Bolitics The New Condem Government

[chrisp65]

Seven government ministers turned up for the war on welfare debate in the commons today. They don't give a f...

This government have no mandate to do what they're doing.

 

I don't think it was seen as a big deal by any of them to be fair.

[drat01]

I see that the vile press sink to a new low tomorrow with the sun front page. I appreciate that press throughout the ages have been politically biased and its the same world over, but outlets such as the mail and the sun recently have shown that they have no limits as to how low they will sink

[Avfc96]

I see that the vile press sink to a new low tomorrow with the sun front page. I appreciate that press throughout the ages have been politically biased and its the same world over, but outlets such as the mail and the sun recently have shown that they have no limits as to how low they will sink

What is the front page tomorrow Drat?

[drat01]

I see that the vile press sink to a new low tomorrow with the sun front page. I appreciate that press throughout the ages have been politically biased and its the same world over, but outlets such as the mail and the sun recently have shown that they have no limits as to how low they will sink

What is the front page tomorrow Drat?

: SUN FRONT PAGE: "Labour chiefs: It's OK to have sex with 10-yr-olds"

That is a skynews tweet which also makes you question their motives

[chrisp65]

Well, Plaid and a food critic won tonight's Question Time. The others too busy point scoring off each other to see the bigger picture of public service.

[villaajax]

Is this all from the same Daily Heil that is known for its "age of 16 countdown"?

[chrisp65]

Is this all from the same Daily Heil that is known for its "age of 16 countdown"?

 

Jay Rayner on QT tonight commented (and I paraphrase), that it was a bit rich the Daily Mail bringing up the historic links to PIE again when the nearest thing we have to PIE today is DailyMail.co.uk's pictures of kids down it's pages.

[peterms]

[peterms]

From the same stable as the Sun, a former editor with her back to the wall and facing serious criminal charges offers a few words in defence of the mindset which creates these sorts of headlines:

 

 

Earlier on Thursday, Brooks told the court she had made several mistakes during her time as editor of the two papers, spanning from 2000 to 2009, including the Sun's "cruel and harsh" attack on the Labour MP Clare Short over a row about Page 3.

 

Brooks apologised for the personal targeting of Short in January 2004, when the tabloid branded her a killjoy and "fat and jealous" of its Page 3 girls. Short had called the Sun's topless pictures "degrading pornography".

 

"There's a huge debate about Page 3. It's constant, it's probably still going on. From time to time people would launch a campaign," Brooks said.

 

"This was one where again the reaction of the paper – I'm the editor, my responsibility – was cruel and harsh. We did it in the heat of the moment. Keep your hands off Page 3. It was too personal."

 

Brooks described the Sun's Bonkers Bruno Locked Up headline in 2003 about the boxer Frank Bruno's mental illness as a terrible mistake and said a headline following the death of the serial killer Harold Shipman was in bad taste.

 

"The speed of decisions at the Sun often cause lapses of judgment," Brooks told the jury. "I personally made lots of mistakes during my 10 to 12 years as deputy editor or editor of newspapers," she said.

 

Half-hearted apologies from the dock many years after the event are no use.  As tomorrow's headline so vividly shows, even when one of their inner circle is on trial, they will continue to publish these vile smears.

 

Close them down.

 

There's no excuse for them remaining open.  It's not "free speech", it's a hate campaign waged by one of the richest and most powerful global companies, undermining any residual values the British press can still lay claim to.

[colhint]

you can't Peter, whether we like it or not, it's what people want. Its by far the biggest selling newspaper in the country. If you add the mail which is second those two beat the circulation figures of the rest put together. If you try to ban them, well, you could end up a bit like Hitler burning books. Not for one minute am I suggesting that applies to you, Its just the way it would be

[peterms]

you can't Peter, whether we like it or not, it's what people want. Its by far the biggest selling newspaper in the country. If you add the mail which is second those two beat the circulation figures of the rest put together. If you try to ban them, well, you could end up a bit like Hitler burning books. Not for one minute am I suggesting that applies to you, Its just the way it would be

Believe me, I do appreciate the danger of banning publications. Ironically, it was the libertarian spirit opposed to censorship which led groups like NCCL to give airtime to people like PIE in the first place, the idea that denying even the most offensive groups a platform is undemocratic.

Consider this. News International took the view that the hacking of Millie Fowler's phone was such an outrage, such an offence against journalistic ethics, such a slap in the face of the values of the British public, that it should close the NoW.

(Leave aside the reality, which is that it was partly a commercial and partly a political consideration; let's take the lying scum at their word, on this occasion, to see where it may lead).

Is the planned and calculated printing of something like this better or worse than that? The NI position must be that the phone hacking happened as an excess, someone getting carried away, standards slipping. But their decision to print this smear is planned, calculated, will have been discussed by the most senior people responsible for their papers, will have been the subject of legal advice. It's not an oversight, a slip, a poor decision taken in the heat of the moment. It's what they are, it's what they do, it's the very embodiment of their ethos and values.

I would be happy to close them down. And the argument that millions read this shite carries no weight with me. A great many people will do all sorts of things, up to and including genocide, and that doesn't invest such things with any moral authority either.

[colhint]

Oh I know what you mean, but where do you stop. What about Piers Morgan and the mirror making the phoney pictures of British soldiers beating up Muslims, Do you ban them? I just think its a very slippery slope. Prosecute and send them to prison by all means. I wouldn't be too offended if a good many of them were shot to be honest

[peterms]

Oh I know what you mean, but where do you stop. What about Piers Morgan and the mirror making the phoney pictures of British soldiers beating up Muslims, Do you ban them? I just think its a very slippery slope. Prosecute and send them to prison by all means. I wouldn't be too offended if a good many of them were shot to be honest

Yes, I agree it's a hard line to draw.

I suppose where I'm starting from is that we have a vast body of research confirming what newspaper owners always knew, which is that their papers can have significant influence on people. With that must come responsibility. Otherwise, we have the situation described in the famous old quote about "...the prerogative of the harlot through the ages".

So the standards of truth and honesty should be higher, far higher, for a national newspaper than for some bloke mouthing off in a pub (or on a website). Like the way we expect better standards from a mortgage company than your mate who lends you a tenner.

If it's reasonable to set higher standards for people with the reach and resources to influence millions, and I think most people would say it is, then the question becomes what happens in the event of non-compliance. Fines, warnings, yes. But closure must be there as an option. Not the first one, but it must be there. I suppose I'm starting from the point of having observed the gutter press over more years than I care to recall, and I find it incorrigible.

[blandy]

 

The truth is that the only industries in the UK these days which are capable of paying a living wage are those which produce high added-value luxury products.

 

Most, if not all, vehicle manufacturers have their cheap models built in low-wage economies and only make high-added value models, like Jags and Land Rovers in the UK.

 

Creating jobs which can add enough value to justify a living wage is a huge problem for a developed economy like the UK.

None of that's true, though, which makes it a bit weak as an argument. I may be being unfair, and if so apologise, but something like 3 quarters of all women in work, and over 80% of men earn more than the living wage. Basiclly 80%+ of jobs pay at or above the living wage. It's across all sectors from cleaning jobs to obviously ones like Banking and Finance and so on. It could and should be more, but to say only high vale added occupations can afford it is (if that was your intent) just untrue.

There are as many or more cars made in the UK these days than for a very very long time. Something like 1.5 million cars a year are made here. They're not all jags and LRs.

There should be more focus still on manufacturing. We're good at it, have the educated and skilled workforce to do it and should as a nation act to stop short termism and the exporting of jobs to low wage economies abroad.

 

... As tomorrow's headline so vividly shows, even when one of their inner circle is on trial, they will continue to publish these vile smears.

 

Close them down.

 

There's no excuse for them remaining open.  It's not "free speech", it's a hate campaign waged by one of the richest and most powerful global companies, undermining any residual values the British press can still lay claim to.

I guess this is not actually your considered view, more an understandable revulsion at their continuing exploits and vile conduct.

I think a deal of it is around the threat of firmer regulation from Labour, than is the Tory approach. But it is firmer regulation, rather than banning which is the answer IMO.

  

you can't Peter, whether we like it or not, it's what people want. Its by far the biggest selling newspaper in the country. If you add the mail which is second those two beat the circulation figures of the rest put together. If you try to ban them, well, you could end up a bit like Hitler burning books. Not for one minute am I suggesting that applies to you, Its just the way it would be

Believe me, I do appreciate the danger of banning publications. Ironically, it was the libertarian spirit opposed to censorship which led groups like NCCL to give airtime to people like PIE in the first place, the idea that denying even the most offensive groups a platform is undemocratic.

Consider this. News International took the view that the hacking of Millie Fowler's phone was such an outrage, such an offence against journalistic ethics, such a slap in the face of the values of the British public, that it should close the NoW.

(Leave aside the reality, which is that it was partly a commercial and partly a political consideration; let's take the lying scum at their word, on this occasion, to see where it may lead).

Is the planned and calculated printing of something like this better or worse than that? The NI position must be that the phone hacking happened as an excess, someone getting carried away, standards slipping. But their decision to print this smear is planned, calculated, will have been discussed by the most senior people responsible for their papers, will have been the subject of legal advice. It's not an oversight, a slip, a poor decision taken in the heat of the moment. It's what they are, it's what they do, it's the very embodiment of their ethos and values.

I would be happy to close them down. And the argument that millions read this shite carries no weight with me. A great many people will do all sorts of things, up to and including genocide, and that doesn't invest such things with any moral authority either.

Agree wit hnearly all of that from Col and PMS. Just not the last bit. The press does much good, even the Tabs. Just picking on the bad side without consideration of the good is not really sufficient justification for closing them down. They need firmly and properly reforming in their behaviour, they need to abide by much higher standards. Much as it would be kind of fun to close down the likes of the Heil and the Sun, they do serve a purpose other than spreading lies and muck and just promoting the interests of their lamentable owners and editors.

[Awol]

 

 

I see that the vile press sink to a new low tomorrow with the sun front page. I appreciate that press throughout the ages have been politically biased and its the same world over, but outlets such as the mail and the sun recently have shown that they have no limits as to how low they will sink

What is the front page tomorrow Drat?

: SUN FRONT PAGE: "Labour chiefs: It's OK to have sex with 10-yr-olds"

That is a skynews tweet which also makes you question their motives

 

It might make you question their motives, but the fact is they review the papers as a matter of course and "Labour perverts etc etc" is the headline in the country's largest selling news paper.  Frankly it would be odd if a major news organisation didn't report it.

 

However this quote from the Telegraph is interesting, and if wrong I'd imagine will lead to them being sued to death by old Hattie:

 

link

 

 

 

NCCL vigorously opposed new cornerstone child abuse legislation. In a letter to the Home Office in April 1978, it argued fiercely that child pornography should not be banned as “indecent” unless it could be shown that the child depicted had been harmed. The NCCL official who wrote this letter was its legal officer, Harriet Harman.

 

Hewitt's mea culpa hasn't done Harman any favours either, I wonder why she apologised if there was genuinely no cause to do so?

 

EDIT:  To add link to Hewitt's statement.

 

Miss Hewitt, who was general secretary of the NCCL from 1974 to 1983, said: “I take responsibility for the mistakes we made. I got it wrong on PIE and I apologise for having done so.

NCCL in the 1970s, along with many others, was naive and wrong to accept PIE's claim to be a 'campaigning and counselling organisation' that 'does not promote unlawful acts'.

"I should have urged the executive committee to take stronger measures to protect NCCL's integrity from the activities of PIE members and sympathisers and I deeply regret not having done so."

Edited February 28, 2014 by Awol

[peterms]

It might make you question their motives, but the fact is they review the papers as a matter of course and "Labour perverts etc etc" is the headline in the country's largest selling news paper.  Frankly it would be odd if a major news organisation didn't report it.

And this?

 

 

This in not dispassionate reporting of news.  It is enthusiastic dissemination of libel.  They will have taken advice on what it will cost them, and many months down the line there will be a small correction on page 24 and a payout, which they will have judged beforehand to be a price well worth paying.

 

We all know that the NI stable support and promote all the other parts of the empire - so much so that Private Eye started a regular feature mocking it.  To believe that Sky are impartial commentators on the Sun would be just unreal.

 

The fact of reporting on other news does not mean that what they are doing in this case is simply reporting news.  They are creating the story, trying to make news out of nothing, not observing and reporting, and they will use whichever bits of the empire they can to keep it alive for a little longer, to maximise the damage it does.

 

Of course the larger point is that this is just one more of the many thousands of cases where the press makes clear to politicians how much they can damage them, as part of the unending campaign against regulation.

[Awol]

Peter,

 

Surely it's only liable if untrue?  Doesn't the fact Hewitt has apologised for her role stating that she "got it wrong" on PIE suggest it's not simply a story about nothing?

 

I don't deny it's bloody uncomfortable for Labour but surely the woman's words speak for themselves? 

[peterms]

The press does much good, even the Tabs. Just picking on the bad side without consideration of the good is not really sufficient justification for closing them down. They need firmly and properly reforming in their behaviour, they need to abide by much higher standards. Much as it would be kind of fun to close down the likes of the Heil and the Sun, they do serve a purpose other than spreading lies and muck and just promoting the interests of their lamentable owners and editors.

Yes, they do need to reform, they do need higher standards.

 

But it's now 22 years since we were assured they were drinking in the last chance saloon.  22 years of evasion, waffle, assurances, promises about improvement.  It has gone nowhere, and it never does.  It never will.

 

The good that the press does is investigative journalism.  That has been the thing which has most suffered as the old business model of newspapers has broken apart, because it can take months and sometimes years of work to bring a story together.  In relation to this story, the press aren't targetting the well-connected people who were raping children in the Elm House guest house and a thousand other places, they are just using the general subject as a flag of convenience for a political attack.

 

If there's a market for something doing the good bits of what the popular press does without the intimidation, criminality, harassment and indoctrination, then I'm sure such a thing will emerge.  But attempts at reform, encouragement, warnings et al just don't work, and I think we're many years past the point where anyone can seriously argue they ever will.

[peterms]

Peter,

 

Surely it's only liable if untrue?  Doesn't the fact Hewitt has apologised for her role stating that she "got it wrong" on PIE suggest it's not simply a story about nothing?

 

I don't deny it's bloody uncomfortable for Labour but surely the woman's words speak for themselves? 

 

The NCCL line on consent from 1976 reads like an earnest resolution from an undergraduate debating group.  Anyone associated with it must be cringing with embarrassment. 

 

What sickens me is the effort put into making a national news story, for days on end, about a misguided view taken 35 years ago while failing to expose the people who were actually doing the raping.  Focussing on something which will cause political embarrassment, not dealing with the massively more serious issue of the crime itself, and the cover-up which has included both police and politicians.

 

But yes, she can't sue for libel about the statement that NCCL called for the age of consent to be lowered to levels which most people in this culture would think is just plain wrong.

[Eames]

The stuff about Labour in the Sun is just Murdoch ensuring his horse wins the next election. Press Barons have manipulated the news agenda to defend their interests for as long as there have been newspapers. Ever was and will be so its what Newspapers are for. To hear those of a leftist persuasion bemoaning the fact that the paper that got Bliar elected in 1997 is now kicking Labour around at will looks for all the world like a jilted lover bitching about the new girlfriend.

 

There weren't too many complaints about the treatment of politicians and potential libel claims when the press runs stories about paedo ex Tory ministers, in fact, several posters on here seemed to positively relish the attention the story was getting. To bemoan the Suns treatment of Harman, Dromy and Hewitt is hypocrisy of the highest order.