The Official Newscorp/UK end of season finale/Rebekah Brooks did 9/11 thread

Alternate pie content?

More proof that the real news is far stranger than anything fiction can come up with (from last month)...

Tory MP Louise Bagshawe secretly marries Metallica manager Peter Mensch

Louise Bagshawe, the author and Conservative MP, has married Peter Mensch, the rock promoter, in a ceremony that she kept secret even from her children.

By Tim Walker 6:30AM BST 03 Jun 2011

In what could be the plot of one her bestselling "chick lit'' novels, Bagshawe married the American 19 years her senior during the parliamentary recess.
The wedding in New York was kept secret even from her children. "I am very happy," she tells Mandrake. "It was a small, private ceremony in Manhattan and I'm back at work next Tuesday."

Bagshawe captured Corby for the Tories last year, while Mensch, 58, manages rock bands including Metallica, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Snow Patrol.
"It will have to be a long-distance relationship to start with," says the MP, who has homes in London and Northamptonshire, while her husband lives in New York. "Our work is important to both of us, but we will get together as often as we can. Peter does a lot of business in London."

Bagshawe, whose books include Passion, Glitz and Career Girls, first met Mensch, a divorced father of teenaged children, in Oxford when she worked in the record business.

Passion, Glitz and Career Girls

is this from a chick-lit title generator? jesus.

That's three books, rather than one, right?

Well, they're all the same book really.

You've read them!?

Speaking of Mensch, has her face off with Piers Morgan been posted yet?

http://gordonsrepublic.brandrepublic.com/2011/07/20/latest-on-the-news-international-hacking-scandal-liveblog-2/

Genuinely surprised she's not published by HarperCollins.

i haven't watched, but, she's wrong, isn't she? at least in going as far as filling in the blanks in her account of morgan's book - like it does not say that afaic, however true it is.

also, good start dave!
People want this because they want the government to be able to focus on the issues "that matter more".

should probably understand at some point that this is a v significant thing that matters to people

Cameron's Cuties - Part 1

Louise Mensch couldn't even win the Cameron's Cuties poll tsk tsk

but, she's wrong, isn't she? at least in going as far as filling in the blanks in her account of morgan's book - like it does not say that afaic, however true it is.

Guido's twttier feed yesterday heavily implied that they fed her the information…

now there's a news source you can trust

ed should read out a list of those who've mentioned warning, or been alleged to have warned, cameron about coulson, as a human being/as someone who presided over phone hacking/as someone whose hiring policies were kinda controversial, in the face of DC's innocent demeanour; ashdown, someone at buckingham palace, clegg, rusbridger & others from fleet street. it's wilful blindness all over again.

11.56am: Cameron has finished.

Got excited there.

wd be okay with some unfunny twat pie-ing Dave today if they want to have a go

lol. also i should be in government, Miliband runs through warnings about Coulson that Cameron has received or could have received, and media coverage such as the New York Times investigation into phone hacking.

he already has p fluffy hair today

cameron landing better blows re: blair/brown's closeness to newscorp than e-mili did re: anything

gosborne looks distinctly green around the gills, clegg staring off into the distance

dc is sorta invoking the authority of brooks & yates in his speech more than i'd think he'd want to?
i'm only reading about this so don't know how it's coming across.

Whatevs, Blair/Brown did not hire an editor the entire country associated with phone hacking.

can't believe how many times he's been able to bat off 'concerns, what concerns?' with references to conspiracy theories, bigger problems etc. at the very least he has a malfunctioning government.

i don't think there's anything "whatevs" about blair and brown's role in any of this.

BAM tom watson!

MichaelLCrick

At PM saying no new info in NYT article, Ben Bradshaw puts fists in air, gestures throat cut, and mouths "finished"
2 minutes ago via Twitter for BlackBerry®

i think Blair's silence over the last couple of weeks has been instructive. "the other boys did it too" is never gonna wash as an excuse while you're the guy at the wheel tho

oh absolutely, everyone is as complicit

#allinittogether

"the other boys did it too" is never gonna wash as an excuse while you're the guy at the wheel tho

otfm. also suzy otfm about the difference between sucking up to the murdochs and actually letting them plant a criminal on your staff.

... is the point, yes.

i think nick raynsford just said the civil service was bugged??

... is the point, yes.

Yes, every tory troll everywhere is repeating the party line - "But Blair did it first!" - but Cameron hasn't (as far as I know) even apologised for employing Coulson yet? In fact I'm pretty sure he went with, "I make no apology..."

My idealist heart wants this to show the everyman Sun etc reading person the shit these guys pull, and have people THINK about what theyre spewed at by media with an agenda. I really, really have hope this is the only chance for change there. I'm hoping against hope tho arent I?

xp Also I don't remember any of them complaining about Blair and Brown's closeness to NI back in the day, even after the royal phone hacking. In fact iirc it was pretty much only lefties who have consistently attacked all government's closeness to Murdoch. And possibly P Hitchens.

mulcaire is off the payroll now. does that mean they've found another way to keep him on the payroll? or was offing the whistleblower warning enough?

No they didn't complain, because they wanted their friend back.

Now their friend has been seen eating bogeys, they are all "you liked them, you were their bestest friend" and "Mary told you he eats bogeys and you still invited him for tea" and so on.

Ahh, I hadn't read the latest - "Of course I regret, and I am extremely sorry, about the furore it has caused." said Cameron over hiring Coulson. So it was the furore, not the hiring. I can't understand why, from a political pov, he doesn't just apologise. Then EdM couldn't keep asking him to do it. What harm would it do?

god i hate that new way of 'apologizing': i'm sorry *if i upset anyone'; i'm sorry *for the furore [ie your reaction]* etc.

That is not a new way of apologizing. Now, how many questioners have asked Cameron the name of the outside company which vetted Coulson?

"I'm sorry, but I'm not going to apologise."

surely answering a question with an "ugh" then sitting back down isn't permissible!

1357: Echoing the words of his predecessor Margaret Thatcher, at one point in the debate David Cameron says: "I'm enjoying this".

I remember when she said it (as in the exact moment), I thought to myself "she's over! She's completely done!"

Miliband got in a top zing: said Tom Baldwin was vetted properly and oh BTW what about his former line manager, Michael Gove.

I went to school with May-Bowles. He was in my year at St Bernard's Convent Grammar School (now just Grammar School) from 1996 to 2003. To say he is a pompous, self-centred, egomaniacal twat doesn't even scratch the surface. To be in his mere presence wanted anyone to curl into a ball or be swallowed by the earth. In the years I knew him I can never remember a sincere word pass his lips, just trite nonsense. He once got caught smoking weed on the premises and called it 'social intercourse'. Ugh.

by the way it's worth revisiting this article for a recap on the whole situation and how it unfolded -

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/magazine/05hacking-t.html

kind of amazing that it took another 4 months after this article for coulson to resign from 10 downing street, tbh

i think a big part of that is that so few people in westminster (including journalists) don't read the nyt, and would assume an article by them on uk politics was not worth reading, so it's pretty easy to just pretend it doesn't exist if you need to

I don't think so.

i've worked in westminster fwiw. if a shorter version of that article was in the telegraph or the guardian then he would have gone immediately because it would be the lead thing on the today show every day until he quit

as much shit as i give the nytimes, and especially its magazine, that kind of patient, long-form, rigorously researched storytelling is something it can do very well when it puts its mind to it

mark caek is a close personal relation to andy coulson, i think i am going to trust him on this

xxp

"today show" = "today programme" btw [via Americanisms: 50 of your most noted examples]

At Rupert Murdoch's tabloids, refusing to play ball meant being pushed to the sidelines. One reporter who said he went through that was Charles Begley, News of the World's Harry Potter correspondent in 2001 when Brooks was its editor.

The then 29-year-old reporter said he wore a Harry Potter costume to work and officially changed his name to that of the fictional boy wizard, all part of the paper's attempt to tap into the Pottermania sweeping both sides of the Atlantic.

On Sept. 11, hours after the fall of the Twin Towers, Begley was stunned to be chewed out by News of the World management for not wearing his costume. He said he was then ordered to attend the next news meeting in full Potter regalia.