David Hughes

The face of evil? Nope, not really

What is it about Rupert Murdoch that makes otherwise rational people start uttering hyperbolic claptrap? The trail-blazer in this regard was the environmentalist George Monbiot who a couple of weeks back came up with this belter of a tweet: “People right to be suspicious, but I don’t think Murdoch can come back from this. Time for street parties. Anyone not dancing a jig round their desk right now hasn’t grasped the scale of what’s just happened. This is our Berlin Wall moment.” But George sounds positively measured when set alongside Nick Davies, the Guardian journalist whose skill and persistence broke the hacking story in the first place. In last night’s Channel 4 documentary Murdoch: The Mogul Who Screwed The News, Davies came up with thi… Read More

The millenium dome wasn't cheap

That peerless columnist Simon Jenkins has a real beef about the London Olympics. He was at it again on this morning’s Today programme, heaping on the scheme that brand of scorn he deploys so effectively. Describing it as a “crazy project”, he said it was easy to complete on budget if the budget was repeatedly increased. The only legacy from the games, he said, would be eight large “sheds” in London. “So you essentially have a nonsense. The question is what can you do with the nonsense? You can try and persuade people to go and use the sheds.” Just in case we hadn’t got the message, he added with a flourish that it was “a poor comment on our politics that in order to regenerate a perfectly good park,… Read More

The Commons has just been graced with a rare appearance by Gordon Brown who has barely been seen at Westminster since he was turfed out of Downing Street in May last year. It was worth the wait. It was the most shameless display of self-exculpation I can recall from a senior politician, and that’s saying something. In extraordinary language, Brown claimed the Murdoch empire was part of a “criminal-media” nexus that used the banner of the freedom of the press to protect criminals. He said News International had descended from the gutter to the sewers – and had let the rats out of the sewers. But the crux of his self-defence was that he wanted a judicial inquiry into dirty deeds at News International but was opposed by the police and the Home Office and the relevant select committees so it never happened. Well, he was only the Prime Minister… Read More

No, George, it's really not the same

Just to bring a sense of perspective to today’s interesting events, enter stage left The Guardian’s George Monbiot. He has just tweeted: “People right to be suspicious, but I don’t think Murdoch can come back from this. Time for street parties. Anyone not dancing a jig round their desk right now hasn’t grasped the scale of what’s just happened. This is our Berlin Wall moment.” While it may well be the case that the Murdoch media empire has taken a severe blow, it takes a brave soul to predict that it will be terminal. More pertinently, how can the travails of a media tycoon be equated with the collapse of communism, an ideology the led to the deaths of countless millions? Isn’t it… Read More

The PM squares up to Labour's front bench (Photo: PA)

The build-up had been perfect: a prime minister on the ropes over the Murdoch affair and a Labour Leader with fire in his belly for the first time since he took charge. Yet those expecting them to wade into each other with fists flying were initially disappointed. The opening exchanges had the air of being choreographed (perhaps that’s what they were doing at their “excellent” meeting last night) as both men agreed that News Corp’s takeover of BSkyB should be taken off the table until this mess is cleared up.

It was only when Ed Miliband tackled David Cameron once again on his hiring of Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, that the gloves came off. The Prime Minister… Read More

Gordon Brown said this morning that he burst into tears when he was told that The Sun had got hold of the medical records of his son Fraser. That would be a wholly understandable reaction. It is hard to imagine a more grotesque invasion of a family’s privacy. And the fact that Rebekah Brooks called Brown personally to tell him they had the story tells you all you need to know about her ethical standards.

Yet Paul Waugh reports the following: “Sun sources tell me that Rebekah Brooks gained Brown’s permission to run the story. There are also claims that Brown effectively did a deal on the story, whereby George Pascoe Watson could break the exclusive online first and then Number 10 could put out their own statement. ”

Meanwhile, over at The Guardian, Marina Hyde has been talking to a “source close to Brown” who tells her: “Gordon insisted… Read More

If it’s condescending twaddle you are looking for, The New York Times can often be relied on to deliver. Savour this little  gem from today’s edition: “A kind of British Spring is under way, now that the News Corporation’s tidy system of punishment and reward has crumbled. Members of Parliament, no longer fearful of retribution in Mr. Murdoch’s tabloids, are speaking their minds and giving voice to the anger of their constituents. Meanwhile, social media has roamed wild and free across the story, punching a hole in the tiny clubhouse that had been running the country. Democracy, aided by sunlight, has broken out in Britain.” How grateful we poor peasants should be. This is the same New York Times, of course, whose pages were graced by the plagiarised and fabricated journalism of Jayson Blair. Or by the inventive Iraqi war journalism… Read More

Ed Miliband is behaving like a schoolboy who has learned his first four-letter word and can’t stop saying it. Since launching his attack on News International at PM’s Questions in the Commons last Wednesday, the Labour leader has developed a sort of political Tourette’s. He is popping up on the airwaves on what seems to be an hourly basis denouncing the Murdoch empire and insisting it is not a fit and proper company to take sole control of BSkyB. This morning he has claimed that David Cameron’s account of how how he hired the former editor of the News of the World, Andy Coulson, “did not add up” and demanded that the Prime Minister should turn up in the Commons to explain himself. It’s as if the dam has been breached after years of self-suppression and he can finally say what… Read More

Rebekah Brooks and Andy Coulson: in the thick of it (Photo: BBC)

It’s not often that a news announcement can be described as truly staggering, but the news just breaking that The News of the World is to be closed down is just that. This is the country’s biggest selling newspaper – first published in 1843 – and an enormous cash cow for News International. Nothing like this has ever happened in British newspapers. It appears that James Murdoch has decided that the only way to decontaminate the tarnished News International brand is to take the nuclear option and close down the title.

The move is also designed to save his skin and that of Rupert Murdoch’s UK chief executive Rebekah Brooks. The wave of public revulsion that has greeted… Read More

Jeremy Hunt has found some time

The deadline for representations on News Corporation’s bid for BSkyB is tomorrow but the Coalition has just made clear that there will be no early decision. Baroness Rawlings, who speaks for the Department of Culture , Media and Sport in the House of Lords, spelled that out when fielding an emergency question on the phone hacking furore:  “The Secretary of State will need to consider all of the answers and all representations. There is no date at present for his decision. The Secretary of State will not be rushed, he will be fair.” In other words, Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, can spend the entire summer sitting on the bid in the hope that the row will have died down by the autumn. The BBC’s Robert Peston say… Read More