IF COULSON KNEW, WHO ELSE AT NEWS INTERNATIONAL KNEW?

If one accepts the premise of the New York Times that Andy Coulson has blatantly lied about knowing anything about phone-hacking, this raise several very disturbing questions and has deeply worrying ramifications and possible consequences at many many levels.

Andy Coulson is no lone rogue who went off-piste when he was editor of the News of the World. He was at the heart of Rupert Murdoch's News International operation in the UK. Like the current News International Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks (formerly Wade), he had front-line high level experience both at the Sun and the N.OW. Both of whom would have reported directly the previous Chief Executive of News International's UK operations, Les Hinton.

When Coulson's time at the N.O.W. first became a matter of political controversy, News International launched a coordinated campaign to rubbish accusers, belittle witnesses, pay-off those who had deep pockets and generally try and stonewall a House of Commons Select Committee. The Coulson Affaire should now move on to include the senior staff at News International (i.e Wade and Hinton and to treat them as hostile witnesses.

As I said Coulson was no maverick working for Murdoch, every juicy story that the N.O.W. published during Coulson's time in the editor's chair, would have been seen by Coulson and he would have had to satisfy the veracity of the story, the legality about publishing the story and as part of both consideration, what was/were the source(s) of the story.

Coulson's obfuscation and sophistry cannot be allowed to continue and the trail shouldn't end with his resignation. Furthermore, David Cameron's judgement is in question as he continues to duck and dither about what to do next.

I wonder how much pressure was put on the Press Complaints Commission by Murdoch's henchmen to only conduct a token investigation.

Are PPC documents/correspondence covered by the Freedom of Information Act?

THE SCUM AT THE SUN

Marjorie Smith

           The Sun's squalid ambush of Gordon Brown, by surreptitiously taping a private conversation between the PM and the mother of the deceased Grenadier Guardsman Jamie Janes deserves the utmost condemnation.

             The exploitation of a mother's grief for political ends by the Sun is a new low in the conduct of the print media in the UK. This follows the disgraceful treatment of Gordon Brown's visual disability the day before in the Sun, when Gordon Brown had sent a handwritten letter to Mrs Janes. Poorly written, it may have been, but that's the very nature of his disability which has been so shamelessly exploited for nefarious political ends by the editorial scum at the Sun.

           This is an outrageous breach of privacy and it should be noted was obviously a set-up by journalists at the Sun, without doubt with the full knowledge of the Editor AND the Chief executive of Murdoch's News International. This has not beeen Mrs Janes acting alone.

            One future initiative the PM should introduce immediately, is that any private conversation between the PM and a member of the public, should be conducted only on a encrypted phone that is provided (for the duration of the call only) by the cabinet office to the person involved.

           This follows the dreadful coverage of the PM's "supposed" conduct at the rememberance service at the cenotaph, when he allegedly failed to bow his head in respect, no doubt  being more concerned, because of his very poor eyesight,  about not falling over when walking backwards downstairs

            The conduct of the right-wing tabloid press over the past few days has been utterly appalling in relation to the Prime Minister's disabilty and if it was anybody else in public life outside politics, the journalist involved wouldn't even have started putting pen to paper. This has been a deliberate attempt by editorial teams in each of the right-wing press dictating to their minions what they wanted to see in their papers.

            The Editor of the Sun, Dominic 'Bizarre' Mahon, whose only real experience of journalism seems to have been confined to celebrity tittle-tattle (which I suppose makes him a perfect choice as editor of a downmarket tabloid) seems not to care one jot about journalstic ethics generally and the ethics code of the ineffectual Press Complaints Commission in particular.

COMPLIANT PRESS COMPLAINTS COMMISSION IGNORES MURDOCH'S MURKY METHODS

Marjorie Smith

The very recent ruling by the Press Complaints Commission over News International journalists' illegal phone-tapping activities reveals two (now) blatantly obvious facts and several areas of great concern.

Firstly the PCC is a pliant, duplicitous and pathetic 'self-regulatory body' that has finally shredded what remaining credibility it had. It has demonstrated that it is utterly incapable of fulfilling the role for which it was set-up. It is nothing more than an excuse-mongerer for the worst excesses of the tabloid press.

Secondly, that under his tutelage, Rupert Murdoch through his minions conducted a wide-ranging intelligence gathering exercise that was not merely about gathering celebrity tittle-tattle. but also targeted senior political figures and others in positions of power and influence in the UK.

The PCC's claim that it is independent is fatuous in the extreme. To prove that some newspapers act with impunity when it comes to their nefarious activities, one illuminating example tells you everything you need to know. In a fact that is beyond satire, the editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre, is the Chair of the Editors' Code of Practice Committee. One should also compare the number of complaints about press behaviour and add up the complaints not taken up by the PCC (because they are, allegedly, inadmissible) with those complaints they conduct a cursory investigation. Compared this with those cases they find against a newspaper and you will discover the results are laughable.

The legalistic and journalistic contortions that the PCC goes through in its 'investigations' and pronouncements which it uses to justify the activities of the printed media in the UK is nothing short of an outright disgrace. One startling example should be indicative on its own. The PCC does not have one member of Staff with any significant experience of being an investigator, not one. Yet it claims to conduct investigations.

Just also to underline how much it puts itself beyond ridicule, Peter Hill, when he was the editor of the Daily Star (yes, that shining example of tabloid journalism), was one of three editors of national newspapers on the Commission.

Or that 'the red-socked fop' (©John Prescott), Sir Christopher Meyer, was the Chair of the PCC from 1993 to 1999. In his account of his time in America as the UK's ambassador, in the best-selling book entitled DC Confidential, he angered Foreign Office colleagues who felt he had betrayed their profession by breaking the vow of confidentiality. Only a fundamentally-flawed organization as the PCC could believe that such a character would be a suitable figurehead.

Rupert Murdock's journalists have been exposed as gathering intelligence on thousands of people through nefarious means. This goes to the heart of his organisation in the UK. What did senior people at the News of the World (NoW), the Sun and at News International (NI) know about the activities at the NoW.

NI through at least one of its agents (NoW) was responsible for gathering personal and sensitive information on thousands of people. Perhaps the persons gathering (and more importantly utilising) such information ought to be referred to as N.I. 5 and N.I. 6.

It is utterly inconceivable in a modern–day organisation that has to have it's copy checked by lawyers, that has its expenditure audited by top accountancy firms and at each paper is overseen by an all-powerful editor, who reports to senior executives at NI, would be totally ignorant of the activities of its journalists.

There was undoubtedly, a hierarchy of command in the NoW directly feeding into NI. The only journalist at the NoW who they admit was involved is Clive Goodman, the ex-Royal Editor. Goodman was found to have paid a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, thousands upon thousands of pounds to provide phone-tapped material. From what we know of the material provided, this was extremely high value information for a tabloid newspaper. The payments for such information must have run into the tens, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds.

Such information, when used to write stories by Goodman (and no doubt others) would have been the subject of checking by not just assistant editors at the NoW, but their in-house lawyers and by the, then editor, himself, Andy Colson. This is because stories about high-profile figures would inevitably be considered as front-page leads, which is for the editor to decide. Furthermore, because of the fame of the subject of such stories, approval would also have had to be gained from NI HQ.

It is beyond belief that at no stage did the hierarchy of command not know what the provenance of the story was, i.e. what is the basis of fact on which a story is based, what the source of that story is? Is the source reliable? How did we obtain the story? Is the evidence used to back-up the story obtained by legal means? Etc. etc. Crucially, if the story (stories) is/are based on material gained illegally, then the decision to uses such material must have been approved at the highest level in NI.

It is also beyond belief that, the monies paid for the information provided, was solely paid for by Goodman to Mulcaire. Whether in the form of cash or other forms of payment to Mulcaire, there must be a paper trail within NoW that can account for the monies paid to Mulcaire. There is somebody in management and in accounts who must have known what these payments where for and what payment methods were used to pay for such information.

It should also be noted that although only the NoW, has been found to have acted in a contemptible manner, it strains credulity to breaking point to think that similar activities were taking place at the Sun. With the shared-culture of both, the cross-fertilisation so beloved of Murdoch's empire and the switching of editors and other senior journalists between the two titles it would be impossible to keep such secrets from each other within the confines of their joint offices at Wapping.

Self-regulation like self-abuse, is no substitute for the real thing.

Irwin Stelzer's ignorance knows no bounds

By Marjorie Smith

Irwin's paean to Tony Blair in today's Guardian (15/10/09) contained his usual brand of casual xenophobia about the EU that should not go unchallenged.

As a long-time adviser to Rupert Murdoch, regular contributor to the The Weekly Standard in the U.S. and obviously highly thought of in American neo-conservative circles, Stelzer is undoubtedly an intelligent man with a coherent set of beliefs based on a wide experience of US politics. You might find many of his views disagreeable, but they are well constructed; well argued and consistent. He is no fool.

However, whenever he ventures onto the subject of the EU, his prejudices (like most of Murdoch's media empire) seem to overwhelm his normal rational approach and he sinks to the level of an ignoramus polemicist more interested in composing invective than advancing a rational case to support his views.

His reference to the EU "I yield to no one in my dislike of the unaccountable kleptocratic bureaucracy and its appropriation to itself of the prerogatives of Parliament" is empty-headed rhetoric that demonstrates a profound ignorance of the structures of the EU, its origins and its legal basis. He also has a casual dismissive reference to democracy when he states "The EU's interest, which is what the role is all about now, is clearly in appointing (elections are not the thing in the EU° a famous dynamic leader ….". which reveals the shallowness of his knowledge about the European Union.

First of all, the use of the emotive term "Kleptocratic", more usually used in reference to African dictators of yore, such as the Former President of Gabon, Omar Bongo and the late President Mobutu of Zaire, who thieved millions upon millions of pound, dollars etc. etc. whilst Western leaders turned a blind eye.

To claim that the EU's bureaucracy (the Commission) is kleptocratic is a crass insult that demonstrates an appallingly lack of knowledge about the workings of the EU. 80% of the EU's budget is managed and spent by he EU's Member States' at the national level. The remaining 20% is tightly controlled and subject to very very little fraud indeed. An in-depth study of other bureaucracies in Western countries may unearth some disturbing comparative data.

The use of the word kleptocratic is clearly designed to represent a form of intellectual shorthand as part of a lazy slur. Like the application if the words rape/raped or accusing somebody of being a denier, it is a manoeuvre designed to cast a slur by using emotive words completely out of context.

This overt political attack is based on the fact that the EU has not had its accounts signed off for over 10 years. This is true, partly because of the complexity of the budget process, the high levels of validation demanded by its auditors and the fact that most is spent by the Member Sates and not by the Commission. However, it might be educational to Stelzer if he were to look at other Governmental systems for similarities.

The US Federal budget has not been signed off as satisfactory for many years (in excess of 10) and the UK's Audit Commission has stated that if the UK's budget was subject to the same rules as the EU's it would have been in a similar position. In fact the Audit Commission has stated that the Treasury and the Department of Work and Pensions budgets are not satisfactory and have not been for many years. As for kleptomania, the legal, but dubious, practice of pork barrel politics in the US Congress is an example to the world of how to appropriate tax revenues in the pursuit of personal electoral gain.

As for the kleptocratic bureaucracy being unaccountable, the accusation is laughable and should be treated with the contempt it deserves. Appointed by the democratically elected leaders of the 27 Member States, confirmed by the directly-elected European parliament and subject to full force of EU law interpreted by a wholly independent judiciary in the European Court of Justice, the 27 Commissioners are fully accountable. Furthermore, the Council of Ministers (the directly elected national Governmental Ministers from Member States, oversee every part of the Commission's legislative and administrative roles. Whilst the European Parliament has complete control of the Commission's budget.

For the remaining 20,000 people who work for the Commission (N.B. smaller in number than the administrative staff of many large Metropolitan Councils in the UK and smaller than most Government departments in the UK), the slur that they are kleptocrats and unaccountable is outrageous and highly insulting.

As for the suggestion that the EU has appropriated the prerogatives of the UK Parliament, this is an empty-headed claim of little substance. All powers that now rest at the EU-level are either the product of Treaties passed by Parliament and receiving the royal assent or the subject of Court rulings by an independent judiciary, based on an interpretation of such treaties and firmly grounded in the rule of law.

An American commentator on the workings and ethics of the European Union might gain some respect for his views if they were even loosely grounded in facts.