all politicians). I expect the
Archbishop of Canterbury will get fingered next…. sigh.
- July 18, 2011 at 21:00
-
As that nice Jeremy Thorpe once remarked about a leader of another
political party “There is no finer thing a man can do than lay down his
friends for his life”. Any and all of our collection of Westminster wimps
would do the same.
- July 18, 2011 at 19:53
-
Whatever, I recommend Tom Lehrer!
-
July 18, 2011 at 19:49
-
With the benefit of these comments I am increasingly coming to the position
that it’s more Westminster febrile nonsense, divorced from reality. Which is
in its own way, depressing. I think Engineer is right
- July 19, 2011 at 11:50
-
yup – just read Martenson “crash course” – explains the background and
likely future of the economy (spoiler alert – it ain’t pretty) http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse
So the Engineer has it right – this is all fluff and nonsense – a
distraction, a “circus maximus” to keep us all diverted from the real
problem….
- July 18, 2011 at 19:44
-
I have zero political affiliation beyond hero worship for Nigel
Farage.
I just don’t see any difference between patrician lefty DC and the
opposition in terms of the shifty compromises with the press and the getting
of power.
I would also point out that apart from the rather odd Libya
adventure, DC has not (as far as I have heard), been involved in going to war
with dodgy dossiers causing vast casualties, sold peerages, or pumped
taxpayers cash into party coffers via unions.
He has however presided over
even more borrowing, and disappointingly seems paralysed in the face of this
exposure of the worst kept secret ie govt & Murdoch + corrupt cops.
The
bodies thrown overboard to keep NI and the Govt afloat are
irrelevant.
Meanwhile the more serious euro timebomb constructed by the
wannabe Franco-German empire is fizzing merrily away and will overtake all
this pointless handwringing and faux disgust.
Days or weeks?
- July 18,
2011 at 18:50
-
On Friday 1 July I pondered when The Next Big Scandal would break. On 17
March I asked what might Cameron’s Marconi Scandal might be. I thought it
would be a property fiasco but it turned out to be media. Anyhow, what is the
next one to turn up? Richard North has already said that there is a major
scandal relating to the management of the Armed Forces that we are ignoring,
and I would go along with that.
- July 18, 2011 at 18:33
-
As I think you point out, it’s an internal hatchet job.
A palace
revolution.
But unfortunately I think it is a situation of the semi
restrained half-bads being taken down by the real bads.
It can only get
worse.
Much worse for freedom.
-
July 18, 2011 at 18:07
-
I just knew I’d get the blame. Although I had hoped to pass the buck to The
McCanns on this occasion.
-
July 18, 2011 at 19:47
-
LOL!
- July 18, 2011 at 15:15
-
Email from Miliband to BBC Director General. July 2012, after 50% of MPs
and plod are in clink and the press is reduced to the London and Belfast
Gazettes (Govt newspapers that nobody ever reads) –
“You were only supposed
to blow the bloody doors off!”
- July 18, 2011 at 20:09
-
Good one, Livewire!
-
July 18, 2011 at 15:07
-
Fascinating! As Shakespeare put it, “It is a tale full of sound and fury,
signifying nothing”. The corrupt ruling elite, MPs, Press and police, all
utterly swallowed by it, and the people not much. Those who live off the
public purse, MPs, Lords, and civil service are bent on destruction of News
International, in part to avenge their own exposure last year, and in part to
make the future enslavement of the people easier. Grasmsci’s great plan can be
made swifter and easier by destruction of the non-socialist press.
- July 18, 2011 at 15:01
-
“My suspicion is Cameron will be fatally wounded by this.”
Let’s hope so. We might get a conservative next time.
- July 18, 2011 at 14:18
-
The optimist in me says that Cameron, the LibDem in Tory clothing, will be
replaced by David Davis (disliked by a lot of Conservatives, I know, so I may
have to defend that view).
The pessimist says that Ken Clarke will take
over to keep the LibDems in the coalition.
That would be history repeating
itself from when the ageing and ineffective Hindenburg was Chancellor of
Germany, it didn’t end well…
- July 18, 2011 at 21:42
-
First the “Cameron is toast” narrative is way premature. He won’t jump
and so will need to be thrown out, kicking and screaming all the way making
Nixon’s departure look dignified.
Davis is possible, Ken Clarke wouldn’t get ten votes. I hate to say it,
but I reckon George Osborne would win on the Thatcher ‘Stalking horse that
goes on to win’ principle.
- July 18, 2011 at 14:07
-
In January of this year the Met. commissioner, Sir Paul Stephenson,
underwent surgery to remove a pre-cancerous tumour from his leg. There was
damage to the femur which, I believe, resulted in a fracture. There followed a
second ‘lengthy and complex’ operation.
Stephenson ended up in Champney’s where he underwent post-op physio and
hydrotherapy. I dunno whether he should have paid for the treatment – probably
should (even though it was provided by the owner, a friend), but I’m less sure
that he would describe his stay there as a ‘holiday’ or a ‘junket’. Just
saying, Gildas.
-
July 18, 2011 at 16:30
-
Should “Cop1″ ever take a “Freebie”?
Would ant ‘ordinary’ PC, injured in the line of duty, be offered the
sumptuous surroundings to recuperate in, paid for by the Met?
-
July 18, 2011 at 16:31
-
Or even ‘Would any ‘ordinary’ PC …’
- July 19, 2011 at 21:30
-
Ordinary PCs injured in the line of duty go the Police Treatment
Centres – http://www.thepolicetreatmentcentres.org/en/cat/about-us.aspx.
Just like in 1984, special pigs go to special places – because they are
worth it.
- July 18, 2011 at 20:38
-
A quick google shows his pay to be £260,088 per annum. Even after tax
excluding expenses he would be earning £10 grand a month after tax. Perhaps
he could have afforded to pay his own way.
- July 18, 2011 at 13:50
-
i believe that this is largely the result of the virus commonly known as
the “post-diana hysteria bug” that is still flying around britain. it flares
up every so often leaving people ranting uncontrollably about things that they
“cannot believe happen here” (in France I believe it is called the Influenza
Captain Louis Renault Strain).
it is most likely to be caught by hacks spending lots of time bored in pubs
looking for a new “big” story to justify their existences (rather than
actually going out there and creating something useful) and is passed on
through touching, sneezing, watching BBC News/Sky News and reading any paper
who has it in for Cameron/Tories/Murdoch (basically all of them apart from the
Sun now).
it lasts until the next new story comes along- see MP expenses, Cheryl Cole
(various), William and Kate, Maddie, any large football tournament etc
etc.
like with other diseases (such as swine flu) certain groups benefit greatly
from it. in wartime they are derided as war-profiteers whereas in this case
they are known as Labour Politicians who forget their integral role in
creating the virus and instead look to create as much capital (much like the
vaccine manufacturers) as possible by selling the cure to the gullible
public.
- July 18, 2011 at 22:19
-
brilliant.
- July 18, 2011 at 13:50
-
Europe is in economic turmoil, there’a another major famine in the Horn of
Africa, we’re involved in two ongoing wars, the country is in a dire financial
state, immigration is still out of control, energy and fuel prices are
skyrocketing and this year’s weather suggests that the harvest might not be
brilliant.
So, what are all our politicians, all the media and seemingly most of the
police concentrating on? Some hacked phones. A bloke who might have known
something about it before he resigned and then got another job.
My views on it all? The politicians, the media and Plod have totally lost
the plot. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns….
-
July 18, 2011 at 14:31
-
This is increasingly the conclusion I am coming to, too
-
July 19, 2011 at 09:16
-
Would that be fiddling their expenses while Rome, Athens, Lisbon and
Dublin burn?
{ 36 comments }