Writing to MP on an amnesty for phone hacking journalists

To John Penrose MP, Weston super Mare (Con)

Dear John

Many thanks for your email (below) regarding the actions the Government has taken over the phone hacking scandal.

I would like to put to you the suggestion that journalists throughout the UK newspaper amnesty should be offered a time-limited amnesty from criminal prosecution in return for sharing all their knowlege about illegal surveillance practices. The aim is to facilitate the working of the varous inquiries that you have mentioned.

After the amnesty window is closed, any journalist who has not taken advantage of it will be liable to the full penalty of law. It would be open to the newsroom journalists, not to managers and executives who presided over the hacking culture.

The aim is of course to get the full truth, without having to drag reluctant witnesses to the inquiries that have already been set up, and once there, to find that they obscure what they know for fear of incriminating themselves. Without it, many journalists might insist that they have their solicitor in attendance to advise them what questions not to answer.

This would make the process of getting information quicker and therefore less expensive - an important matter in these times of fiscal austerity.

It is clear that there is a widespread culture in our press of phone hacking. Operation Motorman found that the Mail, Mirror and the People were all ahead of the NoTW in the hacking stakes. Even Women's Own does it. (p9 of the What Price Privacy document).

This amnesty proposal is inspired by Mandela's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

In debating this proposal, the main objection that I have encountered is the punitive response - the desire for them all to go to jail. However, some reports have suggested that more than 300 journalists have been involved in some form of illegal surveillance. The costs of police, court, and prison for this cohort are clearly very substantial, quite apart from the problem of jailing a large section of a highly influential group of workers who will retain the sympathies of many of their colleagues.

Another objection is that it will not address the problem of journalists not wanting to speak out because of the effect on their careers. This is true, but given the regrettable view in the media industry that the practice was "normal", it is unlikely to be seen as a major hurdle to re-employment in and of itself.  The stick-and-carrot nature of the amnesty will override career worries.

I would be grateful to have your own view of the merits of this proposal, and if you feel appropriate, will also be grateful if you would forward it to the minister responsible.

With, as ever, thanks for your work

Richard Lawson

Offer an amnesty to all journalists involved in past hacking. Clear the air

Wahey. The fragrant Princess Leia, (aka Louise Mensch MP, on the Select Committee that grilled Murdoch) ReTweets and approves the Green Party aim that hacking hacks should be offered an amnesty. She says :


"DocRichard: @fieldproducer We will get to truth quicker if journos given an amnesty window to fess up all hacking deeds. <~ GREAT idea". 


This is one of a few initiatives that Green Party Conference agreed in September 09.

The proposal is that journalists on any newspaper - indeed, any UK journalist - should be offered a window to come forward and confess any illegal hacking activities that they have been party to, without running the risk of criminal prosecution. After the window is closed, any journalist convicted of phone hacking will feel the full penalty of the law.

The idea here is of course to get the full truth, without having to drag reluctant witnesses to the several inquiries that have already been set up, and once there, to drag the truth from their unwilling lips. This would make the process of getting information long drawn out and therefore expensive.

George Osborne (who recommended Coulson to Cameron) could well come in and close the inquiries down on the grounds that the economy cannot afford them. An amnesty will stop George doing this.

So give them an amnesty, and let them sing like canaries. Clearly there is a widespread culture in our press of phone hacking. Motorman found that the Mail, Mirror and the People were all ahead of the NoTW in the hacking stakes. Even Women's Own does it. (go to p9).

Better that they all fess up and sing, rather than clam up and ask to have their solicitor hold their hand.

This amnesty is soundly based on Mandela's Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

It will supply a wealth of information, much of which is likely to point to the complicity of senior management and executives. This will work against the executives' game, which is as ever, to dump the blame on lowly operatives.



So, the amnesty idea has a lot going for it. What are the demerits?

One tweeter said what about extending it to the bankers? Maybe, maybe not. Let's focus on the matter in hand, not charge off in all directions at once.

Another tweeter wants them all to go to jail. The punitive response. I responded to him : Jail was too good for 'em, they should all be flogged. [irony alert]

It is ironic that primitive News of the World responses are operative in some who are opposed to what the NoW did.



He replied that I am acting like a friend of journalists. If only he knew. There are at least 35 posts on this blog that are critical of journalists and the media. I have no reason to love or protect our media, having been Speaker for the Green Party in the 90s, and experienced the distortions that they regularly applied to us. 


A third objection is that it will not address the problem of journos not wanting to speak out because of the effect on their careers. This is a variant of the never-mind-the-dog-poo-what-about-the-litter? general objection to everything. We cannot make everything good. But a legal amnesty (especially if the carrot of amnesty is followed up by the stick of prosecution for journos who do not use the amnesty) will still motivate. The likelihood is that so many will come forward that there will be safety in numbers. There will be no comeback on truth tellers, because the high and mighty who ordered or pressed them to hack will either be in jail or sitting under a foetid pile of disgrace.


The amnesty proposal is the best way forward.

I will write to my MP.

Hackgate: we must clip the wings of all press barons

 Photo by Dan Kitwood/Getty Images Europe)

It's not just Murdoch. Getting rid of the old man may give us a warm feeling inside, and may indeed please News International shareholders, but the system will carry on with Business As Usual. Even the collapse of News International, and News Corps(e) would still leave other right-wing press barons still at work bending public opinion to their false world view.

We have to do more than sit back and enjoy the schadenfreude. We have to take action, ride the wave, and subtly direct the massive forces that have been unleashed by the News of the World phone hacking story.

Remember that dictators do not go quietly: remember that in Libya, Syria, Bahrein, Yemen and other places people are laying down their lives to rid themselves of dictatorships. We are not going to get rid of the rule of the media barons by watching telly.

Am I over egging the pudding by likening  Murdoch to a dictator? No. Clearly, he is not a physical dictator. He has no secret police, no prisons, no killers (we hope, anyway, assuming that poor Sean Hoar died of natural causes).

Murdoch and the other press barons are dictators of the mind. They dominate public opinion, set the agenda in which news is presented. And like physical dictators, they exercise absolute power. That is plain for all to see, when Prime Ministers bend the knee to him. The Hackgate scandal is about the overweening power of Murdoch, his corrupting influence both with police and politicians.

Establishment voices will try to deny the influence of papers. Already Alastair Campbell has declared that newspapers are all that important - bizarrely, given that his whole life's work is to try influence what they print.

The evidence that papers set the agenda of news is very clear. Here's Maxwell Coombs on the topic. Here's Coombs and Shaw showing how papers affect voters perceptions of the importance of topics.

McLeod, Becker and Burns tried to refute the agenda setting hypothesis, and found it to be limited in some areas (as is to be expected in any sociological matter) but did not manage to overthrow the fundamental truth that papers set the agenda.

Mass communications alter mass opinion. That is why advertisers advertise. That is why politicians crave access to broadcast and print media. That is why it is wrong that a few rich individuals or corporations should own large amounts of mass communication power. It is called concentration of media ownership.

Wikipedia (accessed 20/7/2011) summarises the the position in the UK:

In Britain and Ireland, Rupert Murdoch owns best-selling tabloid The Sun as well as the broadsheet The Times and Sunday Times, and 39% of satellite broadcasting network BSkyB.

BSkyB in turn owns a significant part of ITV plc and 5% of Shine Limited. ...In July 2011 the Murdoch-owned tabloid News of the World was shut down.

Daily Mail and General Trust (DMGT) own The Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, Ireland on Sunday, and free London daily Metro, and control a large proportion of regional media, including through subsidiary Northcliffe Media, in addition to large shares in ITN and GCap Media.

Richard Desmond owns OK! magazine, Channel 5, the Daily Express and the Daily Star.

The Evening Standard and The Independent are both owned by Russian businessman and ex KGB agent Alexander Lebedev.

[The Telegraph is owned by the Barclay brothers.]

Here are the readership numbers:

Between them, the Sun, Mail, Telegraph, Times, Star and Express have a readership of 18.7 million.

The Mirror, Guardian and Independent have a readership of 4.6 million.

Which means that rightish views outnumber leftish views in UK papers by 4 to 1.

This is clearly skewed, because rightish and leftish political votes are more or less balanced in elections.

Without the continual drip drip of rightist - sometimes extremely rightist - opinion in the press, politics in the UK would be a very different beast.



So we can conclude that we have a major bias towards the right due to the structure of press ownership in this backward little country of ours.

We must use the opportunity offered by Hackgate to rid ourselves not just of Murdoch, but of all the unaccountable press barons who are setting the political agenda.

To achieve this, we need to demand of our MPs that the ability of one corporation or individual to own more than one media outlet, or to own more than a small portion of the total outlet, should be radically reduced.

Murdoch's News International papers' position on climate change.

What position do Rupert Murdoch's newspapers take on global warming?

To do a full study would take weeks of research, because Murdoch , listed 17th most influential person in the world by Forbes in 2010, owns some 175 papers, all of whom, uniformly and without exception, supported the Iraq War of Blair and GWB.

In 2007, Murdoch claimed that he was concerned about climate change. How did this claim turn out in reality?

So I go to www.timesonline and search "climate change". 7741 results. I look at 1-25, and paste below the headlines that seem relevant.

Smart Solutions to Climate Change edited by Bjorn Lomborg Oct 2010
Widespread scepticism on climate change undermines Copenhagen summit
‘Hibernating’ sun may usher in Ice Age and take the heat out of climate change June 2010
Archive: The great climate change science scandal Feb 2011
UN report on climate change ‘was one-sided’ July 2010
Government climate change figures ‘are misleading’ (Cant be bothered to add all the dates)
Protests call for action over climate change
UN climate change expert: there could be more errors in report
Business faces £370bn bill for climate change
UN launches independent review of climate change errors
Climate change sceptics: Phil Jones inquiry must be ‘independent and transparent’
A new global coalition to tackle climate change
Lord Lawson's incredible complacency on climate change
UN Climate Change panel under fire after Himalayan glacier claim (See here)

Now, I cannot read these links because they are hidden behind a paywall and I am not about to give the Murdoch any of my hard earned sovereigns, but as far as I can see, of 25 stories in the Times and Sunday Times (the search seems to cover both), 10 have anti-AGW bias and 2 are neutral. No reports of, for instance,  "Climate Scientists report findings confirming manmade global warming (AGW)."

The Sunday Times carried the pseudo-story of "Amazongate", which I blogged here and here;  a mistaken attempt by the Sunday Times to discredit climate research.

So the Times and Sunday Times take a broadly AGW sceptic position.

Next, to http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/ . Oh. Just the page saying "Thank you and goodbye". Nothing else, no other pages, no search button. Nada. Dead. Gone. As if it never existed.

OK, on to the Sun. I do the same search and get:

Climate change wrecks treasures

Fish face ‘pollution wipe out’ 

Time to save the planet?  (About the Daylight Saving Campaign.)

Whale poo cuts CO2 emissions (SPERM whales combat climate change because they offset carbon - faeces)

Ginola 'blown up' in internet ad (About that dumb ad where people get blown up for wasting carbon)

Weather centre a massive polluter

No green light for eco issues? (debate)
Pint could cost £18 by 2030 (because of climate change)
'Doomsday' vision of Europe (Scientists at the Met Office have produced a map showing rising sea levels and disappearing cities caused by global warming.)
The price is bright for bulbs
Boffins leaving me cold (alleged that climate change scientists have been manipulating global warming data because research is showing that it might just be a natural planetary cycle)
Bin Laden the eco-warrior (OBL accused West of causing GW)
Arrests made in climate demo
Landmarks turn the lights out
Flooded by man (MAN-MADE climate change doubles risk of flooding within the UK, scientists claim)
Charles raps eco sceptics
Climate change 'agreement' in Copenhagen

OK, this is a surprise. Of a sample of the first 25 results, the Sun has only one bit of anti-AGW propaganda, (Boffins leave me cold), and the other 16 are straight reportage, supportive, if anything, of the climate science.

The only other Murdoch  paper I know of is the Wall Street Journal, which is of course famous for its anti-AGW stance.

So, from this sample, the "quality"  Murdoch press (now there's an oxymoron) are anti-science, while the little old Sun is wobbling along bravely supporting the science. It looks as if, following his 2007 conversion, he got a lot of counter-pressure from the free-marketeers, and he let his editors make up their own minds. Or something. We need more data.

It looks as if the Australian has an anti-science stance. And then of course, there Fox (Faux) News, known repository of foam-flecked climate change deniers.

So it looks on the face of it as if Murdoch's conversion was not strong enough to penetrate through to his major outlets, his big papers and Faux News. But the Sun, surprisingly, has put its thinking cap on.

It's Goodbye to Coulson, and hello to Green Party media reforms

Good. Coulson has gone. Some may think that is the end of the matter, but it's not.

Coulson remains either a liar, or an incompetent, or possibly both. He is standing by his story that he was ignorant of the phone hacks. That needs to be tested in the courts, but while at present we have a dozen witnesses who say he knew, none will speak out. There are two reasons for this.

One is the danger that if they come out of the hacking closet, they could incriminate themselves. That is why we need an amnesty, for a set period, for journos to come out and sing sweetly about what they know, so that we can clear the Augean stables. Remember that the NoTW is not alone in this; it is alleged that other papers do substantial amounts of hacking. Some may have public interest justification: it needs to be brought out into the sunlight.

The other reason is that they fear it could embugger their careers. Difficult. But. There is safety in numbers, and if journos are offered the carrot of amnesty (for a period of time) and a stick of prosecutions - (?and having their journalist accreditation withdrawn?) - we might expect a large and fairly harmonious choir of confessors.

The hacking is just one strand of the problem. Some of the other problems, and solutions, are addressed in the motion that the Green Party adopted in Sept 09, Birmingham. Here's the gist of it.


The scandal arising from illegal surveillance of public figures by the News of the World raises many important questions relating to democracy in the UK.  The influence of Rupert Murdoch's News International empire is excessive, and its relations with the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), who appear to have failed to conduct the News of the World investigation with due diligence, is questionable.
 
The Green Party, through its elected members and its press activity, calls for :

1.    An independent inquiry, whether judicial or by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Police.
2.    The MPS to  release all information relating to illegal surveillance to those affected by it
3.    A fresh investigation into the surveillance by a police force other than the MPS
4.    Mobile phone companies to review and improve their customers' security
5.    The setting up of a Media Commission, along the lines of the Banking Commission, to review and make recommendations on better journalistic practices, including the matter of undue domination of the media by a single person or corporation.
6.    An amnesty for past acts of illegal surveillance by journalists, in order to get a fresh start without an unmanageable number of individual court cases
7.    The Press Complaints Commission to be replaced by a body with real authority to correct errors within the media. 

 A few modest little reforms there. All perfectly reasonable. 

Understanding Osborne's murderous chainsaw attack on the UK economy in 9 easy stages

Let's try to get a few things straight in our minds.

George Osborne is winding himself to smash the UK economy tomorrow.

People of intelligence and understanding sit watching in silent, horrified agony at what he is doing.

With so much information being fired at us, it would be helpful to remind ourselves of the essence of the story that is unfolding about our ears.

1. There was a global economic crisis in 2008-9, based on Toxic Assets, loans made to people who were clearly unable to pay, by bankers whose judgment was clouded by excitement of a housing bubble and confused by fancy new financial instruments.
2. This threatened the stability of banks, and millions could have lost their savings if they crashed.
3. So the banks were rescued by the Bank of England, who borrowed money from, er,  the banks to stabilise the bastards. 
4. This, together with Labour's generous but unwise borrowings to pump into the NHS and education system, have built up a huge deficit.
5. Osborne claims that "The Markets" (i.e. the financial service industries that caused the problem in the first place) would come and get us if we do not reduce the deficit.
6. This despite the fact that before they got to us, "The Markets" would have to kill numerous weaker economies first, namely Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Spain, Japan, and the USofA. Yes, good old Uncle Sam.
7. Despite the complete and utter self-referential stupidity of the above 6 points, the Tories are still ahead of Labour in the polls, because people buy Osborne's line: "This is all Labour's Fault, There Is No Alternative".
8. In fact, Osborne is motivated by the ideology of the Small State.
   
9. Osborne is able to sustain this lie because he is supported by Murdoch's Media (Times, Sunday Times, Sun, News of the World, Sky News), the Daily Mail, the Express, and the Torygraph. The same group that demonstrate their lack of integrity by ignoring the Andy "I Knew Nothing" Coulson story.

There we have it, in essence.


It stinks.


What happens now?


Many expect that Osborne's actions will make worse the coming recession.
NEF believes that the banks are going to ask for another £750 billion sometime soon.


It seems to me quite likely that the UK will lead the world into a global recession, which will be good for the atmosphere in that recessions lower CO2 emissions from industry, but bad for people who are thrown into poverty, and raises the risk of war.


What can we do?

• Protest. 
• Write to our MPs (hah!) 
• Hold a General Tea Break, as a forerunner to a General Strike.
• Be ready to rebuild the economy from the bottom up if the financial system crashes.

Sorry there are few links on this initial version, I will try to come back and put up some links, but feel the need to go for a nice long walk. There are some links on the labels below.

Feeling Sorry for David Cameron

Pic from PA via Telegraph

This may lose me followers, but I have to say it.

Yesterday I had a tiny twinge of feeling sorry for David Cameron.

Ye I know. He is privileged, been to Eton, and is about to tear the country apart, plunging us into the deepest recession in 70 years, is a friend of the bankers, and is a Tory.

But I still feel sorry for him. Just as I did for Gordon.


Dave had nothing to say of any importance yesterday, and had to read, not recite, but that was because he has been changing nappies. Notionally. I'm sure he has someone to change nappies for him really.

He stood up and failed to impress his party, because large swathes of his party actively hate him. And Tories are very good at hate. They do it well. It's their Best Thing.

His Big Idea is the Big Society, and nobody knows what it means. Insofar as it means anything, it would mean better social cohesion, but his neighbour in No 11 is about to rip society apart, leaving Dave holding the limp tatters of a burst balloon of his Big Idea.

Dave is not a bad man. He has a good heart, and he means well. But he is leader of a party that is still very nasty, a party of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. They are setting about punishing the North, the poor, and now mothers who do the right thing by the Tory canon. Dave has the Spending Review to look forward to, and after that, the pain of imposing intolerable pain on the nation that he professes to care about.

Why did Osbore bounce the party with an ill thought through Reduction of Child Benefit for families whose mother stays at home looking after the children? Clearly this was a late entrant into the arena. Did Andy Coulson nudge The Boy George into doing it in order to divert attention from the Channel 4 programme that exposed once again his wet tissue of lies?

Clearly, Coulson is a dead man walking. He has become the story, not the story teller, and is doomed. The amazing capacity of the mainstream media to do a three wise monkeys on Coulsons mendacious pretence of ignorance of phone hacking is delaying Coulson's departure, but depart he will. The reason that he has hung on this long is that Dave is probably procrastinating, dreading the awful moment when he has to call Rupert Murdoch that his man Coulson has to leave Number 10. Even worse, who will Rupert install in Coulson's place? Richard Littlejohn? Mad Mel?

Faced with the prospect of 4 years of sharing space with Rupert's next place man, in addition to  the impossible prospect presiding over a  recession while simultaneously cutting public spending, it is not unreasonable to feel a tiny bit sorry for Call Me Dave.

The Ballad of Andy Coulson

To the tune of Poor Paddy Works on the Railway.


The Ballad of Andy Coulson

With Andy Coulson in control
The News of the World was on a roll
The News of the World was on a roll
Exclusives every Sunday,
(Each Sunday).
But Andy knew not whence they came
Poor Andy was out of the game.

They brought a story to the boil
From Mulcaire’s hacking of a Royal
Two men went down and still stayed loyal
And Andy still knew nothing.

They were working
Serving Murdoch
Hacking mobiles
Bugging Royal
Selling tabloids
Andy Coulson still knew nothing.

They hacked into the phones of slebs
Politicos, coppers and a few debs.
They even hacked into the plebs
But Andy still knew nothing,
(Knew nothing),
Even with the practice so widespread
Poor Andy was out of the game.

Now silence you can always buy it
They paid their victims to keep quiet
A million pounds to stop a riot
Andy still knew nothing.

They were working
Serving Murdoch
Hacking mobiles
Bugging Royals
Selling tabloids
Andy Coulson still knew nothing.

They called in Hayman of the Yard
Who really didn’t try too hard.
The victims of the crime were barred
From knowing about the hacking,
The hacking.
Now Hayman works for Murdoch
And Andy, he works for Dave.

Democracy’s a wondrous thing
So long as you can rein it in
Control the press, forget the rest
And tell the people nothing.

They were working
Serving Murdoch
Hacking mobiles
Bugging Royals
Selling tabloids
 Andy Coulson still knew nothing.


Now slowly truth comes trickling out
Like slobber from a sick pig’s snout;
It makes it clear beyond all doubt
That Coulson is a liar
(A liar).
It makes it clear beyond all doubt
That Andy was in on the game.


So what is Cameron to do
With Andy fallen in the stew
They try to keep it out the news
But Twitter’s got the story.


They were working
Serving Murdoch
Hacking mobiles
Bugging Royals
Selling tabloids
All for lying Andy Coulson.

© Richard Lawson 5.10.10

(If you want to

Channel 4 Dispatches: Metgate/Coulson affair action

The excellent Chanel 4 documentary Tabloids, Tories and Telephone Hacking on the Coulson/MetGate affair has just gone out. You can see it here. 

As a matter of interest, our screen froze and we lost sound at an interesting point. The same thing happened in 2 other areas of the country, according to Tweets. Reviewing it, I believe it was just as Peter Oborne was summarising his case. At the point sound was lost, (09:26 into the above linked video) Oborne was saying, (paraphrased):


"The idea that this was a single rogue reporter is risible. This story is not just about newspaper ethics, but concerns the relation between media and police, and the influence of Rupert Murdoch's News International at the heart of Government."

On re-watching the film today, I think it may have frozen at 05:09, when Oborne was giving a precis of the film's argument, expressing it as 

"Above all, what does this tell us about the power wielded by News of the world's owner, Rupert Murdoch?


The film caused a storm of feeling among those who watched it - anger, despair and depression. 
We need to convert these emotions into action.

Here is a start point: why not write to your MP and local paper on one or all of the action points below.


This resolution was passed unanimously at the last Green Party Conference in Birmingham Sept 10-13th.

1.    Conference notes that the scandal arising from illegal surveillance of public figures by the News of the World raises many important questions relating to democracy in the UK. It is emerging that the tabloid press frequently indulge in illegality. The influence of Rupert Murdoch's News International empire is excessive, and its relations with the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), who appear to have failed to conduct the News of the World investigation with due diligence, is questionable.

Conference resolves that the Green Party, through its elected members and its press activity, should call for :
1.    An independent inquiry, whether judicial or by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Police.
2.    The MPS to  release all information relating to illegal surveillance to those affected by it
3.    A fresh investigation into the surveillance by a police force other than the MPS
4.    Mobile phone companies to review and improve their customers' security
5.    The setting up of a Media Commission, along the lines of the Banking Commission, to review and make recommendations on better journalistic practices, including the matter of undue domination of the media by a single person or corporation.
6.    An amnesty for past acts of illegal surveillance by journalists, in order to get a fresh start without an unmanageable number of individual court cases
7.    The Press Complaints Commission to be replaced by a body with real authority to correct errors within the media.

Newsnight: Kelvin MacKenzie, Tom Watson - and a question of the law.

Kelvin MacKenzie has just been on Newsnight up against the excellent Tom Watson MP  debating MetGate. Kelvin Gotcha Hillsborough MacKenzie, to give him his full name, has been associtated with News International most of his career. I am not sure if he is speaking for  Mordorch himself now, but his view is worth study. I am working from memory, and will edit it later when I can see the film or the transcript.

It is generally agreed that MacKenzie is unbelievably obnoxious; but that is what he wants us to feel, so that we do not address his arguments cooly. He speaks as though he is 100% right about everything. He probably feels that way. He is a believer, with all the confidence of a Free Market Fundamentalist zealot.

He opened with the "Labour/partisan" ploy. This is the one where Labour are only making a fuss because they lost the election. *yawn*.

Then he upped the ante, strengthened it with the vivid image of Labour licking Murdoch's arse, only to be kicking it now that Mordorch has transferred his hairy affections to smooth tongued Dave. Which is true, but a smokescreen. This is not about party politics, it is about real politics, about who is or is not above the law.

He said that MPs were against the newspapers in revenge for their treatment of the MP expenses scandal. Good point, but still a diversion from the real issue, the violation of privacy and breach of Parliamentary privilege (or equivalent: the fact that MPs are representatives of the ultimate power in the land, i.e. the people).

He then went on to minimise the problem, saying that journos always had and always will break the law, and that it was OK to do so.

And then, at the end, he came right out with it. Newspapers are above the law.


Or are they?

It's up to us, the people. A battle is starting, a direct contest between democracy and the corporations, in the shape of Mordorch.

Channel 4 fails to check its Metgate facts

Desperate, presumably, to defuse the MetGate scandal, Channel 4 news has just put up this piece:

 A former News of the World journalist's claim that Andy Coulson would have been aware about an alleged culture of phone hacking at the paper has been thrown into doubt because he had left the paper before Mr Coulson became its editor, Channel 4 News understands. 

The source of Channel 4's understanding? News International. There's a surprise. 

It is true that Paul McMullen left the News of the Screws in 2001, and Coulson became editor in 2003. However, the Press Gazette, which we must assume is accurate, (although in the present fevered climate it seems that anything can happen), the Press Gazette records that Andy Coulson was appointed deputy editor of the News of the World in May 2000. So McMullen and Coulson did overlap.

[in the present version of the page, a line has been added:
In fact Paul McMullan only overlapped with Mr Coulson for 18 months, while Mr Coulson was deputy editor. ]

Guido Fawkes blogged and tweeted this triumphantly under the title "Coulson  Cleared".


The words "plot" and "losing" come to mind, Guido.