Murdoch Scum

[peterms]

tubpeterms? (though I recognize that the photograph I allude to was slightly different in terms of what pieces of bathroom furniture were included...)

(tubpms brings to mind an image so depraved that I'm sure there's a site featuring such a photograph...)

Tub? American for bath? A commode is a toilet masquerading as a chair. There are indeed many photos of them available on the internet, though good taste prevents me posting them.

Like an en-suite bathroom without the building work, or the plumbing. Though in both cases, one is forced to question who in their right mind could conceivably wish for a khasi in their **** bedroom. I suppose the users of commodes have at least the excuse of incontinence.

[peterms]

I could be wrong, but that was what I have always believed. If Peterms has been discommoded, that implies to me in modern parlance that someones stolen his en suite........

Isn't english a fantastic language?

If I ever found myself in a house with an en-suite, I would regard it an act of kindness for someone to steal it. Reinstating the brickwork and making good the plastering would be appreciated, but I don't suppose too many thieves go in for that sort of thing.

[legov]

A humble request - can someone explain what this whole Murdoch saga is all about? Thanks.

[Jezza]

Some splendid responses on the BBC News website blog - this being on of the many:

"I grew up in the 80s when the biliously racist, sexist and homophobic Sun newspaper was pouring out its poison in the UK. Murdoch and his papers could have introduced the high ethical standards he's suddenly become a convert to at any time in the last 40 years. It's only when his business is affected that he's suddenly contrite about the way they behave"

:nod:

[bickster]

A humble request - can someone explain what this whole Murdoch saga is all about? Thanks.

Right now its about the News of the World Newspaper hacking peoples mobile phone accounts to get information. On top of that there appears to have been a collusion with the Metropolitan Police to cover up the story and payments were made to the police by NotW. On top of that there now appears to be an attempt to bring the Sun newspaper and possibly the Times stable into this.

But its also about NewsCorp trying to take 100% stake in our Satellite broadcaster Sky TV (they currently only own a controlling 38%), the revelations in the first paragraph have seriously halted the SkyTV bid just days before it was going to be approved by the Government.

But along with all that there is also the power weilded by Murdoch in a kind of Kingmaker way, as whoever he supports politically tends to get elected and for many its just got to be too much, so much so they want him off the scene completely or at least weakened to the point he has no more power than anyone else. So to go along with that successive governments have given Murdoch whatever the **** he wanted as they were in fear of him (supposedly, more like knew they were getting into bed with the the devil). The current Govt however have been up to their necks in it as Rebekah Brooks (she who resigned yesterday) was not only one of the PM's constituents but a personal friend, Andy Coulson who was the PM's Press Sec was forced to resign over his involvement with a previous phone hacking scandal (the PM employed him in full knowledge of this but then he had to resign as the heat got too much)

So there, in a nutshell you have it but obviously its a little more involved than that but so far people power has brought down a newspaper and got the CEO of a large organisation to resign. It has also caused the CEO of the Dow Jones to resign because he was the previous incumbent to Rebekah Brooks, in charge when she was editor of the News of the World.

James Murdoch will be next on the list and then maybe the big man himself will be forced to sell up. It could also impact on the government with the PM deeply compromised by his friendships / appointments.

So when I said previously that this is a new style of revolution, I meant it. The whole situation is fascinating.

[blandy]

Pretty much, yeah, though

...whoever he supports politically tends to get elected and for many its just got to be too much....

is not quite how I see it. I'd say what happens and has happened is that because Murdoch controls a fair part of the UK print media, and his papers tend to follow, editorially, a line that tallies with Murdoch's views, politically, they by praise, by criticism and selection of stories which suit that agenda, tend to propagate a world view that matches Murdoch's. This means that politicians of all parties tend to move towards that line, because of the sheer weight of articles and editorial along those lines.

So we've ended up, as a result, with a bunch of parties that in the main are quite similar on most issues. The whole country has been influenced in direction towards that preferred by Murdoch.

As to which party his papers support, that's IMO, more reverse psychology - he decides who he thinks will win and then backs that party to use to further his ends.

i.e. Labour didn't win when they won, because of Murdoch, Murdoch backed them because he felt they'd win and then he could schmooze Tony Blair having "supported" him. And so on.

And of course the dirty tricks now exposed (and many not) whereby people who would criticise Murdoch, or his interests, would be targeted in his papers to overcome their resistance.

He also uses his papers to promote his other business interests - SkyTV, for example and to denigrate commercial competitors, whether it be the BBC or other papers or whoever.

So even people who share his outlook, have been worried for a long time at the level of influence he wields.

Now that the illegal and underhand methods have been brought more into the open, people have at last, more widely, realised what a danger he is to our democracy, or freedoms, our culture and our independence.

That the whole edifice is in danger of crumbling under the weight of bribery, phone tapping/hacking, alleged fraudulent activity and all the rest is a massive win bonus. Stopping his adverse influence would have been bloomin' fantastic, but ruining his company prospects is even better, other than a lot of entirely innocent printers, writers, photographers and so on will suffer as a result, perhaps.

But overall it's a real good thing that it's all been exposed to the light.

[legov]

Thanks

Now for Donald Trump.

[bickster]

Oh and there was one of those poor News of the World photographers in the pub last night, you know the ones that are out of work. He's been put on 3 months gardening leave with a job at the Times (supposedly) to go to in 3 months.

[bickster]

Yes Pete, your analysis is more correct but I was trying to simplify it a bit and probably fell foul of over simplification

[blandy]

I know mate.

Naughty man did bad thing.

Now that's over-simplification

[Jezza]

.

Now that the illegal and underhand methods have been brought more into the open, people have at last, more widely, realised what a danger he is to our democracy, or freedoms, our culture and our independence.

That the whole edifice is in danger of crumbling under the weight of bribery, phone tapping/hacking, alleged fraudulent activity and all the rest is a massive win bonus. Stopping his adverse influence would have been bloomin' fantastic, but ruining his company prospects is even better, other than a lot of entirely innocent printers, writers, photographers and so on will suffer as a result, perhaps.

But overall it's a real good thing that it's all been exposed to the light.

This excellent piece of writing sums my thoughts up precisely. It is with a great degree of satisfaction that we see Murdoch and his cronies getting their long overdue come-uppance, and the threat of their evil tentacles being 'hacked' so to speak, is totally delicious to watch.

The crumbling of his empire is something that I can only pray will happen, although I fear that his evil influence will try and smooth this over.

Murdoch's crocodile tears will sway no-one. He has had the best part of 40 years to apply a rigorous code of ethics to his businesses - and now he has been caught, he seems to be contrite - this fools no-one.

And as for that evil bint Brookes....well, I had thought of writing what I really wanted to, but it would cheapen the excellent writings of others on this thread, and drag me down to Murdoch's level.

[Gringo]

It's about time someone stood up for the flame haired medusa

heil"]Yesterday, Jeremy Clarkson defended Mrs Brooks in his column in The Sun: 'Rebekah is one of my closest friends and I'm sorry but I cannot accept that she sanctioned the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone, knowing that it would cause the girl's poor parents to believe their beloved daughter was still alive… I'd sooner believe that my mother spends her evenings working as a rent boy.'

So is he saying it's unbelievable that she would sanction hacking - or just she wouldn't sanction hacking that caused the family grief?

And then he goes on to compare hackgate with watergate

He argued that the celebrated US journalists Woodward and Bernstein, who brought down US President Richard Nixon in the Watergate scandal in 1974, would have hacked phones if it had been technically possible.

'Did they hack into Nixon's phone? No. Would they have done so if it had been possible? You betcha. And would that have been justified? I think so.'

lazy lazy comparison jezza.

Further on in the same article

Intriguingly, former Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell – a victim of phone-hacking herself – turned up with her estranged husband, lawyer David Mills. Five years ago, the pair announced they had separated when Mr Mills was accused of corruption in an Italian court, a charge later thrown out. Some observers claimed the split was a ploy to distance herself from his problems, something that Ms Jowell denies.

Poor tessa, butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, tricked by that nasty duplicitous husband but treated so kindly by the british press. And despite being on the losing side at the election nice dave kept her job on the board of the olympics. And now it's reported she was a go between for wade/murdoch and brown.

Of course, her relationship with rupert goes back a long way

torygraph 2001"]

Currently, a rule stating that major newspaper owners cannot own free-to-air channels bars Mr Murdoch from buying either ITV or Channel 5. He owns papers such as The Times and The Sun and has to restrict his television operations to satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

Yesterday, Mrs Jowell said she was reviewing that rule, opening up the possibility of a bid from BSkyB for either Granada or Channel 5. BSkyB shares leapt 38 to 850p on the news, but a spokesman for the company said it would not comment. A well-informed source said that Mr Murdoch was most interested in Channel 5.

However, any change is bound to be seen in some quarters as a reward to Mr Murdoch for his support of Tony Blair. Mr Murdoch said recently that his newspapers could switch their support from New Labour if something was not done to loosen media red tape.

Of course this review took place just a few months after Tessa's stepdaughter had secured a nice role as news review editor on the sunday times. How cosy.

[bickster]

Flame haired medusa arrested

[TheDon]

Corruption charges as well. Guessing they relate to paying the police for information, which of course she did "within the law".

Explains why they let her go after so long of standing by her, they obviously had advance knowledge she would be arrested so the only thing they could do was have her resign.

[RunRickyRun]

To think they were in a word removed hair's breadth of owning the biggest tabloid, the biggest broadsheet, the biggest Sunday tabloid, The biggest Sunday broadsheet, the biggest digital platform provider, the biggest digital channels aired on said platform and the biggest commercial digital news channel in the UK.

It must never be allowed to happen again but I'm not holding my breath.

[RunRickyRun]

Oh and if the politicians mean what they say about restricting media plurality, they might want to invite the proprietor of Asian Babes for a word

[Gringo]

Of course they don't mean what they say - they're politicians.

Otherwise he wouldn't have been allowed to buy channel5 or obtain a broadcasting license.

[bickster]

Sir Paul Stephenson resigns saying he knew nothing, it was all everybody elses fault and his integrity is intact.

Yeah right, that's it. £268k a year and he's accepting freebies in world renowned health spars, unreal.

[Gringo]

Bojo was on the radio this morning and seems to have changed his tune - a while back he said the hacking was a non-event, trivial and he wouldn't be bothered suing newscorp as it happened all the time (a similar attitude to the newly retired paul stephenson who saw it all as a waste of police resources) - but now Bojo thinks this is quite serious - maybe because it's harming call me dave and boosting bojo's own chances of stepping into his shoes.

He also dropped a bollock by revealing that Yates 'couldn't find my arse with both hands' of the Yard is going to be questioned by the Metropolitan Police Authority Professional Standards committee.

[snowychap]

He also dropped a bollock by revealing that Yates 'couldn't find my arse with both hands' of the Yard is going to be questioned by the Metropolitan Police Authority Professional Standards committee.

Apparently, the officer charged with doing the 'due diligence' and background checks on the appropriateness of the appointment of Mr Wallis at the Met was Mr Yates.

Edit: Yates may well struggle to find his backside, I'm not so sure the MPA's boot will.