Labour Uncut

UNBOUND: Monday News Review

11/07/2011, 06:29:49 AM

Rupert returns

Rupert Murdoch put on an extraordinary show of support for Rebekah Brooks yesterday – apparently unconcerned about her imminent interview under police caution. Flying into London to take personal charge of the phone-hacking scandal, the billionaire flaunted his confidence in his News International chief executive. Mrs Brooks, who has twice offered to resign over the controversy, was seen entering Mr Murdoch’s Mayfair apartment at around 5.30pm yesterday. Later, when asked what was his top priority, the 80-year-old media mogul gestured to Mrs Brooks. ‘She is,’ he replied. The pair spent an hour in the apartment discussing the scandal on the day the final edition of the News of the World hit news stands. Then, in front of hordes of photographers, Mr Murdoch walked her out of the block of flats with his arm firmly around her. They had beaming smiles as they crossed the road to the Stafford Hotel, where they were expected to dine together and were later joined by Mr Murdoch’s son, James, the chairman of News International. Pictures of the ‘Rupert and Rebekah show’ will infuriate the victims of phone hacking and those who question her denials. – Daily Mail

For more than 30 years now there have been two truths about Rupert Murdoch’s increasingly infrequent visitations to the British outpost of his media empire. The first: anyone who is anyone in the world of politics and business angles for (and is delighted by) any kind of audience with the great man. The second is the chill his visit engenders amongst his senior editors and executives in Wapping. Yesterday as Mr Murdoch’s corporate Boeing 737 jet, complete with a boardroom and double bed, touched down at Luton Airport, it was clear how much has changed in the last week. The chill in Wapping is still there – worse than ever – but the audiences for Mr Murdoch have dried up. He and his company – feted by David Cameron and Ed Miliband just two weeks ago at the News International Summer Party – have become a political liability. To paraphrase the famous quote: “It was News of the World wot lost it”. Yesterday Downing Street made it very clear that Mr Cameron would be neither meeting nor speaking to Mr Murdoch on this visit. Privately Government sources are blunter. They are incandescent at the political damage done by the phone-hacking scandal and angry that News Corp has not voluntarily suspended its attempted takeover of BSkyB in the wake of the allegations. – the Independent

Hinton could be the moat senior casualty

Les Hinton, Rupert Murdoch‘s lifelong lieutenant and closest adviser, faces questions over whether he saw a 2007 internal News International report, which found evidence that phone hacking was more widespread than admitted by the company, before he testified to a parliamentary committee that the practice was limited to a single reporter. News of the existence of the 2007 report – the conclusions of which were kept hidden from the public, MPs and police – came as Murdoch, chairman and CEO of News Corporation, arrived in the UK to deal directly with the rapidly developing crisis. The collection of memos that formed the inquiry were sent to the Metropolitan police earlier this year. This step came after executives who had joined NI more recently discovered its existence and sent it to the Operation Weeting team investigating News of the World phone hacking. Despite the alleged conclusions of the memos, NI executives repeatedly went on the record to say hacking was confined to a single “rogue reporter” – and gave evidence to parliament that that was the case. The Guardian understands that Hinton was among five NI executives who had access to the report. The then News of the World editor, Colin Myler, and legal counsel, Tom Crone, are also understood to have seen it. Hinton – an employee of Murdoch for 52 years – was succeeded by James Murdoch, who it is understood had no knowledge of the 2007 internal inquiry until recently. He joined NI from BSkyB, where he had been chief executive. Also in the dark was Rebekah Brooks, who at the time was editing the Sun. – the Guardian

Rupert Murdoch’s right hand man could become the highest-profile casualty of the scandal engulfing News Corp. Dow Jones chief executive Les Hinton looks set to be dragged into the firing line after it emerged a report was commissioned in 2007 – on his watch – showing that phone hacking may not have been restricted to royal reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire. Hinton, who after 52 years at the company is seen as a key Murdoch henchman, faces tough questions over whether he saw the report before he testified to a parliamentary committee that the phone hacking scandal was carried out by a “single rogue reporter”. Sources close to News Corp have been forced to deny that James Murdoch or Rebekah Brooks had knowledge of the report, which was carried out by law firm Harbottle & Lewis on behalf of the News of the World. The memo was finally handed over to police last month – four years after it was penned. Brooks was editor of sister publication the Sun at the time, which was not implicated in the scandal, and James Murdoch was at BSkyB. It now looks likely that heads will have to roll over the report. – City A.M.

Cameron’s ‘power to the people’ proposals

Virtually all public services would be privatised under “wrecking ball” plans to be unveiled today by David Cameron. The Prime Minister is to announce that companies will get the chance to run everything from elderly care and bin collection to schools and hospitals. Only the Armed Forces, the police and the courts system will escape Mr Cameron’s huge shake-up. In a speech today outlining his plans, he will accuse public servants of running “old-fashioned, top-down, take-what-you’re-given” services that are “just not working for a lot of people”. Sources close to the Prime Minister say all public services will be opened up to the private sector and the Government will be “neutral” on who runs them. But union leaders attacked the plans. Unison’s Dave Prentis said: “The Tories are now turning their wrecking ball on to the entire public sector.” But the PM, stung by criticism that he has made too many U-turns, has vowed to press ahead with the idea regardless of opposition. But Labour, which has backed the Mirror’s Save Our Services campaign, has accused the Tory-led Government of relying too heavily on private firms. – Daily Mirror

David Cameron will today set out “urgent” plans to boost significantly the role of charities, community groups and private companies in running services such as health, child care and education. Under the reforms, outside organisations could bid for work including ”mutual’’ companies formed by public sector workers and based on the John Lewis Partnership, the department store chain partly owned by its staff. Publishing the Open Public Services White Paper, the Prime Minister will insist he is not going to back down on his plans for reform, despite the doubts of some senior Conservatives. The Daily Telegraph understands that the paper will commit ministers to examine the case for a new “overarching” right to choice for all public services. The new law could be modelled on existing rules in education, which ensure that parents are given a choice of schools by their council. Such a choice could then be extended to anyone who uses state-funded services. Government sources say that the “right to choose” would mean that public sector bodies – including councils – would be forced to consider letting outside organisations provide public services. The John Lewis-style “mutual” companies would allow staff to have a say on how their service was run. Outside bodies running services will operate on the basis of “payment by results” contracts, giving them a clear financial incentive to deliver. – Daily Telegraph

Labour braces itself for Baldwin attack

A senior News International journalist warned Labour that the company’s papers intended to “turn on Ed Miliband and his staff” days before allegations were published in The Sunday Times and The Sun about his strategy director Tom Baldwin. The Independent understands the warning was made to a Labour spokesman hours after Mr Miliband had called on Wednesday for the resignation of News International’s chief executive Rebekah Brooks. Three days later, The Sun carried a story claiming that Mr Baldwin had been a heavy user of cocaine. Yesterday, The Sunday Times carried a story which said he had been accused – in a previous job – of hiring a private investigator to “blag” the bank details of the Conservative donor Michael Ashcroft. The broad theme of both allegations had been made in a book by Lord Ashcroft, which was published five years ago. But the decision by The Sun and The Sunday Times to attack Mr Baldwin has caused tensions at The Times, where he was formerly chief reporter until he accepted the job with Mr Miliband in December last year. In his previous role, Mr Baldwin would not have been able to sanction such payments – suggesting that if the allegations were correct, someone higher up at The Times during the period in question would have had to sanction it. The last thing Rupert Murdoch would want is a sister paper of The Times precipitating a fresh investigation into the Ashcroft affair. – the Independent

Jarvis Cocker gets in on the act

Pulp frontman Jarvis Cocker has celebrated the demise of the News Of The World at T In The Park. Ending its run after allegations of phone tapping were proved to be endemic, the newspaper’s demise has delighted some vociferous critics. Pulp took to the stage at T In The Park fresh from the knowledge that the newspaper would end production. Clearly in a gleeful mood, Jarvis Cocker opened the set with a passionate rendition of ‘Do You Remember The First Time?’. Later, the singer told the crowd to remember the last time the News Of The World was published. Holding the final edition aloft, Jarvis Cocker then proceeded to use the newspaper as toilet roll. With the crowd egging him on, the frontman then told the T In The Park audience “that’s the only thing that piece of shit has been good for in 168 years”. – Clash Music

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UNCUT: In praise of… the Guardian

10/07/2011, 05:41:19 PM

by David Talbot

Since early 2008 the Guardian’s daily editorial encomium has praised some 841 men, women, organisations, objects and events. But given the extraordinary proceedings that have marked a seismic week in British journalism, no other entity deserves more praise than the Guardian newspaper itself.

If the paper’s revelations had only concerned lurid journalism it would be disgraceful but not sinister. However, the way that the News of the World, the police, the press complaints commission and some politicians appear to have prevented the exposure of systematic phone-hacking, is a reminder of just how much of a stranglehold the Murdoch empire has over British officialdom. The man is rarely seen, but his presence is always felt. Until now all Conservative and Labour leaders have served a rite of passage to canoodle with the Murdoch apparat with a desperation that demeans them and their office. This political corruption has often been rather more alarming than any duck island, and all together far more destructive.

This is one of the biggest scandals in British public life for decades, but the actions of many a hitherto respected institution has been feeble in the extreme. The Metropolitan police has been disgracefully uncooperative, which yet further highlights their sordid links to the media. Parliament, bar a noble few, so long beguiled by the power of the Murdoch press, has dared not speak out. The prime minister, speaking at the dispatch box on Wednesday, effectively evaded questions as to the complicity of the then News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks in the whole affair. And vast swathes of the British media turned a blind eye, in the knowledge that they too were indulging in the very same practices and fearful lest the forensic focus fall on them and their dealings. Read the rest of this entry »

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GRASSROOTS: Arts: Dylan classic deconstructed

10/07/2011, 10:00:25 AM

What it means: Subterranean Homesick Blues

by Dan McCurry

“Johnny’s in the basement, mixing up the medicine. I’m on the pavement, thinking about the government“.

On the question of darkness and light, Dylan gives us darkness masquerading as light. This is a depiction of people in misery. His friend is mixing up the medicine, or heroine, while he thinks about the government. With those first two lines, almost in the same sentence, I see the writer using heroin to escape his problems, but blaming his addiction on society, on the government. He’s looking outside himself to find blame for his misery. He is saying, “it’s society that’s dysfunctional not me”.

The lyrics give us a vivid description of a complex condition, the disaffected: Those who feel that they do not fit in with our society and therefore engage in criminal behaviour, or escape into drug and alcohol addiction.

“Look out kid, it’s something you did. God knows when but you’re doing it again”.

This is a much more touching and sympathetic description of a young person who can’t seem to get it right. He can’t seem to get a grasp of the basic rules. And society just keeps hitting him with punishments without helping him to understand where he’s going wrong. Society is all powerful, but not a friend, not a guiding hand, just a purveyor of punishment.

“A man in a coon-skin cap, in a big pen, wants 11 dollar bills, you only got 10.”

Davy Crockett immediately springs to mind as a man in a coon-skin cap. The word “pen” is American slang for a jail. This imagery accuses America of fundamental injustice, with a picture of Davy Crocket as a prison governor demanding a get-out-of-jail fine, which is always just beyond our means.

The frontiersmen, such as Davy Crocket, are epic folk heroes in the minds of Americans. They are the ones who discovered the Appalachian passage which enabled America to expand from a 13 state colony of Great Britain into the 50 state superpower of the modern day. To describe the pioneers as creators of an unjust prison is an attack on the identity of America.

Dylan then describes his friend Maggie as having a face full of black soot.

“Maggie comes a fleet foot, face full of black soot”.

Heroin is consumed by chasing the dragon. By using a cigarette lighter to heat the heroine on a spoon, until a plume of black smoke emerges, and this is inhaled. The image of Maggie is the equivalent of an alcoholic who has spilt whisky down his shirt.

Many critics of this piece believe that LSD is being manufactured in the basement, but LSD was only made illegal in 1965, a year after this film was made.

Maggie is paranoid about a police raid, “They must bust in early may, orders of the DA”.

She also speaks about bugs planted in the basement and Dylan retorts, “The phone’s tapped anyway.”

“Keep away from those men around the fire-hose”, is a reference to the racist police who used fire hoses against civil rights demonstrators around this time. Again Dylan seeks negative depictions of representatives of the state.

Earlier he made reference to street life with the lines, “duck down the alleyway, looking for a new friend”. Now he describes the colourful characters of street life. “Look out kid, you’re gonna get hit, by users, cheaters, six times users, hanging by the theatres. The girl by the whirlpool is looking for a new fool”.

This is insightful, because the disaffected community, who make up street life, hang out together because they’ve got nowhere else to go. These are the ones who don’t fit in with normal society and have normal jobs. But nor are they very nice to each other. It is a world of mutual abuse. It demonstrates that he speaks from personal experience about this world, but the uplifting mood of the song demonstrates that he likes and fits in with this world.

“Twenty years of schooling and they put you on the day shift”, is again cynical. Education is one of the foundation-stones of our society, but he dismisses it by describing the whole system as a cheat, that the inevitable outcome is manual labour. Everything is someone else’s fault, and nothing is his own.

The picture that Bob Dylan paints for us is one of addiction and the addict is blaming everyone else, rather than looking within for a solution to his problems.

It is therefore little wonder that Bob Dylan was frustrated when people regarded him as a leader. The video above is from the 1964-shot documentary, Don’t Look Back. In this clip, the Time correspondent Horace Freeland Judson was offended by what he considered to be a contrived tirade of abuse from Dylan.

However, Dylan was responding to the description of himself as a leader of his generation. He was perfectly reasonable in his frustration of this analysis. He wasn’t putting himself forward as a leader and didn’t want to be on pedestal. His was a voice of disaffection, after a childhood as a serial runaway in Minnesota, who didn’t claim to have answers.

The recent disclosure of Bob Dylan’s heroin use coincides with his seventieth birthday. He attributes his addiction to the pressure he was under at the height of his fame. This suggests that he subsequently overcame drugs by looking within himself, rather than looking for someone else to blame. To me, this is a stark contrast to the lyrics of Subterranean Homesick Blues, a song of darkness masquerading as light, but brilliant none the less.

Dan McCurry is a Labour activist whose photographic and film blog is here.

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UNBOUND: Sunday News Review

10/07/2011, 06:30:02 AM

Thank you and goodbye

After 168 years, we finally say a sad but very proud farewell to our 7.5m loyal readers. – News of the World

The end of the world

We do not celebrate the passing of the News of the World. At its best, it was one of the finest newspapers in Britain, with an astonishing record of scoops and entertainment. The Independent on Sunday would wish we enjoyed anything like its sales success. And no one, least of all the staff of another Sunday newspaper, should take pleasure in the sacking of fellow journalists, few of whom were responsible for the excesses that brought the title down. What is worse is that the closure of the NOTW was unnecessary. If Rebekah Brooks had resigned, the toxicity of the title could have been purged and advertisers might have been won back. It is almost universally agreed that phone-hacking of this kind, simply trawling for information about people in the news, or their families, is repugnant. It is bad enough when hacking is used as a short cut to easy stories about the private lives of celebrities, but in the Dowler case, the hacker gave false hope to Milly’s family and could have jeopardised a police murder investigation. What Ms Brooks meant when she said that there was worse yet to come out we can only shudder to imagine. – the Independent on Sunday

Suddenly, Rupert Murdoch seems much less a global mogul, much more a diminished man of glass. He flies into London this weekend from Sun Valley, Idaho, in time for the last rites of the most successful Sunday newspaper in Britain, the News of the World. One hundred and sixty-eight years ago, it pledged: “Our motto is the truth, our practice is fearless advocacy of the truth.” After today, the tabloid will appear no more, felled not by one royal rogue reporter but by the arrogance, ambition and apparent tolerance of systemic criminal behaviour by members of the senior News International management. The loss of a newspaper, especially one with a proud history of award-winning investigative journalism, is a cause for sadness. The News of the World was the biggest-selling Sunday tabloid in the English-speaking world. The death of a paper in such rude health is unprecedented and unwanted in the media. The individuals who are to blame are, as yet, unwilling fully to admit culpability. Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive, still in post, has warned that worse revelations are to come. The shameful saga stretches back over five years. Arguably, it would not have come to light but for the sterling and stoic persistence of the Guardian, some diligent lawyers and a handful of MPs such as Tom Watson and Chris Bryant. The News of the World’s termination is the price Murdoch is willing to pay to halt the accelerating erosion of the British wing of his international empire and to secure full ownership of “the cash machine”, the satellite broadcaster BSkyB, the leading provider of pay TV. However, over the past few days, BSkyB shares have lost more than £1bn in value. – the Observer

Ed to take on BSkyB deal in the Commons

Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, is seeking cross-party support for a motion in Parliament that would postpone any deal until the criminal investigation into the News of the World hacking scandal is complete. News Corporation fears that if the vote is successful the bid will have to be abandoned. Observers said that it would be difficult to see how the Government could “green light” the deal if Parliament has voted against it. It is believed Labour is hopeful it can get enough support to push through the vote, scheduled for Wednesday. Mr Miliband is expected to make an official announcement this morning on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. Meanwhile, one of BSkyB’s most significant long-term investors has bought back into the UK television company, saying that he did not want Rupert Murdoch to get it “on the cheap”. – Sunday Telegraph

Rupert Murdoch‘s ambition to expand his media empire still further could be killed off by MPs this week after Labour announced plans for a Commons vote to thwart his bid for BSkyB. The move comes amid a mood of continuing public uproar over the phone-hacking scandal, which is now threatening to destabilise David Cameron’s government. The vote will present the coalition with a major test of unity as the Labour leader, Ed Miliband, seeks cross-party support for a motion in parliament which would halt progress on the takeover until the criminal investigation into the News of the World is completed. With many Liberal Democrats and Tory MPs deeply uneasy about Murdoch gaining an even bigger slice of the UK media market – and still incensed by the behaviour of News Corp executives – Labour is optimistic it can mobilise enough support to achieve a majority. Miliband will appear on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show on Sunday to announce his plan and to begin his push for support across all the major parties. He will lay the motion tomorrow and the debate and vote will be on Wednesday. If he is successful, the Labour move will drive a wedge between the coalition parties and leave Murdoch’s takeover ambition in tatters – because the police inquiry could take several years. – the Observer

Yates’ startling apology

A senior Scotland Yard detective has admitted he let down the victims of the News of the World phone-hacking scandal by too readily dismissing calls to reopen the case. Assistant Commissioner John Yates admitted he was too quick to rule out a full investigation into the allegations when he was asked to look into them in 2009. He also said he had never seen the 11,000 pages from private investigator Glenn Mulcaire’s notebooks, which had been seized by police. ‘I’m not going to go down and look at bin bags,’ he said. ‘I am supposed to be an Assistant Commissioner. Perhaps I should have been more demanding. I am accountable, and it happened on my watch, and it’s clear I could have done more.’ Using remarkably blunt language for a senior police officer, Mr Yates said his decision had been ‘a pretty crap one’. He dismissed the claims as ‘malicious gossip’. In a remarkable admission, Mr Yates, who has been widely criticised for failing to expose the full extent of the scandal, said: ‘Should I have come out so quickly and said there wasn’t anything in it? Tactically, I probably shouldn’t have. I should have cogitated and reflected but it’s so bloody obvious there was nothing there [that we didn’t already know]. I didn’t do a review. Had I known then what I know now – all bets are off. In hindsight there is a shed load of stuff in there I wish I’d known.’ – Mail on Sunday

Rooney’s hooker sets BoJo’s pulse racing

Boris Johnson partied the night away with Wayne Rooney’s call girl Helen Wood at a posh summer do – but seemed to have no idea who she was. Former prostitute Helen set the bumbling London Mayor’s pulse racing at the Spectator At Home bash, where posh guests included Chancellor George Osborne. One partygoer said: “Helen really stood out from the crowd on the night. Boris couldn’t believe someone that pretty would be at the Tory magazine’s bash. I’m not sure if he knew about Helen’s past though.” Boris, who arrived at the party on his bicycle, does have previous at The Spectator. He had an affair with columnist Petronella Wyatt while he was editor of the right-wing magazine. – Sunday Mirror

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HOME: The week Uncut

09/07/2011, 02:00:20 PM

In case you missed them, these were the best read pieces on Uncut in the last seven days:

Atul Hatwal on the Lib Dem reaction to the NoTW revelations

Anthony Painter says News International needs to be broken up

Dan Hodges on the kaleidoscope of renewal

Michael Dugher says the govt must swallow its pride and adapt to the Arab spring

Jonathan Todd says as Huhne divides, Labour must conquer

Peter Watt asks; can trees really be more “sexy” than people?

…and this weeks PMQs sketch

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UNBOUND: Saturday News Review

09/07/2011, 07:11:40 AM

Rupert steps in

The chairman’s reported intervention comes as a third man was arrested and bailed in connection with alleged corrupt payments made to police officers. Sky News understands the 63-year-old man, who was arrested in Surrey, is a private investigator who worked for the newspaper. Former NOTW editor Andy Coulson and former royal reporter Clive Goodman were released last night on police bail after being arrested earlier. Mr Murdoch is due to arrive in the UK on a flight some time today. Sky reporter Hannah Thomas-Peter, in New York, said the News Corp boss had been in Idaho and looked unhappy after being questioned by several reporters. “He presided over the decision to axe a favourite newspaper in order to stop the rot – a phrase used here a lot,” Thomas-Peter said. “The idea was to send a message to investors and shareholders that News Corporation is serious about protecting the Murdoch brand and the proposed takeover of BSkyB. “It is clear at the moment that it does not look like he has been able to stop the rot, so he himself is getting on a plane to fly to London to deal with it.” News International also denied reports that police are investigating suspected deletion of emails by an executive at the company. The Guardian reported that Scotland Yard is probing claims that a member of staff deleted “millions of emails” from an internal archive. Police refused to comment on the reports. – Sky News

Murdoch Snr, the 80-year-old chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, is due in the UK to confront the growing crisis at his media group. His intervention comes as a third man was held last night in connection with alleged corrupt payments made to police officers. The man was later bailed until October. A 63-year-old was arrested at an address in Surrey as former News of the World editor Andy Coulson was released on police bail after being quizzed for nine hours over allegations of corruption and the phone-hacking scandal that forced the closure of the 168-year-old newspaper. The Sunday tabloid’s former royal editor, Clive Goodman, was also questioned at a separate police station over claims that police officers were bribed. As the crisis at Mr Murdoch’s empire deepened, News International’s embattled chief executive Rebekah Brooks hinted to staff that more revelations were ahead, warning of “another very difficult moment in this company’s history”. – Daily Telegraph

Brooks hangs on for now

Sensational allegations of a criminal cover-up were made against Rupert Murdoch’s faltering media empire last night as the phone hacking scandal reached the door of Downing Street. Police are investigating claims that News International deleted millions of emails from an internal archive in an apparent attempt to obstruct a police inquiry. All this came as the Prime Minister made the extraordinary suggestion that Mr Murdoch’s son and heir apparent James had ‘questions to answer’ to police after admitting paying hush money to victims of hacking by the News of the World. In his most difficult day since becoming Conservative leader, Mr Cameron repeatedly refused to apologise for hiring as his media chief ex-News of the World editor Andy Coulson, who was arrested yesterday and held for ten hours. The Prime Minister admitted he, as well as other political leaders, had been wrong to spend years courting the Murdoch empire – and turned on his horse-riding companion and Oxfordshire neighbour Rebekah Brooks, the media group’s UK boss. He said Mrs Brooks, editor of the News of the World at the time it is accused of hacking mobile phone messages of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, should go. ‘It has been reported that she offered her resignation over this and in this situation I would have taken it,’ the Prime Minister said. – Daily Mail

Rebekah Brooks last night told the News of the World’s staff that she had no option but to close Britain’s best-selling Sunday newspaper because it had become a “toxic brand” because of the slew of phone-hacking revelations. In a tense meeting held in Rupert Murdoch’s Wapping headquarters, with News International’s chief executive flanked by guards, and the company disabling the Twitter and email accounts of staff, Ms Brooks apologised to 250 employees and tried to defuse the fallout from her address to them 24 hours earlier, in which she had made the shock announcement that their paper was to be closed and they were losing their jobs. Ms Brooks shared a platform with the NOTW’s editor, Colin Myler, who addressed staff and received applause; Ms Brooks was greeted with silence and the occasional heckler. A NOTW staff member told The Independent that Ms Brooks dodged difficult questions: “She said: ‘I am not going to resign because these are unproven allegations,’ to which someone replied: ‘Well, you closed the paper down over these unproven allegations.’ “We were asking difficult questions about our futures and getting corporate PR-speak back. She told us that everything possible would be done to find us new jobs within News International. Someone replied that it was presumptuous to think that we even wanted to work for the company again after this.” – the Independent

Murdoch jr could still face charges

James Murdoch and News Corp could face corporate legal battles on both sides of the Atlantic that involve criminal charges, fines and forfeiture of assets as the escalating phone-hacking scandal risks damaging his chances of taking control of Rupert Murdoch’s US-based media empire. As deputy chief operating officer of News Corp – the US-listed company that is the ultimate owner of News International (NI), which in turn owns the News of the World, the Times, the Sunday Times and the Sun – the younger Murdoch has admitted he misled parliament over phone hacking, although he has stated he did not have the complete picture at the time. There have also been reports that employees routinely made payments to police officers, believed to total more than £100,000, in return for information. The payments could leave News Corp – and possibly James Murdoch himself – facing the possibility of prosecution in the US under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) – legislation designed to stamp out bad corporate behaviour that carries severe penalties for anyone found guilty of breaching it – and in the UK under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000 which outlaws the interception of communications. Tony Woodcock, a partner at the City law firm Stephenson Harwood, said section 79 of the 2000 Act enabled criminal proceedings to be brought against not only a company, but also a director or similar officer where the offence was committed with their “consent or connivance” or was “attributable to any neglect on their part. While the UK phone-hacking scandal has been met with outrage in the US, the hacking itself is unlikely to prompt Washington officials into action. But because NI is a subsidiary of the US company, any payments to UK police officers could trigger a justice department inquiry under the FCPA. – the Guardian

Focus shifts to Ed’s team

The day Alastair Campbell appeared to give evidence to the Hutton inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly, he was given a good-luck hug by his friend Tom Baldwin. Baldwin was the Times journalist who named the weapons expert as the secret source behind the BBC’s claim that the Blair government had ‘sexed up’ a dossier about Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to justify going to war against Saddam Hussein. Campbell was known to liaise with Baldwin in endless attempts to discredit the Labour government’s enemies, the results of which regularly ended up prominently in The Times — a paper once admired for its thundering independence. ‘Tom was a ruthless operator and obsessed by the power his friend Alastair wielded in Downing Street,’ says a colleague. ‘I think he envied him.’ Even so, who could have imagined, when the appalling era of mendacity that marked Campbell’s tenure in Downing Street finally ended, that a new one would start a few years later? ‘Tom’s trouble is that he is totally disorganised — administratively chaotic,’ says an old colleague. ‘He has a sharp mind, but once when he went on a journalistic assignment, no one was surprised when he called the office to say he’d lost his phone and laptop.’ Those were the days when people who worked closely with Baldwin noticed him slip away from his desk for what they called ‘inquiries with Mr Coke’. No one doubted his abilities as a journalist, with ruthless energy when pursuing a story. – Daily Mail

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UNCUT: What the Lib Dem response to the News of the World meltdown tells us about the government’s political strategy

08/07/2011, 08:29:12 AM

by Atul Hatwal

For the moment, all eyes are on News International. Over the coming days, the focus will broaden as the political implications start to be fully felt.

At this stage, it’s difficult to tell definitively what the political fall-out will be, but one small political development has become apparent which will potentially have major consequences for Labour.

Note the position of the Lib Dems. They’ve staked out a distinctly more hawkish stance than Cameron, calling for tougher action, Rebekah Brooks’ resignation and a judge-led enquiry.

This follows on from a few weeks where Cameron and Clegg, last year’s political love birds, have been engaged in some seemingly sharper public exchanges.

The new mood was first evident on June 20th, when David Cameron subjected himself to the forensic questioning of Steve Wright in the afternoon on radio 2.

Out of the blue, he broke new political ground when he said that the Tories would have been tougher on immigration and welfare without the Lib Dems.

Apparently piqued, Clegg fired back two days later on his visit to Brazil saying that without the Tories the Lib Dems would have been tougher on the banks.

Looking at the change in tone, it’s easy to view this as a part of a linear process that starts with flowers in the Number 10 garden and ends in a bitter split. The New Statesman‘s Rafael Behr declared,

“With the prime minister now attacking his deputy openly on the radio, it’s clear that the early truce is over. How will the two parties convince voters that coalition is still a viable option for 2015“?

The Lib Dem position on hacking would seem to back this up. It has certainly been written up as such.

Read the rest of this entry »

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UNBOUND: Friday News Review

08/07/2011, 06:48:05 AM

The news screws no more

From its very first edition in 1843, the News of the World took pride in causing scandal and excitement with its coverage. The paper’s first lead story was a classic Victorian sensation, the lurid tale of a female chemist raped and thrown into the Thames. That same dedication to revealing eye-catching and gut-wrenching details of human misbehaviour would propel the paper to a central place in Britain’s public imagination, and eventually over the cliff-edge to destruction. In 1946, George Orwell’s Decline of the English Murder described an idealised Sunday afternoon thus: “You put your feet up on the sofa, settle your spectacles on your nose, and open the News of the World.” A decade later, it was selling nine million copies each week, making it the biggest-selling newspaper in the English-speaking world. In 1969, it was bought by Rupert Murdoch. Under Mr Murdoch’s guidance, the paper continued to set the pace, first by offering a colour magazine, then by adopting a tabloid format. In 2000, Rebekah Brooks took the chair once held by Sir Emsley Carr, one of the greatest editors in Fleet Street history. She held the post for three years before a promotion to edit The Sun, her place taken by her deputy, Andy Coulson. Under Brooks and then Coulson, the News of the World was a paper at the peak of its powers, trampling over its competition with a string of classic tabloid exclusives: from David Beckham’s affair with his nanny to Prince Harry’s drug-taking, it consistently landed the stories that shocked, titillated and scandalised. – Sydney Morning Herald

James Murdoch, the chairman of News International, which owns the newspaper, announced that the final edition would be published this weekend, citing the “inhuman” alleged behaviour of some staff as prompting the decision. The 168-year-old newspaper will donate all this weekend’s revenues to good causes and would not accept any paid advertising, he said. Hundreds of staff now face an uncertain future. However, Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International and former editor of the News of the World, has been allowed to keep her job despite widespread calls for her to be sacked. Last night she faced angry scenes at the paper as she broke the news to journalists. There were reports she had to be escorted from the offices by security guards for her protection. Rupert Murdoch and his family sacrificed the tabloid as they fought to salvage their company’s attempt to take over BSkyB, the satellite broadcaster, after the scandal resulted in growing political pressure for the Government to block the deal. Last night politicians warned that shutting the newspaper would not shut down the scandal, which they said would only end when those responsible for the hacking were brought to justice. It was made hours after the Metropolitan Police disclosed that more than 4,000 people had been identified as potential victims of private detectives employed by the paper. – Daily Telegraph

Coulson cops it

The Guardian understands that a second arrest is also to be made in the next few days of a former senior journalist at the paper. Leaks from News International forced police to speed up their plans to arrest the two key suspects in the explosive phone-hacking scandal. The Guardian knows the identity of the second suspect but is withholding the name to avoid prejudicing the police investigation. Coulson, who resigned as David Cameron‘s director of communications in January, was contacted on Thursday by detectives and asked to present himself at a police station in central London on Friday, where he will be told that he will be formally questioned under suspicion of involvement in hacking. After being questioned by detectives from Operation Weeting – a process that could take several hours – the former rising star of News International is likely to be released on bail conditions that include appearing at court at a later date along with his three former colleagues who have already been arrested: Ian Edmondson, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup. The arrest will be embarrassing for Cameron, who consistently defended his decision to hire the controversial former journalist amid mounting evidence of his involvement in the hacking scandal. – the Guardian

Former News of the World editor and Downing Street spin chief Andy Coulson is today expected to be arrested over allegations he knew about phone hacking and bribing police officers. He is due to attend a police station ‘by appointment’ to be questioned about suspicions he directed or allowed staff to intercept mobile phone voicemails. Sources say that unless there is a last-minute change of plan, he is also likely to be questioned over claims he authorised the payment by journalists of tens of thousands of pounds to corrupt police officers. Supporters of Mr Coulson, 43, claim he has been ‘hung out to dry’ by News International bosses, including Rebekah Brooks, who is fighting desperately to keep her job. They believe that if he co-operates with police, he could make damaging claims about Mrs Brooks, who edited the News of the World before him, which in turn could result in her being questioned. One source linked to the police investigation said: ‘If Andy Coulson goes down, he could take some very senior people with him. He must know where the bodies are buried at News International.’ – Daily Mail

The end of self regulation?

Labour leader Ed Miliband will today call for the watchdog which oversees complaints about newspaper coverage to be scrapped and replaced. Mr Miliband will challenge the industry to come up with a different and more effective form of self regulation. “The Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has totally failed,” Mr Miliband will say. “It has been exposed as a toothless poodle. It is time to put it out of its misery. A new body would need: far greater independence of its board members from those it regulates; proper investigative powers; and an ability to enforce corrections.” PCC director Stephen Abell said: “It is wrong of Mr Miliband to call for the scrapping of the PCC. His remarks are long on rhetoric and short on substance. He appears to be ignorant of the important and valued work of the PCC. However, he is right to support self-regulation and to say that the phone-hacking scandal should act as a catalyst for improvement and reform of the industry. Indeed, he is echoing the statement the PCC itself issued on Wednesday. We join with Mr Miliband in his call for the industry to support reform. The PCC welcomes the challenge to respond to the issues at stake, and looks forward to discussing this further with Mr Miliband and his team.” – the Scotsman

Enduring image of the day, and, I’ll warrant, its first entry in Hansard*, goes to Liberal Democrat MP Adrian Sanders for his contribution to yesterday’s emergency debate on phone hacking at the News of the World: “…when one considers the Press Complaints Commission, the phrase “chocolate teapot”, or indeed the phrase “fishnet condom”, comes to mind. Our 2007 inquiry had elicited a response from News International that it had carried out a full inquiry itself and was satisfied that the Mulcaire-Goodman case was isolated. That was patently untrue. Our second inquiry encountered more obstacles: Goodman and Mulcaire refused to present evidence, as did Rebekah Brooks. More worrying were the attitude and answers of Scotland Yard. I return to the point that I made to the Prime Minister today. We cannot have confidence in an investigation by the Metropolitan police; we can have confidence only in a full judicial inquiry with a judge who can take witnesses under oath, ask questions under oath, seek papers, and subpoena witnesses to appear. We desperately need that inquiry. Clearly, where there are allegations of criminal acts or there is the potential for collusion between suspects and the police, a more rigorous investigation is required than, sadly, a Select Committee can offer. It is also clear that we need to extend the scope beyond News International.” An exaggerated image to drive home a serious point that it’s time for the Press Complaints Commission to be reformed. You can read the BBC live-blog of the debate here. – Libdemvoice.org

Twitter doesn’t please Mrs Bone

Twitter should find a way of allowing high-profile figures to label fake accounts set up in their own name, a Tory MP for Wellingborough has said, after pranksters started impersonating his wife on the micro-blogging website. Peter Bone has made a long-standing joke of asking questions in the Commons on behalf of his wife Jennie, who he has portrayed as the voice of Middle England. She is a vehement critic of the European Union but it was only when Prime Minister David Cameron remarked that a very big part of his life was spent “trying to give pleasure” to Mrs Bone, that her celebrity hit new heights. And following her regular mentions in newspaper columns it now appears that Mrs Bone has her own account on the micro-blogging site, in which she describes herself as “the voice of the silent majority”. She has more than 100 followers and her tweets include insights such as: “All eyes on PMQs – will Mr Cameron do his best to give me pleasure today? I live in hope.” In another tweet, she writes: “So proud of Peter on BBC News, expressing the horror felt by every right-thinking person on the disgraceful activities of the gutter press.” The only problem for Mr Bone is that his wife, whom he employs as his executive secretary and describes as his “one-woman focus group”, has never set up a Twitter account, and now he wants MPs to debate the problem of impersonation on the website. In a dig at Commons Speaker John Bercow, whose wife Sally is a notorious tweeter, Mr Bone said: “Mr Speaker, I don’t know if you tweet but can I direct you to a site called Mrs Jennie Bone which is being followed by more than 100 people, included journalists and MPs? It’s very interesting and very amusing. There is one slight problem: it’s completely bogus. This seems to me to be a really important issue where people are taking other names and purporting (to be them). They may be saying very interesting and funny things at the moment, but they could put something racist or pornographic on there at any time.” – Market Rasen Mail

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UNCUT: You cant reform a monster – News International must be broken up

07/07/2011, 12:26:59 PM

by Anthony Painter

When information empires become too powerful they have to be broken up. News International and connected companies have become too powerful. They should be broken up.

Tim Wu’s The Master Switch details many such moments in US history where communications and media companies have reached a size where they dominate the marketplace and begin to infect public and cultural space. Courts or the federal government have stepped in to either break up or place such behemoths in a regulatory stranglehold. It happened when the Nixon administration began the break up of AT&T in the 1970s for instance.

All this begs the immediate question: what is too powerful? It can take a number of different forms. In the case of News International, it is its ability to subvert democratic process and divert law enforcement from its proper course. In other words, it’s not the morally reprehensible and criminally abhorrent phone hacking that occurred at the News of the World per se. It is the fall out from hacking that makes clear the degree to which News International and the News Corporation have been able to prevent due process from occurring and its capability to resist political and public revulsion at its behaviour. Read the rest of this entry »

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UNCUT: Can trees really be more “sexy” than people?

07/07/2011, 08:49:18 AM

by Peter Watt

Prepare to be bored. This post will probably not particularly interest you. At a push, it may strike you as being earnest, but quite frankly, not very sexy. It doesn’t slag anyone off. It doesn’t condemn the leadership and it doesn’t insult Nick Clegg or a single Tory. It does though raise an important issue of social justice and fairness.

On Monday, just before the appalling revelations about the News of the World, hacking and Milly Dowler broke, and understandably dominated the headlines, the Dilnot report, “Fairer care funding” was published. It is the final report of the commission on funding of care and support, which has spent a year looking at how we can pay for the care of vulnerable adults over the coming years. It is a massively important and well-crafted report that sets out a realistic financial model of how we can pay for the costs of an ageing society in years to come. I have written about this issue before, because the status quo simply cannot continue – the system as it is, is broken.

Labour needs to take a fair bit of responsibility here. After all, we had thirteen years to fix the system and didn’t. We had a number of our own reports and commissions and then we quietly buried their conclusions. You can understand why. It is a brave politician indeed that stands up and says to the public, “You know that you think that the NHS will look after you when you are unable to look after yourself, well actually it won’t and in fact it never has”. But, as research undertaken by Dilnot makes clear, the truth is that people do assume that. And it really isn’t something that you spend a lot of time worrying about when the issue doesn’t affect you.

The cold hard reality is that the costs of paying for social care are, on the whole, borne by those that need the help. So if you need hot meals delivering, help at home, a few days a week at a local day centre or to move into residential care and you have more than £23,250 in assets, then you have to pay. Your savings are used up, your family may have to chip in and your home may be sold so that you can receive the care that you need.

With local councils’ budgets being tight, you have to be pretty infirm to be able to get any help provided at all. If you think that you need help, then your local authority should first carry out an assessment to determine how infirm that you are. This assessment will categorise your needs as being low, moderate, substantial or critical. Generally they will only help if your needs are substantial or critical. You will then be assessed financially and it will be determined how much, if any, of the help you are entitled to will be paid for.

If you need help and live in a home that you own, your assets will clearly exceed £23,250. And just to bring it life, “moderate need”, for which you are very unlikely to get any help at all, means that you may not be able to get to the shops, bath or shower or get out to meet your family or friends independently.

Suddenly finding that you or a loved one needs help either at home or residential care can be frightening, stressful, emotional and financially catastrophic. Help at home can cost between £10 and £20 per hour. The average cost of a room in a nursing home is £36,000 per year. The bills really do start to rack up quickly.

So back to Dilnot. These are not proposals for the state to pay for everything. The commission accepts that individuals should contribute something from their own assets towards the cost of their care and accommodation. Instead, there is a proposal for a partnership between the state and individuals that removes the uncertainty. Under the proposals, we will each be responsible for meeting some of the costs of our care but the extent of our exposure will be capped at £35,000. The capital limit will be raised from £23,250 to £100,000. After that the state will kick in and pay the rest.

The proposal means an extra £2 billion or so in spending by the state a year, about 0.25% of public spending. And for that we get peace of mind that in our old age we won’t face the fear and uncertainty of not knowing how much or who will pay if we need it. Most people will still pay something towards their care. But for that £2 billion we can ensure that those with modest means will not be unduly penalized following a life of hard work and saving. And we can ensure that the poorest are protected.

It might not be at the sexy end of politics. But it matters. Right now the government is deciding on what to do with the recommendations. To be fair to them; it is a tough call. Like any balanced proposals, there are elements that will both appeal and repel the various strands of political opinion. And that is why we should all be helping to persuade them that this is not about party politics or point scoring. It is bigger than that.

Ed Miliband has promised to enter into all party talks and that is to be hugely welcomed. But we should all be writing and emailing our MPs to say that the government should, after considering and consulting, support and implement the commission’s findings as soon as possible. When there was a proposal to privatise a small proportion of the national forests there was uproar. Hundreds of thousands lobbied their MP. It sent a signal. Well this isn’t about trees; it’s about people. And that same uproar sadly appears lacking.

At the moment the government is promising a white paper by the spring. If the timetable slips, then it will be a sure sign of prolonged delay. Right now people are suffering, frightened and uncertain about their future because of a broken system. This is an opportunity to fix it.

Peter Watt is a former general secretary of the Labour party.

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