Demise of the NoTW

[Yorkshire Blue]

Brooks arrested. I'm surprised this isn't bigger news. Only a small mention in my paper, and I had to dig around to get this on the beeb.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14178051

It was bigger news the other day, but has been superceded by Stephenson resigning.

A resignation is more significant than an arrest (although arrests sound more dramatic). An arrest only signifies that someone is under suspicion. The big one is if they are charged which means there is actually a case for them to answer (and bigger still if they are then subsequently convicted).

Cameron should be able to ride this out. He hasn't done anything improper. It's purely guilt by association at this stage, something that the Labour partisans now complaining about this were just as guilty of.

 

[Pubey]

It was bigger news the other day, but has been superceded by Stephenson resigning.

A resignation is more significant than an arrest (although arrests sound more dramatic). An arrest only signifies that someone is under suspicion. The big one is if they are charged which means there is actually a case for them to answer (and bigger still if they are then subsequently convicted).

Cameron should be able to ride this out. He hasn't done anything improper. It's purely guilt by association at this stage, something that the Labour partisans now complaining about this were just as guilty of.

What about employing Andy Coulson?

 

[osymandus]

What about employing Andy Coulson?

Got to agree there , also Cameron is currently out of teh country . We also don't know what else will start to come out who who will be implicated in the Labour or Tory parties .

 

[Eastblack]

When was she arrested then? I've been away all weekend and not watched any news or read the papers. I got the impression it was only late yesterday.

 

[osymandus]

When was she arrested then? I've been away all weekend and not watched any news or read the papers. I got the impression it was only late yesterday.

YEs release on bail , not been charged as yet . Some people thought it would prevent her from attending the commitie Tuesday.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

What about employing Andy Coulson?

What about employing Andy Coulson?

 

[Pubey]

What about employing Andy Coulson?

The decision to employ Andy Coulson was wrong at the time, and since the developments in the past few weeks, has struck me as a massively incompetent and potentially corrupt move by Cameron. To me that means Cameron is more than just guilty by association.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

The decision to employ Andy Coulson was wrong at the time, and since the developments in the past few weeks, has struck me as a massively incompetent and potentially corrupt move by Cameron. To me that means Cameron is more than just guilty by association.

Why corrupt?

You're judging Cameron on hindsight, on facts that were not available at the time. The full extent of this scandal was not known at the time, and if it was the bigger scandal was that nothing was done about it earlier. Coulson had resigned from the NOTW, but Mandelson resigned from the Cabinet three times yet kept on coming back. If Mandelson's resignations didn't count against him, why should Coulson's one count against him?

Coulson was not the matter of a police investigation at the time he was appointed. The Met had investigated phone-tapping and had found it an isolated incident and had not implicated Coulson in any wrong doing. It was not unreasonable to rely on this.

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

Cameron has done something improper in the eyes of the BBC, Guardian et al. He's a senior member of the Conservative party.

 

[canveyshrimper]

What about employing Andy Coulson?

What about Blair employing Alastair Campbell? I'm not offering a defence of Coulson, but Campbell with his malign influence and dodgy dossier led us into Iraq. Coulson is yet to be found guilty of anything as far as I am aware.

Got to agree there , also Cameron is currently out of teh country . We also don't know what else will start to come out who who will be implicated in the Labour or Tory parties .

I don't think Cameron is out of the country as a way of avoiding this, PM's visits abroad are made months in advance. Apart from the odd photo opportunity in Afghanistan & Iraq that is. And why only Labour & the Tories? The Lib-Dems have long courted the press.

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

What about Blair employing Alastair Campbell? I'm not offering a defence of Coulson, but Campbell with his malign influence and dodgy dossier led us into Iraq. Coulson is yet to be found guilty of anything as far as I am aware.

Echoing your sentiments from the Biased BBC Blog:

Andy Coulson may have authorised payments to police officers or the hacking of phones but he has not been charged or convicted yet....except in the BBC's kangaroo court where verdict and sentence have already been pronounced and Cameron castigated for bad judgement by the BBC.

The same BBC that, as has been noted before, has quite happily employed Alistair Campbell. The same BBC that we can see now trying to re-establish Labour's Jacqui Smith in the public's consciousness as an upright and respectable person.
The same Jacqui Smith that defrauded the public taxpayer of £116,000. Whilst many of her fellow MPs are now residing in jail she roams free in the corridors of the BBC....once again receiving fat cheques paid for by public generosity.

She was given a platform to talk about pornography, she has been a regular on the sofa with Michael Portillo on the political programme 'This Week' and today appears on 'Saturday Live' to talk about her inheritance tracks. Hopefully no one will inherit her house (which ever one she decides is her main residence) as it must surely belong to the state now.

 

[Pubey]

What about Blair employing Alastair Campbell? I'm not offering a defence of Coulson, but Campbell with his malign influence and dodgy dossier led us into Iraq. Coulson is yet to be found guilty of anything as far as I am aware.

I'm not trying to turn it into a labour-tory thing, Campbell is a **** (too) and Iraq was a bigger issue IMO. Coulson said he didn't believe that there was a culture of phone hacking when he was editor. He was wrong then (due to the few that came to light), and he's even more wrong now (due to the systemic evidence that IMO means that even the tea-boy and cleaner would probably have been aware of it). His resignation from the NOTW were as a fall-guy, to prevent the investigation by the PCC from progressing (and also to appease the public). He then took on a very cushy job as advisor to Cameron, which IMO was wrong, because how can he advise in an area if he allegedly doesn't know what his staff are up to... or if he does then he's bent. He resigned because again, he jumped before pushed and distanced himself from Cameron, the ****storm was continuing, the evidence was mounting on Coulson from lots of ex-colleagues but was insufficient according to the CPS, until he was finally arrested and bailed.

He's bent as a ten-bob note, and Cameron knew that. The charges might not stick but that doesn't mean it wasn't wrong of Cameron to employ him, and although it might not formally cost Cameron, it has affected him.

 

[Gremlin]

He's bent as a ten-bob note, and Cameron knew that. The charges might not stick but that doesn't mean it wasn't wrong of Cameron to employ him, and although it might not formally cost Cameron, it has affected him.

Is there evidence to back this part up?

 

[canveyshrimper]

I'm not trying to turn it into a labour-tory thing, Campbell is a **** (too) and Iraq was a bigger issue IMO. Coulson said he didn't believe that there was a culture of phone hacking when he was editor. He was wrong then (due to the few that came to light), and he's even more wrong now (due to the systemic evidence that IMO means that even the tea-boy and cleaner would probably have been aware of it). His resignation from the NOTW were as a fall-guy, to prevent the investigation by the PCC from progressing (and also to appease the public). He then took on a very cushy job as advisor to Cameron, which IMO was wrong, because how can he advise in an area if he allegedly doesn't know what his staff are up to... or if he does then he's bent. He resigned because again, he jumped before pushed and distanced himself from Cameron, the ****storm was continuing, the evidence was mounting on Coulson from lots of ex-colleagues but was insufficient according to the CPS, until he was finally arrested and bailed.

He's bent as a ten-bob note, and Cameron knew that. The charges might not stick but that doesn't mean it wasn't wrong of Cameron to employ him, and although it might not formally cost Cameron, it has affected him.

Neither am I trying to make it into a Labour/Tory thing, but Iraq cost countless lives, all for a pack of lies. The phone hacking business is despicable & reprehensible, but nobody has died as a consequence, and I am not being callous in stating that.

I'd say Cameron has been ill advised in employing Coulson given there was this cloud hanging over him, and possibly Cameron is also wrong in trying to stand by somebody he has considered a friend. A bit strange in politics a politician standing by a friend or colleague, they're normally too ready to sacrifice anyone to save their own skins.

And bent as a ten-bob note? Nine-bob surely, pre decimilisation a ten-bob note was very valuable, and a good night out could be had with one. :smile:

 

[Pubey]

Is there evidence to back this part up?

There might be, but none has come out yet. I believe it to be true.

 

[Crawliano]

I'm getting bored of the round the clock witchhunt coverage of this.

OK, so we get it, the BBC have a gripe with Murdoch, "let's put them out of business yadda yadda", but what the **** is being achieved here by a supposed "impartial" broadcaster? Isn't this actually just indoctrination? It was all so much more simpler when I just had to watch a reporter being filmed on a 2003 phone with a camera talking about Iraq or something.

 

[MK Shrimper]

and now the assistant police commissioner John Yates departs.

 

[Uncle Leo]

Incidentally, Cameron has been backed in from 100/1 to 8/1 in our 'next cabinet member to leave' market.

Of course, there's more than a whiff of publicity seeking about it (I've just seen a press release from our PR department claiming that "People up and down the land are queueing out of the door of our shops to back the PM to walk" but still.

 

[Yorkshire Blue]

Incidentally, Cameron has been backed in from 100/1 to 8/1 in our 'next cabinet member to leave' market.

Of course, there's more than a whiff of publicity seeking about it (I've just seen a press release from our PR department claiming that "People up and down the land are queueing out of the door of our shops to back the PM to walk" but still.

As an industry insider, do you believe there is any market manipulation going on on political markets?

I know it was certainly suggested in the US on some of the intrade markets for 2008 and I think there have been suggestions around Huhne's campaign to replace Menzies Campbell. Roughly how much would it take to be backed down from 100/1 to 8/1 in a market like this?

 

[Uncle Leo]

As an industry insider, do you believe there is any market manipulation going on on political markets?

I know it was certainly suggested in the US on some of the intrade markets for 2008 and I think there have been suggestions around Huhne's campaign to replace Menzies Campbell. Roughly how much would it take to be backed down from 100/1 to 8/1 in a market like this?

Not very much at all; the maximum bet is only about £25 anyway as we do need to be very wary of inside info. We're talking total bets of thousands rather than tens or hundreds of thousands (in spite of what our PR department would have you believe)