“Read about the things that happen throughout the world… Don’t believe in everything you see or hear… Read all about it… News of the World… News of the World” were the immortal words of Paul Wellar in The Jam’s hit song News of the World. The song has recently been regained popularity as the theme tune to the BBC2 show Mock the Week. In attempted synergy with the BBC2 programme, the News of the World decided that they would Mock the Weak and decided to hack into the voicemail inbox of kidnapped children.
The upshot of these actions was that the News of the World decided to close down with its last edition being printed on Sunday 10 July 2011 – which didn’t really bother me because I have plenty of toilet roll anyway. The final edition proclaimed the paper to be the finest newspaper in the country, but they had lost their way. This was an honest assessment, and also true – as evidence of how much they had lost their way, the final edition barely mentioned the major news story of the day…
For all its criticism, it’s easy to overlook all of the good work that the News of the World did – very easy in fact. But they have done a fair amount to reveal the corruption within society (albeit, each one of the “reveals” should basically have had the headline “every man has his price”) yet to give them some credit, when they finally closed, the News of the World did manage to puncture and bring down another giant of society and – but unfortunately it was themselves… and in addition, they did some great work making our neighbourhoods safe by chasing all of those paediatricians out of town…
Such is the murky world that these phone hackers worked within, there are currently very few key players in the story and many people are keeping their heads down. Piers Morgan for example is currently keeping very quiet – for the avoidance of doubt, I’m not saying that former editor of the News of the World Piers Morgan is any way implicated in the phone hacking scandal, just that he is being uncharacteristically quiet at the moment – obviously he may have eventually have become bored of the sound of his own voice. Morgan did however pipe up briefly on Twitter to call Hugh Grant a “screechy, sanctimonious little prick” - presumably with only 140 characters allowed on Twitter, he couldn’t fit in the hashtag #PotCallingTheKettleBlack.
Another key player in the whole affair is Rebekah Brooks, formerly know as Rebekah Wade, although the phase “Rebekah Wade” sounds more like the instruction you would give to someone called Rebekah when they have to walk waist deep through excrement – which to be fair isn’t a million miles away from what she’s currently doing.
The doyen of News International and revered as being highly intelligent – although she appears to be unable to spell the name Rebecca. She first shot to fame as the first female editor of The Sun and gained infamy when she was questioned for allegedly beating up her then husband Ross Kemp (from Ross Kemp on Gangs and Ross Kemp in Afghanistan fame). In what was possibly the most bizarre story of that year (2005) Ross Kemp was allegedly beaten up by Brooks at exactly the same time that his on-screen brother Steve McFadden was allegedly beaten up by his girlfriend. That said, there have been allegations that the other halves in question were assisted – as the co-ordinated attacks bore all the hallmarks of Al Qaeda.
The conduct of those involved, as well as the serious and potentially criminal activities of the participants has unsurprisingly led to calls for an inquiry, this has gone through a few embarrassing stages:
1. Initially, Rebekah Brooks was asked to head up an investigation into the phone hacking at the News of the World. Whilst it was half logical as she was at the time the Chief Executive of News International, it was also half bonkers as she was the former editor of the News of the World and was thus being asked to investigate herself – and apparently the sly attempt at saying that News International was asking Rebekah Brooks to investigate the actions of Rebekah Wade didn’t wash either.
2. Then, the Metropolitan Police force was asked to hold a criminal investigation into the matter, but this plan fell down when people remembered that the Metropolitan Police force had allegedly taken payments from the News of the World. This was further compounded when it was revealed that the Metropolitan Police decided not to re-open their investigation in the matter because News International told them there was nothing to investigate – which is something that I will remember if I ever get arrested in the Greater London area. The issue was also referred to the Press Complaints Commission back in 2009, who believed that there was no case to answer – which was PCC gone mad…
After being held so close, Brooks was eventually hived off by the Murdoch empire, although she technically resigned in order to ensure that she could fight off the allegations coming her way. She was then taken in for police questioning, which was done by appointment; although there was some confusion when Brooks failed to turn up at Scotland Yard – apparently, the details of the appointment were left on her voicemail, but the message was deleted before she could hear it…
After Brooks was arrested and released, the Chief Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Sir John Stephenson then decided to resign, presumably without a stain on his reputation and also because he hadn’t done anything wrong and even if he had; he’s resigned now – so it he can’t be at fault because he no longer does that job. Then the next day, the Deputy Chief Commissioner John Yeats also resigned – presumably he just wanted to keep up with the current trends.
Although the bar was then raised by former News of the World whistleblower Sean Hoare, who didn’t have a job to resign from – so he died instead. The exact circumstances are unknown, but they are not being referred to as suspicious – perhaps it’s commonplace for 40 year old whistleblowers to drop dead at the exact time that the scandal they helped to uncover peaks. He could of course have committed suicide like Dr David Kelly did…
Another key player is Dick Fedorcio, the Director of Public Affairs at the Metropolitan Police – actually he’s not a key player at all, I’ve only mentioned him because his first name is Dick.
After much jockeying for positions, Rupert Murdoch, James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks appeared in front of the Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee. However, there was a slightly embarrassing moment when the all turned up at Downing Street with a bottle of wine & a cheeseboard and enter through the back entrance like they normally do…
But on this occasion, the three were there to answer serious questions. Rupert Mudoch announced the day as the most “humble” of his life – and thus looked every bit a the man of the 80 years that he is as he had clearly confused the words “humble” and “humiliating”.
For good measure, a “comedian” then went and shoved a plate of shaving foam in Murdoch’s face; Murdoch and his family asked why there wasn’t enough police protection, the answer was obvious – the bulk of the Metropolitan Police force had resigned in the previous week.
Rupert Murdoch’s words were quite clear during the speech as he said that the News of the World was only 1% of News Corporation’s business empire which practically revealed what his primary concern was, which is News Corporation’s proposed takeover of BSkyB. Following complaints, the matter of the proposed takeover was referred to the Competition Commission – although ironically there is only one Competition Commission, so they may not be the best judges…
Murdoch gave some undertakings when trying to mount a full takeover of BSkyB. One of which was to carve out Sky News as an independent company to ensure it was free from interference, albeit with exactly the same shareholders, thus bringing the phrase “smoke and mirror” to mind more than a fire at Robert Maxwell’s old house. The other trade-off was for BSkyB to demonstrate that they understood their responsibilities as a broadcaster and wouldn’t follow News International’s lead by getting involved in phone hacking – this was to be done via a pseudo-reality TV show called The Only Way is Ethics.
There are no two ways about this, the situation surrounding News International is a significant one; every major Political party has turned their back on Murdoch and News International, which is despite Murdoch being seen as a “kingmaker”. Every leader of Labour and the Conservatives in the last 20 years has “got into bed” with Murdoch in order to try and gain votes – with the exception of William Hague… who merely shared a room with him in order to save costs.
At one point, the situation became so serious that Ed Miliband became disorientated and he accidentally gave an opinion… But finally as a sign of how bad the situation was; Andy Coulson suggested that he was about to resign for a third time… that said… he has got another job lined up… he’s going to be sewing mailbags in Wormwood Scrubs…
* I do of course realise the irony in the fact that my last ‘blog post was about super injunctions that I thought that the there should be a greater freedom of expression allowed for the press… but I didn’t want them to be that free…
** And I do of course appreciate that this ‘blog post is significantly out of date – even if you read it 5 minutes after I uploaded it…
