Gringo

Chisora v Fury just about to start

Fury with a 'I found Jesus' t-shirt

and Chisora coming out to the tune of the 'black velvet band' - a song about deportation to Oz

quite bizarre

That is a **** ridiculous picture

I'm sure the people in the pics dept could have tried a little harder looking for a norway themed pic of brenda, but following the 'bellyful' cartoon in the times and the camping advert I'm beginning to wonder if news intl are just taking the piss now.

Has this been mentioned here yet?:-

http://twitpic.com/5u6n2l

...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3710902/At-least-92-people-are-killed-in-two-gun-and-bomb-attacks-in-Norway-by-a-crazed-hunting-fan.html

From that Sun page..........

Probably so the players in the national team can get a decent break before the start of euro 2012

lol

Football season's started. Well it has ooooop north. Motherwell currently top of the scottish premier league.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The press is bent, the politicians are bent, and the police are bent.

Who's going to do the investigating?

EDIT: Got it! The Church.

We can always rely on the judiciary though

torygraph"]Phone hacking inquiry judge attended parties at home of Rupert Murdoch's son-in-law

Lord Justice Leveson went to two parties in the past year at the London home of Matthew Freud, a PR executive married to Elisabeth Murdoch, the daughter of Rupert Murdoch widely tipped to be her father’s successor.

MPs said last night that Lord Leveson’s social connections to News Corp raised questions about his impartiality and suitability to lead the inquiry.

The judge was appointed by Mr Cameron last week and will be able to call any journalist, politician or proprietor, raising the possibility that Rupert Murdoch could face further questions. It emerged yesterday that Lord Leveson, while chairman of the Sentencing Council that advises the Government on punishing criminals, met Mr Freud at a dinner in February last year in an Oxford University college.

The pair discussed how to promote public confidence in the criminal justice system.

Mr Freud then offered to provide some staff from his company Freud Communications to work for nothing advising the council on how to raise confidence in sentencing. This resulted in Lord Leveson attending two parties at Mr Freud’s London home, in July last year and last January. His attendance was approved by Lord Judge, the Lord Chief Justice.

Rupert is in the UK to do something, he isn't here as a faciliator. So by the end of the visit we will see a new appointment at one of three important roles:

* Chief Exec NewsCorp (current holder James Murdoch)

* Chief Exec NewsIntl (current holder Rebekah Brooks)

* Chairman of Judicial Inquiry into Media Influence (current holder n/a)

Well two out of three ain't too bad.

Too lightwieght when you have a variety of devices. I prefer something like this

where was the nearest police station?

And bizarrely for some reason all the serious police were heading in the opposite direction at the time, something about a bomb.

How is he finished? He'll still be the head of a multi billion pound operation. He may have to rein back a bit but he will get anyone he wants. The people who are finished are those without his money who have upset the family.

the murdoch family only own 12% of news corp - though they do hold 40% of voting rights. There are two or three legal cases pending in the states from disgruntled investors not happy with rupert embezzling £400m for the family (purchase of shine), the loss of bskyb and the fallout from hackgate. rupe is trying to quieten them through a share buy back scheme. Through into the mix the poential us court cases for bribing of officials then it's quite possible that rupert loses his grip and james is sent off to manage the western oz echo.

That depends on the us officials not being as corrupt as the uk ones though - so he'll probably get away with it.

grauniad"]Police forces in England and Wales plan to lose 34,100 officers and staff over the next four years, amid fresh evidence that the cuts will trigger a rise in property crime.

The first reliable estimate by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary is far higher than previous forecasts of 28,000 made by police staff organisations. Sir Denis O'Connor, HM chief inspector of constabulary, said the reduction in officers and staff being planned was the largest the police had faced in more than two generations.

HMIC says the 43 police forces plan to cut 16,200 officers, 1,800 police community support officers and 16,100 police staff – a reduction of 14% in the workforce. The reduction in uniformed police officers represents 11% of the 140,000 constables in the country.

A research paper published alongside the HMIC report will infuriate Home Office ministers who have been arguing there is no direct link between falling police numbers and levels of crime. The paper contradicts this by saying recent research using more robust methodologies has demonstrated a link and that a 10% fall in officers could lead to a 3% rise in property crime.

So how can the govt cut police numbers and yet remain confident levels of crime won't rise. Well that's where the big society comes in, and the privatisation of street-level policing. And once again the legislation to enable this was handily put in place by the previous tory govt.

securityRus"]Victoria's Business Improvement District is building on the success of its ‘safe and secure’ initiatives by funding a Community Safety Accreditation Scheme. Brian Sims reports.

Community Safety Accreditation Schemes (CSAS) are a Home Office initiative enabling the chief of police for each force area to designate limited but targeted police powers to employees of non-police organisations who contribute towards community safety.

In London’s Victoria, 15 security officers from Ultimate Security Services will now be accredited with limited powers under the Police Reform Act 2002. This move has been extremely well received by the business community in SW1 and is actively enhancing the police service’s initiative for a safer Victoria.

The initiative promises to establish and promote a safer, more secure environment for businesses, visitors and residents within the Victoria CSAS zone. In reality, the work of accredited staff will complement the efforts of both the Metropolitan Police Service and the British Transport Police in reducing local crime and occurrences of anti-social behaviour.

Under the terms of the Victoria CSAS, the Met has agreed to designate the following police powers to Ultimate Security Services:

* power to request a name and address for fixed penalty notices and offences that cause injury, alarm and distress to another person, or damage to (or the loss of) another’s property

* power to request the name and address of a person who has committed an offence of begging

* power to request the name and address of a person acting in an anti-social manner

* power to request a person to stop drinking in a designated public place and to confiscate and dispose of alcohol being consumed within a designated public place

* power to confiscate alcohol from a person under the age of 18 years

* power to confiscate cigarettes and tobacco products from a person under the age of 16 years

* power to stop pedal cycles where the accredited person has reason to believe that a person has committed the offence of riding on the footpath

So after the plastic bobby (community support) we have the enhanced security guard; bestowed powers despite the minimal levels of vetting or training. A positive breeding ground for the next power mental levy bellfield.

And the 2011 award for putting words in someone else's mouth goes to...

I could equally ask - so you don't really mind which taxpayers take the hit if Greece were to default just that some taxpayers somewhere along the chain do? - but that would be crass and betray a naive understanding of what it is happening.

some banks, with big risk management departments took a commercial risk-return based decision to loan greece money. Other banks made decisions on a similar basis to provide insurance to the lenders. No one asked the taxpayers to provide an implicit guarantee to either set of financiers.

nothing to do with me wanting to see banks punished or taxpayers punished, just providing am alternative commentary to the one that says the banks are now on the hook for some of this write down. They're not.

Bank shares out performing the markets today.

Who pays out on the CDS? Banks.

Who pays out for the collateralisation? Taxpayers

Trebles all around.

You don't consider having to wait 30 years to get your money back as taking a hit?

They don't. Now the bonds are fully collateralised they can trade out anytime. Some people have an appetite for long term bond positions and would be willing to buy them.

Alternatively, again because the bonds are fully collateralised many banks will be quite happy to repo them for cash loan positions - so you've got your money now, can invest it as you wish, and then buy back the bonds back at point of maturity. Of course the REPO fees will be a minor minor hit, but that's just money going from one bank to another.

At whatever point Greece fails it's the eu taxpayers in it for the whole shebang (in terms of this re-writing of these bonds).

There is also a roll over of Greek debt to the tune of 20% losses for SOME bond holders.

fixed 4 u

Bizweek"] Four Options

Private investors will have the option to exchange existing Greek debt into four instruments. Three will be fully collateralized by AAA-rated zero-coupon securities and have a 30-year maturity, and the fourth will be for 15 years and partially collateralized by funds held in an escrow account.

The first option would be to swap existing securities into a 30-year bond at par value backed by top-rated debt purchased by the European Financial Stability Facility, the IIF said. The coupon would start at 4 percent and climb to 5 percent over the life of the bond, and the principal would be repaid to investors with the proceeds of the maturing zero-coupon securities.

In the second choice, investors would roll over their holdings into 30-year debt at par when the existing bonds mature, with the same collateral and interest rates as the first option. The other two options involve a “discount bond exchange” into 15- or 30-year securities, at 80 percent of par value. Coupons would be higher to reflect the upfront hit investors would accept on the value of the bond.

The IIF assumes that an equal portion of investors will participate in each option.

So if the banker wants to exchange at par - his position is now fully collateralised by the ECB - so if in 30 years time, everything turns out cushty and greece can repay their debts, banker gets his money back. However if the greek govt can't repay the money, then the eu taxpayers via the ECB will reimburse the banks.

The only ones likely to opt for the 80% discount bonds are the ones betting on the ponzi scheme falling apart in the short-to-mid term and who will seek to maximise the cash flow they can get out of their existing bond holdings.

The risk and costs of default are being socialised, and the profits from the bond market are being privatised.

grauniad"]Watson: "James – sorry, if I may call you James, to differentiate – when you signed off the Taylor payment, did you see or were you made aware of the full Neville email, the transcript of the hacked voicemail messages?"

James Murdoch: "No, I was not aware of that at the time."

Watson may have been slightly mistranscribed: he may have said the "for Neville" email.

However, James Murdoch's response contained no slip of the tongue. When the Guardian subsequently queried his version of events with his office, they provided a written statement repeating it. It said: "In June 2008 James Murdoch had given verbal approval to settle the case, following legal advice. He did this without knowledge of the 'for Neville' email."

John Whittingdale, chairman of the culture sport and media select committee, said, ominously, on Thursday night: "We as a committee regarded the 'for Neville' email as one of the most critical pieces of evidence in the whole inquiry. We will be asking James Murdoch to respond and ask him to clarify."

LIAR, LIAR, PANTS ON FIRE!

guardian"]James Murdoch misled MPs, say former NoW editor and lawyer

Colin Myler and Tom Crone challenge News Corp executive's statement to MPs at phone-hacking hearing

....

n a highly damaging broadside, two former News of the World senior executives claimed the evidence Murdoch gave to the committee on Tuesday in relation to an out-of-court settlement to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers Association, was "mistaken".

The statement came as something of a bombshell to the culture, sport and media select committee, which immediately announced it would be asking Murdoch to explain the contradiction.

Colin Myler, editor of the paper until it was shut down two weeks ago, and Tom Crone, the paper's former head of legal affairs, said they had expressly told Murdoch of an email that would have blown a hole in its defence that only one "rogue reporter" was involved in the phone-hacking scandal.

This contradicts what Murdoch told the committee when questioned on Tuesday.

A bit of both? Not really.

The initial bailout is paid by EU taxpayers.

There's a proposed bank levy - 'to help them share the pain'. Which is twaddle on two levels. Firstly it's proposed may never happen. Secondly it doesn't punish the stupid/irresponsible/fraudulent banks that pumped money into greece, it targets the whole sector. Where the banks have retail divisions the extra costs will be passed onto the retail customers (ie EU taxpayers), and purely commercial banks will pass their costs onto their corporate customers in additional fees which will end up getting passed onto retailers in the end and passed on to their customers (ie EU taxpayers).

Nowhere are the shareholders in the banks, or the bankers bonuses targetted for punishment.

Just another example of the underelected elite **** over the little people in favour of the financiers.

The compromise most likely will be eu taxpayers paying for the default instead of the bankers.

at any time it would have caused the same problems

so in essence it could have come out anytime since 2009 but just happened to come out now in time to derail the BskyB bid ... funny that

Sky launched their bid in June 2010. The information re: dowler, soham, soldiers, 7/7 victims was uncovered by the weeting enquiry that only kicked off in January 2011. Between 2009 (yates failure) and weeting, the only people who had that information were newscorp and the dodgy cops covering up for or lying to yates. So if that information had been released by operation weeting at any time it would have derailed the bid .

Yes but there could be a rather underhand reason for there being such a low number of NI files, we've already seen a fair degree of lying from the powers that be over NI and phone hacking.

those figures are from 2009 , so if someone was burying it then it does show it is a cross party issue

Those numbers weren't buried - they were published by the grauniad in 2009 - It was all part of the same investigation by nick davies, and I'm quite sure someone posted them on VT as well.

re: motivation - grauniad bringing down murdoch is enough - I doubt it's party political as punch was just as bad as judy, just that punch has now got a new job as peace envoy

re: timing - it had to come out some time - at any time it would have caused the same problems - releasing the info during or before the dowler trial could have caused the ire of judges. The police were never going to release any information on dowler, or the sohams or hacking dead soldiers relatives. So I would judge the timing to have been as soon as possible without giving belfield someone else to accuse.

Seems bizarre that Keith Vaz is charing this committee

If we were to look for one of these career politicians who is flawless we'd be here all week..

I think we could find a large number of politicians who are cleaner than Vaz...

Not 'career' politicians

Seems bizarre that Keith Vaz is charing this committee

If we were to look for one of these career politicians who is flawless we'd be here all week.

You could ask how Vaz got his position as chair - complicity with the corrupt nature of politics is probably one of the leading requirements.

On tonight's Panorama, I did chuckle at Chris Bryant's anecdote which went something like this (apologies if not verbatim):

I went to a party and bumped in to Rebekah Brooks who said, "It's after dark, Mr Bryant, shouldn't you be out on Clapham Common?"

Her then husband, Ross Kemp turned to her and said, "Shut up, you homophobic bitch."

I wonder why she would say that.

I wonder why they got divorced

Hoare's previous evidence (Dec 2010)

No charges in News of the World phone-hacking probe

No charges will be brought following a probe into phone hacking at the News of the World, prosecutors have confirmed.

The director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer said there was no admissible evidence to support claims public figures' phones were hacked.

An ex-reporter on the paper refused to comment to police about claims he made in the US that his former boss Andy Coulson knew about the practice.

Tory communications chief Mr Coulson denies knowing anything about hacking.

Mr Starmer said former NoW reporter Sean Hoare refused to co-operate with police over claims he made in the New York Times that the practice was more widespread at the UK newspaper than had been previously admitted.

He said: "A number of other witnesses were interviewed and either refused to co-operate with the police investigation, provided short statements which did not advance matters, or denied any knowledge of wrongdoing.

...more on link

How much did that all cost (Rupert), I wonder?

I wonder who gets to choose the pathologist this time. cressida dick has been tipped to replace yates and she already owes the politicos one favour.