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

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.

can someone shop that shop of the 911 towers photo, with a plane in the background, so the guy is wearing a potter costume

you can just draw on glasses & a scar

Something to keep an eye on:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/20/phone-hacking-ni-murodchs

Jon Chapman, News International's former director of legal affairs, is understood to be preparing to write to the parliamentary committee looking into phone hacking in order to answer allegations made by his former employers, the Murdochs.

Chapman was one of a handful of senior and external legal advisers whose opinion on the extent of phone hacking at the newspaper group was called into question on Tuesday by James and Rupert Murdoch who appeared before MPs on the Commons culture, media and sport select committee. The Murdochs offered what could be described as a "blame the lawyers" defence.

On gardening leave having left News International two weeks ago, Chapman could not be reached for comment on Tuesday. However, he is understood to be preparing to write a letter to John Whittingdale, the chairman of the culture select committee, to "set the record straight", according to sources close to situation.

Any evidence from Chapman is likely to be extremely important in offering an opposing view of the critical 2007 internal inquiry put forward by the Murdochs and former chief executive Rebekah Brooks to MPs on Tuesday.

wow that sounds like a hot lead, let's just wait for him to put down the trowel & come back inside to get to the bottom of this

"...gardening leave" ?

paid leave while under investigation or whatever

british synonyms for 'house arrest'

For lawyers it's usually a paid period where they can't work for a competitor.

"...bizarre gardening accident..."

Finally, something important:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrR3bnLApDs

on that note, ny mag ran with Wendi Daaaang as their headline

for wendi deng:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6deOgwlyLs

Even though it's animated, still too much info on the 'RUPERT IS VERY MUCH STILL ALIVE' bit.

nymag is awful sometimes

"gardening leave" can also refer to when people resign and take all their leftover vacation days in one lump at the end, so that they keep getting paid for (x) number of days even though they've already left

god that cunt with the pie needs curbstomping

wasn't there a whole thing about this, where NotW execs were claiming that legal privilege meant their lawyers couldn't spill the beans about anything, or even defend themselves against accusations?

Something like that, yeah.

Meantime, go California?

Jon Craig of Sky News reports that David Cameron has gone in to see the Conservative 1922 backbench committee to justify his response to the phone-hacking scandal, including his decision to hire Andy Coulson.

Craig says there was 40 seconds of "desk banging" when the prime minister entered the room, intended to give him the message: "Stick it up 'em, carry on and it'll be all right in the end!"

pretty much every member of the 1922 committee deserves to be locked in a 10' square room with 200 ferrets

We need an Americanism to replace 'desk banging,' obv.