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

"Oxbridge laws" presumably relate to direction in which port is passed &c.

There's an element of that in the Telegraph's profound sense of betrayal, and the Mail's picked up on it as well. How could a man as pure and moral as David Cameron be dirtied by his associations with these grubby Wapping types?

If the Mail decide to run with the image of the new, sleazier Cameron, he could be in trouble.

second chance
second chance
second chance
second chance
second chance

look at the Mail and Telegraph comments - regardless of the line the papers go on to take I think their readerships have decided that they're gonna think of Cameron in those terms already

xp even corrupt perjurers deserve a second chance!

a second chance, over and over again

MarinaHyde

say what you like, this has finally given meaning to Cameron's "we're all in this together" catchphrase. right up to their necks, etc
3 minutes ago via TweetDeck

so cameron is denying that the aide alan rusbridger warned about coulson passed these warnings on to him??

I liked Dave's "it's not adequate to point the finger at one journalist", completely missing the point that it would be totally adequate to point the finger at just News of the World journalists and the former one he hired to work in the government and the former one who's now an executive he likes hanging around with.

It's tempting to imagine that in the face of an impending parliamentary seizure of everything, lurked a secret so big that Murdoch had to close the entire paper just to dispose of it. I know, I know... but still. I cannot even imagine the number of skeletons hidden away in the NOTW's files.

it would be totally adequate to point the finger at just News of the World journalists and the former one he hired to work in the government and the former one who's now an executive he likes hanging around with.

ehhhh i'm not sure about this - agree that's his motivation but he's kind of right anyway, it's systemic

And don't forget the police. Yes the hacks were unethical but they are under enormous pressure to get information any way they can. You can see their wrongdoing as an immoral extension of their job. The police, on the other hand...

(OK I'll stop)

i was wondering, has there been a massive decline in salacious "scoops" for the notw since they supposedly outlawed this practise a few years ago? has their circulation fallen significantly since andy coulson resigned as editor?

it would be totally adequate to point the finger at just News of the World journalists and the former one he hired to work in the government and the former one who's now an executive he likes hanging around with.

ehhhh i'm not sure about this - agree that's his motivation but he's kind of right anyway, it's systemic

― lex pretend, Friday, 8 July 2011 09:18 (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

Well, Cameron was quite happy to point his finger at one journo, when it wasn't his guy...

so cameron is denying that the aide alan rusbridger warned about coulson passed these warnings on to him??

yeah this is pretty interesting, you kinda expect rusbridger to respond. he also told clegg.

& i was like, boom, coulson

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/7/8/1310117057084/David-Cameron-speaks-abou-007.jpg

& he was all, but i- and i was all SHUT YOUR MOUTH

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/7/8/1310117598325/Prime-minster-David-Camer-007.jpg

Does this aide have a name?

So, it's just a matter of time until: Cameron:"I wasn't told about Coulson by this aide, orNick Clegg!!!"

at which point, Nick Clegg resigns......

or does he?

Think Clegg is enjoying sitting in the background and letting Cameron take all the shit for once.

What did Cameron say anyway? Surely he didn't dig himself deeper?

The Guardian's political editor, Patrick Wintour, asks if the PM is saying he had no warning that Coulson had links with a private detective accused of murder (The Telegraph's Peter Oborne and Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger both said he was warned).

I wasn't given any specific information about Andy Coulson ...I don't recall being given any information.

The PM says he is checking and will check whether any of his staff were warned.

this was the follow up, he'd previously said he hadn't heard anything specific

sort of hilariously going the 'but i just didn't happen to know about it!' oblivious route pioneered by rebekah wade

Standard evasion and blame-spread disguised as statesmanship from what I heard.

iirc rusbridger said yesterday that he was one of many who warned cameron.
really if this falls on 'the aide just forgot to tell him' my mind is blown

Cameron is setting himself up for a big fall re: Coulson tho. He's denied knowing, then bottled out and stepped back to not remembering knowing. If it turns out he has to admit to being told, he's going to have to say to the public "somebody said something about Coulson being linked to crooks but it didn't seem like a big deal so i forgot".

So, it hangs on this aide and Clegg.

All Clegg has to do is say "Hell yeah, I told Cameron! ha ha ha"

Cameron also has repeated the canard that "the bulk of this inquiry can only happen when the police investigation has finished. That is what the law requires" - Actually this is totally untrue; the Inquiries Act was passed in 2005 specifically so that politicians nor anyone else could hide behind statements like this

a "could not" in there, waiter!

Don't believe a public inquiry wd be as useful or successful as a proper criminal investigation tbh. The point of inquiries is they report months after the public has stopped giving a shit about what happened in the first place.

So, it hangs on this aide and Clegg.

All Clegg has to do is say "Hell yeah, I told Cameron! ha ha ha"

depends how hard he's pressed here, i think, whether it can just comfortably sit in the swirl of vague apology from DC

The point of inquiries is they report months after the public has stopped giving a shit about what happened in the first place.

p much otm

also fun as this is in a sports sense it reminds me just how little hope there is for a country where politics is a mediated gameshow and it's somehow supposed to matter whether the leader of one party is a corrupt multi-millionaire with a bunch of bent friends and the leader of the opposition is a small-time policy wonk who'd be happier sat in the library all day. personalities, ugh.

The longer he pretends not to have known the worse it gets.

interesting that the second inquiry into the press in general won't be led by a judge or have witnesses on oath. can't imagine what representations dacre has been making to cameron in the last few days.

the leader of the opposition is a small-time policy wonk who'd be happier sat in the library all day

to just ignore the thrust of your post and concentrate exclusively on the personalities involved at the expense of wider issues: i would totally rather bring this side of EM to the fore and have him be a combative, statty fighter - i feel like the kind of general bland straddling of public opinion he shoots for, in tepid statements, contradicts this

xxp

yeah i'm shocked that Cam's dug himself in like this - maybe his own guys are leaving him to dangle a little bit too

xp my point is sort of that EMil is being forced to be the kind of politician that he isn't, partly by "the system" and partly by the wankers infesting the corpse of the Labour party that think they can play the system. but on a wider scale i'm also thinking "when representatives turn to leaders" etc etc

agree

Then again, difficult to feel sorry for someone who deliberately courted power, not least to spite his brother.

i don't feel sorry for him at all, the only way to win is not to play the game

but y'know, beyond that, for fuck's sake don't play a game you're completely rubbish at

yes. I suspect David Miliband (and probably other candidates) would have put the boot in much more effectively.

If the revelations slow down a bit, I wonder if it could delay the summer recess? I only care because the last day is coincidentally when they announce whether they close the RAF base here.

Re EdMill, Wasn't this the classic "let someone inconseq run the party for a while until we look like we might win an election, at which point we'll all throw our hats in" as done in the name of Haig, DunkSmith and Howard?

i don't feel that at all, i'm always mystified by that kinda personal angle on those guys. who cares? even if you feel that warring-siblings angle, i'd imagine most of us are in favour of it being a meritocracy, of there being a diversity of choice, of the significance of a difference between a hardcore new labourite like d-mili & someone else coming along with slightly different priorities. maybe it seems machiavellian that he counselled the guy not to run but- like even in that realm i can't imagine cackling, devious ed plotting his easy walk to victory - i think he probably just did counsel the guy that way at the time. it was symbolic + neat that ed won; he didn't have the same money and wasn't a heir apparent.

watching e-mili get creamed by kirsty on newsnight right now, incidentally.

the meetings between rusbidger/telegraph and cameron's people were all before the election, so it's not like they were seeing clegg so he'd pass the message on, but i think they're supposed to have told clegg the same stuff in a similar meeting.

Good point, forgot that.

But Cameron emplyoed Coulson post election, by which time maybe Clegg might have said something (unless he deliberately forgot...)

the meetings between rusbidger/telegraph and cameron's people were all before the election, so it's not like they were seeing clegg so he'd pass the message on, but i think they're supposed to have told clegg the same stuff in a similar meeting.

rusbridger went through this on newsnight; that he told an aide of cameron, and told clegg, though w/the caveat as above that he wasn't expecting to be involved. KW asked, so did cameron know?, AR: oh yes.