DEM not gonna CON dis NATION: Rolling UK politics in the short-lived Cleggeron era

Also at the time her name was Rebeckah Wade, who technically no longer exists. Cast iron alibi right there.

lol at him having the exact same problems with syntax as R Brooks xp

What can Brooks possibly have on Murdoch? All this story needs is a sexual blackmail element and it's got everything.

Couldn't possibly have been Brooks' fault as she was out horse riding with David Cameron for an entire fortnight in March 2002.

LOLz from Chris Bryant

This feels like a tipping point similar to the one immediately after the bank bailout, where there's this golden window of opportunity to actually change the status quo and make things better, except you can just see it edging past and slowly closing shut to the point where things go the opposite way and get worse. Like the episode of Peep Show where Mark goes back to university and stalks the cute girl - "I am missing my chance, I am just this minute missing my chance".

That's not so far-fetched a comparison, really. I do rather wish that Murdoch would go away, preferably to another galaxy.

xpost

As editor of the News of the World Rebekah Brooks was confronted with evidence that her paper's resources had been used on behalf of two murder suspects to spy on the senior detective who was investigating their alleged crime.

Brooks was summoned to a meeting at Scotland Yard where she was told that one of her most senior journalists, Alex Marunchak, had apparently agreed to use photographers and vans leased to the paper to run surveillance on behalf of Jonathan Rees and Sid Fillery, two private investigators who were suspected of murdering their former partner, Daniel Morgan. The Yard saw this as a possible attempt to pervert the course of justice.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/06/news-of-the-world-rebekah-brooks

she promoted marunchak, naturally. he now works freelance, mostly for the daily mail.

bonus detail, from a piece by davies in march:

A year later, in August 2003, Sid Fillery, who was still running the agency and working for Fleet Street, also got himself arrested and charged with 15 counts of making indecent images of children and one count of possessing indecent images. This was reported in national media. He was later convicted.

the newspaper that brought you sarah's law, employing a paedophile and suspected murder.

The paper that bought you SUPPORT OUR LADS and HELP FOR HEROES...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8621797/Phone-hacking-families-of-war-dead-targeted-by-News-of-the-World.html

SUPER SOARAWAY SUN SEVEN DAYS A WEEK - COMING SOON

holy shit joe! that is maybe the wildest thing i've read yet

And remember The Sun ran a charachter assination campaign against Gordon Brown for spelling a dead soldier's name wrong?

*character assassination. I cannot spell.

I'm surprised it took the Express this long

http://news.sky.com/sky-news/content/StaticFile/jpg/2011/Jul/Week1/16025638.jpg

Ah, quiddities:

But now even journalists at the Times, including columnist Giles Coren, are being publicly admonished because they work for Murdoch. In Coren's case, he revealed on Twitter, someone was rude to him in his local butcher's shop.

Is this the part where the Guardian finally poaches Caitlin Moran?

Post in question.

the newspaper that brought you sarah's law, employing a paedophile and suspected murder.

i actually thought this, or something like it, was the subtext of the c4 news report yesterday. i really don't think the grimmest bits of this have been unearthed yet.

bit of a bombshell by peter oborne in the daily telegraph too:

The Prime Minister cannot claim in defence that he was naively drawn in to this lethal circle. He was warned – many times. Shortly before the last election he was explicitly told about the company he was keeping. Alan Rusbridger – editor of The Guardian newspaper, which has performed such a wonderful service to public decency by bringing to light the shattering depravity of Mr Murdoch’s newspaper empire – went to meet one of Mr Cameron’s closest advisers shortly before the last election. He briefed this adviser very carefully about Mr Coulson, telling him many troubling pieces of information that could not then be put into the public domain.

so the guardian strategy is to chase the story to its grim conclusion and then pull off the world's greatest "i told you so". fucking hell.

11.02pm: Newsnight reports that the Metropolitan Police has identified three or four officers who were paid up to tens of thousands of pounds to supply information to the News of the World.
According to the report, the officers concealed the illegal trade in information by classifying certain journalists as confidential police sources.

id be rude to giles coren if he came into my shop

yep, neat trick, though i would have appreciated a bit more detail about how it "exactly" worked, as we were promised

"three or four" falls somewhat short of paul mcmullan's contention of "20%"

xpost

She is understood to have told them they were investigating a report that Cook was having an affair with another officer, Jacqui Hames, the presenter of BBC Crimewatch. Yard sources say they rejected this explanation, because Cook had been married to Hames for some years

This is incredible!

(from joe's grauniad link)

Scotland Yard took no further action, apparently reflecting the desire of Fedorcio [head of Media Relations at the Yard], who has had a close working relationship with Brooks, to avoid unnecessary friction with the News of the World.

mother of cocking fuck

not really surprising at all.

you're both right

Now Mr Coulson faces fresh allegations that could blow apart his "I know nothing" defence.

Given the mess that is about to land on his lap, Mr Cameron may not feel very charitable towards the Guardian, the newspaper which done more than any other to uncover this scandal, to its great credit.

But this morning he should be grateful. If it were not for the Guardian and others digging away for the last several months, Mr Coulson might still be director of communications at Number 10 this morning. And if he were still there, then a rough day for the prime minister would be something quite different: a catastrophic day in which the prime minister, and his startlingly poor judgement in hiring Mr Coulson, was the story.

yeah i was thinking about that the other day: what if coulson was still there?

well, he'd go. it'd be a bigger deal than it was a few months ago -- but that was an eerily small deal because the rest of the media conspired to make it small imo. this could still be the_story. coulson was editor on 7/7. cameron would say what he said: that he had no idea, and it would be hard to prove otherwise.

yeah but i think "poor judgment" would become the cameron meme, more than is doing now

Also, yesterday in PMQs he came over very oddly. Even Miliband was able to get him all riled up. Just what has Brooks got on everyone?

The dead soldiers' families thing feels huge - don't hack the hand that feeds you.

Cameron would post a picture of Brooks on the ws2011 thread if he was on here. Maybe he is on here.

xp

Just what has Brooks got on everyone?

so hyped about the possibility of any of this emerging

/prurient

If Brooks and Coulson really wanted to go down all guns blazing they could probably take out pretty much everyone on the way down. A lot depends on how clean Cameron has been over the last few years.

Weirdest thing about all this is the Telegraph praising The Guardian, which really is having its expenses scandal moment right now. It and the Mail are the big winners here.

i can't picture Cameron being "dirty" so much as mixing with a bunch of dodgy bastards who he knows have grubby secrets, but that's called "being in the Conservative party" tbh

Cameron is definitely rattled by this. There was the bit in PMQs where he's saying he takes full responsibility (everything's always full with him - full responsibility, full police inquiry) for hiring people and then he suddenly starts shouting about how appalled he is, like he suddenly remembered he was supposed to be appalled and disgusted and that he shouldn't be reminding people that Coulson was ever anything to do with him. Definitely not cool. Miliband still looked like Tom Brown up against Flashman (<<<obligatory public school reference).

It and the Mail are the big winners here And Hugh Grant.

I found myself baulking at Milliband's tone the other day when he basically said 'I was talking to my wife about this and she was disgusted', a really weird way of distancing actual emotion from himself and still showing some kind of empathy by proxy. Another interviewee I can't recall the name of did something similar, also with reference to their wife, is this some kind of meme?

Well, I took that as a dig because his wife is best friends with Frances Osborne.

Hugh Grant is on Question Time this eve, BTW. I'm conflicted, because there was an incident with one of my best friends where he was proven to be Unsafe In Taxis.

he didn't wear his seatbelt?

Gordon Brown was the king of wheeling out his much-more-popular wife whenever he wanted to look human.

that worked

DRUDGE SIREN, the famously family orientated ex-footballer gets involved, etc:

Gary Lineker is close to walking out on his role as a columnist at the News of the World over concerns that the newspaper's involvement in phone hacking could damage his reputation. The former England footballer and host of the BBC's Match of the Day has held urgent talks with the editor of the newspaper, Colin Myler.

There’s a big part of me that wishes Brooks and Coulson would bring everyone else down with them so the rotten system is completely exposed and discredited.

But no doubt Andy Murray syndrome will overcome the British people again, just as it did with the banking crisis, and once more it’ll be like that bit at the end of The Prisoner where McGoohan takes control and yells out “This is our moment! You are free to go!” and everybody carries on exactly as normal and takes no notice.

When it comes to changing Britain, its people nearly always cop out – rebuilding society/starting again, too much like hard work innit.

the newspaper's involvement in phone hacking could damage his reputation.

Taking a strong moral stance there, Gary.

Not everything is like the Prisoner, you know!

(Oh, alright, it is really)

Actually, saw "Dance of the Dead" on ITV4 yesterday morning. A lot of people running round the corridors while 6 and 2 are in some private antechamber, neither quite knowing who's in the frame...

"The Guardian is not your observer anymore, they got emotionally involved.."

Hugh Grant will be approached by an idealistic young NOTW reporter, who looks rather like Keira Knightley. At first they won't get on, but working together will bring them closer ...

xxp The jug-eared crisp-selling adulterous twat shouldn't worry, his reputation is sound.