When Rebekah Brooks tried to target Daily Mail
The New York Times published this illuminating analysis piece yesterday evening.
On page three, it reveals how Rebekah Brooks reportedly tried to focus the attention of authorities at the Daily Mail too.
Over the last several months, Ms. Brooks spearheaded a strategy that seemed designed to spread the blame across Fleet Street, interviews show. Several former News of the World journalists said that she asked them to dig up evidence of hacking. One said in an interview that Ms. Brooks’s target was not her own newspapers, but her rivals.
Mr. Dacre, the editor of The Daily Mail, told his senior managers that he had received several reports from businesspeople, soccer stars and public relations agencies that two News International executives, Will Lewis and Simon Greenberg, had encouraged them to investigate whether their phones had been hacked by Daily Mail newspapers .
“They thought it was unfair that all the focus was on The News of the World,” said one News International official with knowledge of the effort. The two men have told colleagues they did not make such calls, but two company officials disputed that.
The New York Times also quotes sources from within News International saying they had also tried to shift the focus on the Andy Coulson and the Met Police, and away from News Int’l itself.
Another report at the NYT pointed out that the paper has paid out in excess of half a billion dollars in the past to “make embarrassing charges of corporate espionage and anticompetitive behavior go away”.
LulzSec hackers force NI websites offline
The hackers from the group LulzSec tonight took down forced offline the websites of News International papers including the Sun, The Times and Sunday Times.
The websites don’t work at the time of writing. Also not working, the parent company site: http://newsint.co.uk
Initially, Lulzsec targeted the Sun website specifically, re-directing it another site that featured the story below of Rupert Murdoch
Perhaps thinking it was in bad taste, they then re-directed the site to their own Twitter account.
News Int’l put out a statement in response saying their site was back up, but Lulzsec then took that down too.
One tweeter also started publishing mobile numbers of Sun journalists.
On Twitter, James Ball says News International took down their own nameservers to prevent them being attacked.
Benn Quinn of the Guardian confirms NI took down their own sites.
Here is what Lulzsec were saying on their twitter feed.
Developing…
(story has been updated several times)
CPS: why we dropped @UKuncut charges
The Crown Prosecution Service today finally admitted there was no “public interest” in prosecuting the non-violent UKuncut protesters arrested at Fortnum & Mason’s on March 26th.
109 cases have been dropped. However, they say that they will continue to pursue the other 30 cases through the judicial process.
In a statement today, Alison Saunders, Chief Crown Prosecutor of CPS London, said:
After careful and necessary investigative work by the police to provide the fullest evidential picture, we have reviewed the evidence now available and considered representations made by the defence teams.
I have concluded that there is sufficient evidence to provide a realistic prospect of conviction for the offence of aggravated trespass against all the defendants, however, in discontinuing these cases I have considered whether a prosecution is necessary in the public interest. I have decided that it is not, taking into account the following factors from the Code for Crown Prosecutors:
• that this was a single incident;
• that they have not been involved in similar offences previously and that they played only a minor role in the offending behaviour;
• that if these defendants had been convicted the court would be likely to impose only a nominal penalty.
The police investigation was able to identify whether these factors were present for each defendant. It was only after such an investigation that these factors could be applied.
We have warned those whose cases have been discontinued that this reasoning may not apply in future if they go on to commit other similar offences.
We have notified the court and the defendants’ representatives of this decision.
Met Meltdown & how Boris dismissed hackgate
John Yates has just also resigned.
More soon.
An IPCC investigation and a public inquiry at the Met is still forthcoming.
Update: a time-line of how Boris dismissed complaints regarding the Met police (from the Guardian)
Wednesday 15 September 2010
Boris Johnson dismisses the phone-hacking allegations against the News of the World as “codswallop” and “a politically motivated put-up job by the Labour party”, and says he was “satisfied” by the Metropolitan police’s investigation of the matter.
Thursday 7 July 2011
Boris Johnson says what Rupert Murdoch has done for British journalism over the last 40 years “is actually very considerable”.
Wednesday 13 July 2011
Boris Johnson gives his backing to Assistant Commissioner John Yates, saying it is “vital” he is allowed to continue doing his job.
Monday 18 July 2011
BNoris Johnson says that Sir Paul Stephenson made the “right call” by resigning as chief of the Metropolitan police. He also casts doubt on the future of Yates.
And, as Adam Bienkov points out:
Yes Boris takes it all extremely seriously. In fact so seriously that just three months ago he joked that celebrities actually wanted their phones hacked.
Libdems declare all-out war on Murdoch, BSkyB
Libdem Chair President Tim Farron and Media spokesperson Don Foster MP have written to media regulator Ofcom, urging them to investigate whether Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation is “fit and proper” to even own a 39% stake in BSkyB.
The letter was also co-signed by Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Simon Hughes MP.
The letter demands Ofcom investigate the conduct of News Corporation and its associated companies, arguing that News Corp control over BSkyB makes this a relevant cause for concern.
They call call for Ofcom to take measures immediately to establish that the owners of the BSkyB licence are ‘fit and proper’ persons.
Don Foster said today:
It is in the public interest that Ofcom undertakes an immediate investigation to establish whether the licence holders at News Corp remain “fit and proper”.
Ofcom is reluctant to act while the police are investigating but they shouldn’t wait. There have already been enough admissions of wrongdoing and there is no legal reason to stop Ofcom from getting started now.
Even if senior executives are not criminally culpable, Ofcom should still investigate News Corporation’s massive management failures. News Corporation’s inability to run its shop properly makes it unfit to hold the BSkyB broadcast licence.
Update: letter was sent on Friday, but released today
Hackgate: don’t bet on this scandal bringing down Cameron
Westland didn’t bring down Thatcher, Major took on the Maastricht Bastards and lived. Not even the combination of illegal war against Iraq, the Kelly suicide and cash for peerages was enough to force Blair to quit. Prime ministers, it seems, invariably ride out a little local difficulty.
I do not see anything in either the extent or the seriousness of Hackgate that leads inexorably to the conclusion that the Coalition is on the point of imminent collapse.
Blog posts and newspaper columns from both the more impressionable variety of younger leftist and diehard Tory rightwingers who never had much time for Cameron anyway should probably be disregarded.
continue reading… »
Time to really start worrying – the Euro crisis is getting worse
I might be premature (always the risk when commenting on markets) but – it looks to me like the Eurozone Bank Stress tests have utterly failed.
They are only two reasons for doing these tests – either the aim is to genuinely test if the banks are healthy enough to take possible losses and identify which banks require more capital OR the aim is simply to reassure the markets that the banks are fine.
continue reading… »
Listen: BBC’s Peston flails when asked about Murdoch party
The BBC’s Business Editor Robert Peston was ‘innocently’ asked this morning by Radio 5 Live’s Nicky Campbell about his attendance at the Elizabeth Murdoch party a few weeks ago.
Robert Peston laughs uncomfortably, and then says the party took place before the Milly Dowler revelations came out – which is true. But Mr Peston must surely have been aware that the phone-hacking scandal was an important issue before the Dowler revelations came out.
If not, then he has failed as a journalist and if yes, that is a serious error of judgement, isn’t it?
Listen
via @leohickman
How should Labour attack Cameron over Coulson hiring?
The odds on Cameron resigning over Hackgate have narrowed.
Frankly, whether or not he does go is unlikely to be very heavily influenced either by Labour or what is reported in the media.
Even so, every little helps, and it’s important for Labour to get its broad narrative right as the revelations continue to spill out.
continue reading… »
Ed M attacks ‘irresponsibility’ of banks, MPs and media
In a speech tday at noon, Labour leader Ed Miliband will tie together the recent banking crisis, the MPs expenses scandal and the current phone-hacking scandal as a symptom of the ‘irresponsibility of the powerful’.
The running theme of the speech will be the need for responsibility within our society.
He will make three key points in the speech:
1. Banking collapse, MPs’ expenses and the hacking scandal are all linked by a common thread – the irresponsibility of powerful “untouchables” who think they do not have to follow the rules. This needs to change.
2. We need to look at new cross-media ownership rules to stop concentration of power in the hands of one proprietor.
3. We need new set of press regulation which could included paying people wronged by the media without them having to go to court.
He will also reveal that Labour will be submitting proposals to the judicial inquiry for new cross media ownership laws.
He is also the first party leader to say to the press: “When you make a mistake, you should have to publish an equally prominent apology.”
Key lines from the speech
“In the space of just a few years, we have now seen three major crises in British public life among people and institutions that wield massive power. Superficially, each looks quite different in its causes
But I believe that there are common themes running through all three.
The banker who paid himself millions of pounds taking the most risky investments which would land his company and the country in the mire.
The MP who fiddled the expenses system, landing himself, his party and politics in disgrace.
The editor who oversaw a newspaper with a culture of illegality not for the public interest but simply in the search for a story, landing their paper and the whole industry in the dock.
All are about the irresponsibility of the powerful.”
…
“Down the ages, it is large concentrations of power that lead to abuses of power and neglect of responsibility.”
…
“It is not healthy for our democracy, where we see too much power in one set of hands.”
…
“It is not healthy for a country that believes in responsibility all the way to the top of society.”
…
“If we are to restore responsibility to its proper place in our nation’s culture, it must start with the most powerful.”
…
“Because when those at the top of our society behave in the way they have, it sends a message throughout our society about what is and isn’t acceptable.”
…
“It sends a message to a young person in my constituency, just starting out in life, trying to the right thing, when he sees a politician fiddling the expenses system, a banker raking off millions without deserving it or a press baron abusing the trust of ordinary people.”
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