Wednesday, July 06, 2011

Would you like me admit to being a slave trader before admitting to working for Murdoch?

The late great author Dennis Potter was interviewed by Melvin Bragg at a time when his life was ebbing away because of terminal cancer, he was in constant pain and during the interview he would stop and sip from a flask containing liquid morphine he did this he said "to keep Rupert under control" when Bragg asked him to explain he said he had named his cancer Rupert in honour of Rupert Murdoch. This interview came to mind when I was reading about the exploits of Murdoch's paper 'The News of the World' It still hasn't sunk in properly what these people, yes they are people; were doing. The tabloid press and most of the so called quality broadsheet press in this country deserve the often used insulting description of 'the gutter press' I can think of no other profession except journalism which has the ability to demonstrate mankind at its best and at its worst. For every James Cameron we get a Kelvin Mackenzie and for every Orla Guerin we have a Kay Burley and it's no coincidence that McKenzie and Burley are tainted by their association with Murdoch.

Hacking in to the phone of the murdered child Milly Dowler is a loathsome thing to do even by Murdoch standards and we are now left to wonder how many other times they have done this. Cases mentioned are the young girls murdered in Soham, The missing McCann girl and the victims of the London Bus bombings, we now know if we ever doubted it that all are suitable grist for Murdoch's mill, what indeed would they refuse to exploit on moral grounds after this? I can't think of anything, can you? Like most things in life this reminds me of a brilliant film with a nasty story line it's called "the Ace in the Hole" and it is so like the News of the world today that it is spooky. A low life journalist stumbles into a situation where a miner is trapped underground and he manipulates the situation by slowing down the rescue attempt to allow him to file heroic copy to daily newspapers to make money, it ends, no I won't tell you how it ends, try to see it, suffice to say that if the News of the World ends up like the villain played by a brilliantly vicious Kirk Douglas then I will cheer up. There is a criteria for people who build business empires part of which is the question put before Governments grant permission for expansion it is simply this "is the person involved a suitable person to acquire this business or to gain greater control of something" Murdoch is in hot pursuit of gaining total control of B SKY B which would give him a vice like grip on the news in our country. Is this man a suitable person to gain control of this amount of influence? It sounds rhetorical I know but today in Parliament and in news studios I listened to people making his case for him, I don't want to politicise this so I won't name them, go look for yourself.

Politicians and political parties fear his lash so much that they will do anything to avoid upsetting him but today we saw the rare sight of the House of Commons almost completely unified in their condemnation of Murdoch and what he stands for, is it too much to hope that they will stand up to him and cut him down a bit? Probably not but I can certainly say as someone who found his support for Labour sickening that I am glad we no longer have his support. I feel cleaner and more decent now that he supports the Tory/Libdem Government, I say to decent people of whatever party that support from someone like Murdoch is too high a price to pay for power, we all have to sleep at night. Do we have bent politicians? Yes, do we have bent coppers? Yes and do we have bent Journalists? Yes. The politicians now have the chance to clean out 'the Augean Stables' let's hope the revelations to come strengthen their resolve. If I had to choose between politicians who were vilified for expenses fraud and journalists and cops who can do things like this the politicians win every time and they have a chance now to redeem themselves by doing the right thing.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have to say I never thought I'd live to see this. What an amazing, if profoundly disturbing week!

Not wishing to take attention away from the loathsome Murdoch but I think David Cameron has a few questions to answer.

The editor of the Guardian has alleged that in the run up to the 2010 election he briefed Cameron and Clegg on very serious allegations against Andy Coulson which were not yet in the public domain. Despite this he was still appointed by Cameron. Even if Clegg and Cameron honestly believed Coulson was innocent it shows extremely bad judgement to appoint him to such an important role or indeed any role at all whilst these allegations were outstanding.

It is also notable that of the MPs who had their phones hacked only two were tories both of whom were not on good terms with Cameron. Was any information obtained through hacking Labour and Lib Dem MPs phones passed to the Tories during the election campaign?

Then we have the curious inaction of the police, the possibility that NOTW staff committed perjury at the Sheridan trial and allegations emerging that other News International titles were engaged in phone hacking.

This stinks beyond belief and I don't think we've heard even a fraction of what's to come. I really think we are looking at a scandal of Watergate proportions.

Anonymous said...

Looks like former Cllr Derek MacKay won't be writing a column for the News of the World after all......

Cllr Terry Kelly said...

Just when he had found his true home as well.

Cllr Terry Kelly said...

By Anonymous on Would you like me admit to being a slave trader be... on 07/07/11

4,000 investigations with the possibility of more to come, it’s almost too good to be true, it would be wonderful if the Odious Murdoch’s were to get the jail but that won’t happen. I would bet that The Times; The Sunday Times and The Sun have been doing the same and when people start to get their collars felt they will start to sing like canaries.

These people who deliberately deleted messages from the phone of the murdered girl causing her loved ones to hope she was still alive are scum, they must never be allowed to accuse or condemn anyone again, give me a bent politician any day rather than a Murdoch a Coulson or a Cameron.

Anonymous said...

The Guardian have reported that the NOTW offices in Scotland are to be investigated by Strathclyde Police as it has emerged hacking is likely to have taken place there. I have written to my MSPs urging them to do whatever they can to ensure that this is properly investigated and that we do not have a repeat of the previous failed investigations by the Met and would urge everyone to do the same. No doubt Wapping is the centre of this but it's important that a light is shone on all parts of Murdochs rotten empire.