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

granted, but milly & the forces were nonetheless the driving public forces while it was gathering steam, rather than the corporate malpractice angle?

milly dowler and the war widows are not separate to this, is the thing - the reason it's so big is because it includes those stories, folded into this massive one

not everyone in the country is politically engaged. probably a lot of people are pretty much oblivious. the reason this story matters is that -- while one would never use terms like 'sheeple', of course, of course -- the murdoch media is very influential among people who aren't overly interested in the background political/legal machinations that affect their lives. so you win the point: not everyone even knows who r. b. rebekah brooks is.

a lot of those oblivious people are not oblivious any more - that's another mark of how big it's become

tomorrow i'll be visiting my news of the world-buying family who are very much not "overly interested in the background political/legal machinations that affect their lives", i'm very interested to see what they think about all this.

In my local this afternoon, which is either working class, unemployed or servicemen (ok, the drunks of those groups, but we don't vary that much from the sober) everyone was talking about this, as they were yesterday. It's a good rule not to underestimate the inteligence or political literacy of the working class.

http://yfrog.com/klypnrj

Sun_Politics
NotW - RIP. A loss to 1st class journalism. Ed Miliband, Guardian and BBC; how proud you must be of your work this week.

I'm sorry but what kind of a thick, poisonous bastard do you have to be?

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cb-NuBnTLb0/Thi-bhDGmxI/AAAAAAAACFc/ZrnQ8aQH9AU/s1600/Sun%2527s%2Btweet%2Bdeleting%2Bearlier%2Btweet.jpg

Yeah, right. Wankers.

kind of a result for ed milliband there though

Was noticing that Cameron's mea cupla incl spread the blame/guilt to all pols--note the bit in here, near the end, re Blair aking Brown to cool it with the inquiries (apparently a fairly "conservative" paper, re can now reveal Max Mosley "bankrolling" suits re hacking and visions "police being dragged through courts by civil claimants"; nevertheless, a also copper sez "industrial" degree of hacking)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8628052/John-Yates-I-failed-victims-of-News-of-the-World-phone-hacking.html

prescott zings back <3

So @Sun_Politics deleted that NOTW tweet. News International seem to like deleting things

Some confusion over at NI - The Sun Says it was Miliband (if only!) and the Guardian, but The Times have another, far more deadly, foe.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=weUkz6x5k6Q

It was him, then?

http://i.imgur.com/TUo6T.jpg

see now i don't want to walk past a newsstand to find out that isn't really the cover

would really like something unpleasant and painful to happen to roger alton after watching that youtube. what a vile, entitled fuck.

I'm gonna assume that he knows Mrs Mumsnet from working fairly closely with her husband on G2 for years, so what is the real - and, perhaps, petty - beef being aired here?

i don't think it's so much about mumsnet. nick davies's book has a chapter which is a brutal takedown of alton's observer, in particular his decision to appoint kamal ahmed as political editor, despite him having no experience. (the result was he ended up being alistair campbell's stenographer.) so he's got reasons for wanting to dismiss the substantive issue.

imo it was foolish to shut down the notw from plenty of povs. the gamble is that it will be a fire-break which will enable the bskyb deal to go through. but i don't think he's anywhere near out of the woods, and he's slaughtered a cash cow to do it. obviously they must be planning to plug the gap in the market, but i doubt it would be able to pick up all those readers again and the sheer bad faith of it would be difficult even for the tories to stomach.

Is it a cash cow? The whole News Group stable brings in around less than a tenth of the Sky platform, i think. If they can rebrand as Sun On Sunday and keep the bulk of their readers, i'm not sure it'll make much difference. It would be interesting to see whether this has had any effect on The Sun's sales in the last week, though.

NOTW is a rounding error on bskyb revenue

closing it seems worth a shot from their pov tbh

apart from the money it was a big source of political power for murdoch, it's a big thing to give up. i doubt notw would have lost many readers had it been kept going. live in a world where people don't have sky though. i guess there are people with large disposable incomes and shitty taste in entertainment.

e.g. boardwalk empire

ross kemp on gangs is good though

only get it for Glee tbh

don't think notw + the sun is that more influential than just the sun. notw's main politics usp is tougher sentences for nonces etc., which is presumably not murdoch's end game. otherwise he can do it all with the sun.

oh cmon there's always a grand designs on somewhere tbf

wow just saw that roger alton thing. always had him pegged as a cunt.

anyway, rumour has it that will hutton ages ago wanted to write at length in the observer about how the banks were all screwed and therefore all of us were too. roger alton, obs editor, mulls it over and says: "it's a bit... chewy, isn't it? can't you write about cake or something?"

― joe, Monday, February 23, 2009 11:30 AM (2 years ago) Bookmark

never forget.

http://heady.co.uk/ou1/sun_on_sunday.jpg

Roger Alton is basically Paul McMullan in a cleaner suit.

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/7/10/1310297595571/Rupert-Murdoch-arrives-at-005.jpg
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/7/10/1310297595571/Rupert-Murdoch-arrives-at-005.jpg
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2011/7/10/1310297595571/Rupert-Murdoch-arrives-at-005.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/1v1Qt.png

Thinking about this, I've probably been reading the NotW, uh, since I could read basically, 'cuz we got it every Sunday. It was always shite but it actually got shiter over the years - the celebrities took over completely from the randy vicars and perverted scout masters - but all of the British press is obsessed with celebrity these days.

So having read this piece of shite for all of my life, let me say good fucking riddance. Print that.

w/r/t the reasons for shutting down NOTW: one way this is being cast in US papers--dunno how accurate--is as james murdoch flexing. apparently hes the one who convinced rupe and the other guy to close it down; they say he doesnt really give a shit about print the way rupe does, and just wants those sweet, and huge compared to NOTW, tv residuals

OTM. Fingers crossed that the criminal investigation leads eventually to young James' door, but imagine the incriminating documents have already been shredded.

just heard some incredible stuff from my brother. stoked for the madness. apparently the only papers that aren't involved are the guardian and the telegraph. the observer is in especially deep.

Would that be Roger Alton's Observer?

Genuine lol at second comment on that Alton youtube clip, 'Harry Hill is a bit of a twat these days'.

Roger, David, what is it about blokes called Alton and hating women?

Genuine lol at second comment on that Alton youtube clip, 'Harry Hill is a bit of a twat these days'.

genuine lol seconded. alton's clip is some of the most vile and entitled shit i've seen in this whole brouhahaha. also i love it when dudes who work for right wing papers get all vexed when capitalism comes up and bites them on the arse for a change. in short: i hope much pain happens upon him soon.

The Mail especially is in up to its nuts, but will be v surprised if FT or lesser so Indy were also at it.

What's needed is for the Sun to be implicated next.

will be v surprised if FT or lesser so Indy were also at it.

well yeah but the FT is kinda niche/probably not included in caek's brother's list (?) while the indie isn't really a newspaper

kind of funny that conrad black drew the line at phone hacking tho

haha yeah he probably totally forgot about the indie and the ft

he says there is some tinker tailor shit coming

*puts on glasses menacingly*

*bangs russian chick*

*reads newspaper at cafe in european city*