Piers Mostyn updates us on further events around the News International phone hacking scandal.
One week on a lot more has happened. As radio commentator Steve Hewlett put it, “any association with Murdoch and his papers, which quite naturally everybody has had in some form is now so toxic … I mean, look: it’s carnage. It’s almost as if the light has suddenly come on, and everybody has said: ‘Good Lord – were we doing that?’”.
- Acres of media coverage (the Guardian printing 8-10 full pages on the issue for the past fortnight) but most of it doing little more than reciting the facts – analysis generally being superficial. An exception is Seamus Milne in today’s Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/20/scandal-exposed-scale-elite-corruption) who compares the Murdoch empire to a mafia “family”. Part of the continuing fascination with The Godfather films and the excellent TV drama The Sopranos lies in the way they use the mafia as a metaphor for capitalism. In the recent developments we see a full revelation of that metaphor and the exposure of capitalism as mafia operation.Here is a small selection of the last seven days developments:
• Rebekah Brooks resigned from News International and was then arrested and held for 12 hours until midnight on Sunday. She then protested about this saying she had agreed to come in as a witness but was tricked; that no evidence against her was presented; that this is an intolerable slur on her reputation and even that she would sue the police. She forgets that this is how every criminal suspect is treated, generally a lot better – her door wasn’t battered in at 5.30 am. She seems unaware that all that is required is a reasonable suspicion of an offence. There is no requirement to “produce evidence” let alone prove it. Her purpose is to suggest that even suspecting her is an outrage. Hardly evidence of contrition and certainly no understanding of how the public view her position. More than a trace of irony given her very lucrative career in a news empire with a daily trade in vilifying criminal suspects going through an identical process: publishing photos and full details of allegations and then not the fact that no charges were pressed, or charges were dropped or the verdict was Not Guilty.
• Met Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson resigned. Protesting his innocence. Yet it doesn’t look good that he accepted expensive hospitality from Champneys health farm which is closely connected to the News International empire through a variety of means.
• Met Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates resigned. Protesting his innocence. Over the appointment of Neil Wallis, ex-NOTW deputy editor, as Met PR advisor and allegations that Yates helped Wallis’s daughter get employment.
Cameron had to cut short an African trip to make announcements and answer questions. Increasingly he looks like someone caught with his hands in the till. But he has the chutzpah to suggest that there are serious ethical problems in the police at a senior level and fresh blood from outside is needed – as if precisely the same point didn’t apply to him.
On Wednesday 20th he finally issued a statement of regret about hiring Coulson, “with 20/20 hindsight, and all that has followed, I would not have offered him the job … “ hedging about with qualifications about Coulson being innocent until proven guilty and that he won’t make a “profound” apology until it is shown that he had been lied to. This is a classic “non-apology”, claiming absolute innocence, but hoping to get the kudos of expressing regret. In some ways the worst of all worlds for Cameron as it leaves him looking completely non-credible and won’t make the issue go away.
In my humble opinion the death of David Kelly (top ranking Defence Intelligence expert who exposed the lies behind the Iraq invasion) definitely did look suspicious even if it is difficult to find solid evidence to prove it. Hoare’s death may not be. This was a man who was clearly very unwell as a result of years of Class A drug addiction at the behest of the Murdoch empire in the pursuit of showbiz scoops. Interestingly he was a Labour Party-supporting socialist of the Clause IV variety – in favour of public ownership of the means of production.
• Rupert and James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks summoned before House of Commons committee. Billed in advance as a “day of drama” by the media. More of a damp squib. The MPs didn’t lay a glove on them.
What mattered though is what they denied and didn’t say rather than any dramatic humiliation under cross-examination. The denial by everyone of any knowledge about anything was clearly a pack of lies and hopefully highly educational for the viewing public globally.....read more
