Motley Moose – Archive

It’s hard to believe, but at 4pm BST today it will be exactly a year since Nick Davies and Amelia Hill published online a leak from Operation Weeting, the newly recreated (third) investigation into phone hacking, and revealed that the News of the World had hacked the phone of a missing 13 year old schoolgirl, who was found dead six months later, murdered by Levi Bellfield.

That headline changed the political scene here in the UK. Within days the News of the World had closed, and New Corp were forced to withdraw their takeover bid for Britain’s most lucrative broadcaster, BSkyB. Within two weeks James and Rupert Murdoch were summoned to appear before a Parliamentary select committee, and David Cameron was forced to set up the Leveson Inquiry.

Over the next year, the hacking scandal expanding to a corruption and bribery scandal at the News of the World’s sister paper, the best selling Sun. Over 50 people have now been arrested. An internal News Corp inquiry, the MSC – set up under pressure from the FBI, SEC and DOJ – has now handed over thousands of emails suggesting bribery of public officials. The scandal expanded to include allegations of TV piracy at News Corp’s pay-TV encryption services in Australia, the UK, Italy and the US.

But more than anything, for the UK, the Leveson Inquiry has shone a light into the dark corners of the political media class, and revealed such extensive back door lobbying between the Murdochs and the last five prime ministers, that it was almost like discovering a state within a state. And of course, with Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and James Murdoch meeting virtually every day with David Cameron, George Osborne and Jeremy Hunt, the convergence over the last few years has been almost seamless. As a senior News International journalist expressed it to me:

The Court of Cameron and the Court of Murdoch have become almost totally enmeshed.

This last year has been an amazing journey for our country, and for me personally, as I became inextricably caught up in the coverage of the affair. My book, which explores those 14 days in July which ended a media dynasty – and the 50 years leading up to it – is in the final stages and due for publication at the end of the month.

Below I might share some of the book, particularly the reality of the Milly Dowler story, but mainly this diary is to share YOUR memories, to hear your thoughts about this momentous year.

I’ve missed you guys. Though it’s great to be covering the Leveson Inquiry for the DailyBeast and Newsweek, it’s on teh blogs in the US that I built up the support, courage and debating skills to devote these last few months to covering the Hacking Scandal and the Leveson Inquiry, and doing my bid to purge the UK of years of monopolistic media practices and abuse of power.

Just so you know, the hacking scandal has finally moved into a much bigger area of illegality, which was the first reason two years ago my interest (and concern) about Murdoch’s News Corp was piqued. James Murdoch’s bid for BSkyB would have given News Corp. a distorting monopoly in broadcast that it already has in newspapers here (40 percent of the readership.)

Not the cover: just a quick promo by Eric Lewis

We were days away from becoming a banana republic, with a foreign, non tax paying dynasty controlling our means of communication. Only the brave work of lawyer (Mark Lewis) and a journalist (Nick Davies) prevented this catastrophe happening by exposing the industrial scale of phone hacking and surveillance deployed by News International – against celebrities, lawyers, and political opponents.

Now, like Saigon in 1975, the Murdoch helicopter is on the roof of News International. Last weeks revelations about back door channels between senior ministers and News Corp. over the $16 billion takeover of our pay TV monopoly, BSkyB, are a clear sign that the Murdochs are burning their bridges, and trying to take down the Coalition Government which – under considerable pressure and only after the Hacking scandal – finally stood up to News Corp., blocked the BSkyB bid, and set up the Leveson Inquiry which is beaming a scorching torchlight through 30 years of political blackmail, back room deals, and illegality.

Private papers were released last night from the Thatcher Foundation which show the secret meeting Rupert Murdoch had with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to make sure his bid the The Times and Sunday Times would not be referred to the Monopolies and Merger’s commission in return for more political support, and an introduction to Ronald Reagan’s political circle. The eminent and brilliant editor Harold Evans of the Sunday Times, who was against all assurances ousted by Rupert Murdoch, said on a BBC Radio Interview this morning (starts around 1:49).

“The whole thing is so squalid I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at being vindicated after all this time”

A brief but potentially vital heads up…..

It’s been several weeks since I predicted the dynastic succession was over at Newscorp, mainly because of the independent shareholder rebellion last month, and although James did a worthy stonewalling job at the DCMS select committee this Thursday, that does nothing to stop the three ongoing police investigations here (plus suggestions of a secret ‘Operation Millipede’ in SOCA – our equivalent of the FBI).

But this morning, a very reliable reporter on the Daily Mail suggested that James’ testimony could be blown out of the water thanks to find among the millions of supposed deleted News International emails found on a server in India:

Today in Parliament

As expected, the appearance of James Murdoch, the Chief Executive of News International (and related to some other famous people) before the DCMS Committee today failed to produce any huge bombshells. Let’s remind ourselves that the Parliamentary Committee has no real powers of subpoena, witnesses are not obliged to testify on oath, is not run by trained lawyers, and is not allowed to investigate anything that could prejudice the three ongoing police investigations.  

C-Span has the whole proceedings here

James is smart, lawyered up, and left no hostages to fortune in terms of his evidence. Tom Watson had some stellar moments, challenging James over various contradictory testimonies, naming three or four other private investigators working for News International (adding some cryptic reference to Operation Millipede), and at least landing a rhetorical blow by calling James

‘the first mafia boss in history who didn’t know he was running a criminal enterprise.’.

It’s been a week since my last instalment of this riveting saga of dynasty, criminality and corruption at the heart of our government, and though things haven’t been playing out in the same tremendous rush of exposes – the firestorm as David Cameron called it – the phone hacking revelations at News International, and the subsequent coverup, will continue to rumble on, and explode in lightning strikes at unexpected intervals.  

Some key developments worth noting to day though.

This is an abbreviated post-festum version of My DKos diary which – because the sessions overran for two hours – I had to abandon before it Rebakah Brooks’ testimony. Much played out as I expected it – as you will see in the diary below.

Because testimony wasn’t under oath, because MPs aren’t trained investigators (like the forthcoming Commissions of Enquiry), and because Rupert, James and Rebekah could hide under the cloak of ‘ongoing investigations, it was always bound to be a damp squib investigatively.

However it was full of drama – and even pie!

An annoying and distracting moment, like most pie fights I’ve seen. Fun in some way – but completely counterproductive. The real drama came from the Wizard of Oz moment.

Whether it was calculated or not (I really doubt it was calculated) the curtain was pulled on the wizard, and what we saw was a rather bumbling, angry, pompous old man used to being powerful, but  when it comes to the question “Do you bear any responsibility” the answer was “Nope.”

But this is important. Merely tearing the veil on the secret unaccountable power of the Murdochs is  a revelation in itself. Murdoch never governed by being loved, by being charming, or by being intellectually respected: he swayed his secret powers by fear: fear of being exposed by him, salaciously, financially, politically, personally.

Now that fear has gone, the emperor has no clothes.

Full diary beyond the flip – I think, in the main, I predicted well. But Moosers, tell me what you think

This initially was a lighthearted intermission diary, supposing this would be a quiet Sunday as News International tried to manage the chaos engulfing them. But I was wrong.

UPDATE: Sir Paul Stephenson, the Met Commissioner, Britain’s senior police officer, has resigned because of his connections with the scandal. More news as this comes in. But this is affecting all levels of the British establishment. I hear now that the Serious Fraud Office is making forays into the News International books: this means that the payment to police officers is at a deeper and more complicated than first appeared. In company law, such payments would be “a gross misuse of shareholders money”.

In Sir Paul Stephenson’s resignation statement there’s a concealed timebomb; a comparison between his employee (Wallis a former News of the World deputy editor) now arrested in the Hackergate probe, and the Prime Minister’s chief press officer, David Coulson (a former editor of the same newspaper).

Now let me turn to the reported displeasure of the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary of the relationship with Mr Wallis.

The reasons for not having told them are two fold. Firstly, I repeat my earlier comments of having at the time no reason for considering the contractual relationship to be a matter of concern. Unlike Mr Coulson, Mr Wallis had not resigned from News of the World or, to the best of my knowledge been in any way associated with the original phone hacking investigation.

That’s a barb and a half. As Robert Peston says

Stephenson statement implies that Met’s employment of Wallis was less controversial than David Cameron’s employment of Coulson

UPDATE 2; IS CAMERON NEXT? Stephenson explicitly compared his taking responsibility with Cameron’s lack of taking responsibility – an amazing comparison. The Labour Shadow Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, has gone for the kill

It is striking that Sir Paul has taken responsibility and answered questions about the appointment of the Deputy Editor of the News of the World whereas the Prime Minister still refuses to recognise his misjudgement and answer questions on the appointment of the Editor of the News of the World at the time of the initial phone hacking investigation.

People will wonder at why different rules apply for the Prime Minister and the Met, especially when as Sir Paul said himself, unlike Andy Coulson, Neil Wallis had not been forced to resign from the News of the World.

It is also a very serious concern that the Met Commissioner felt unable to tell the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary about this operational issue with Neil Wallis because of the Prime Minister’s relationship with Andy Coulson.

Amazing times. This could go all the way up to the Prime Minister – a close friend of Rebekah Brooks. Even Iain Dale, a famous Conservative Blogger agrees; Could Cameron Be Next

I can’t believe I am even writing this, but it is no longer an impossibility to imagine this scandal bringing down the Prime Minister or even the government. OK, some of you reading this may think that last sentence is a deranged ranting, and you may be right. Indeed, I hope you are. But Sir Paul Stephenson launched a thinly veiled attack on David Cameron in his resignation statement and the Prime Minister is already on the ropes about the propriety of his relationship with Andy Coulson.

Now back to the original diary

*****

To everyone’s surprise, police have just arrested the former Chief Executive of News International, Rebekah Brooks. Significantly she being questioned by detectives working on both Operations Weeting and Elveden: in other words.

They have arrested her on suspicion of both phone hacking (under the Phone Intercept Law) and corruption allegations.



This is key development, and puts James Murdoch next in the frame as per my previous diary – FALL OF THE HOUSE OF MURDOCH VI. Indeed, so dramatic was it that the best go to source for inside information on New International, Murdoch’s biographer Michael Wolff, could only emit the tweet “Jesus” at first. Now he adds this…

In 2008, during a two hour interview I did with Rebekah Brooks, she took seven phone calls from James Murdoch–that’s how often they spoke.

A Guardian Video from just seven days ago shows how close Brooks was to both James and Rupert who (rather than the hacked victims or 200 staff redundancies) said Rebekah was his ‘priority’

More on this story as it comes in.  

After Bloody Friday, and the late but inevitable resignation of Rupert Murdoch’s two closest personal lieutenants – Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton – News Corp are trying to run damage limitation: apologies in the British Press, denials of hacking 9/11 victims.

But despite the best attempts of their PR firm Edelman, this will not wash, and there’s already enough known and proven in the public domain to turn our attention to the Newscorp Executive who took over from Hinton as head of Newscorps European arm, and who supervised the payout of millions in hush-money to the victims of phone hacking two years ago: a certain man by the name of James Murdoch.

As Michael Wolff – the Vanity Fair writer and biographer who knows the ins-and-outs of the family court – tweets:

Wolff also corrects the rumours yesterday that Elisabeth Murdoch said “Rebekah fucked the company” at a book party last Sunday. No, she didn’t say precisely that. James’ sister said:

“James and Rebekah fucked the Company”

So here’s a little more about the crass libertarian ideology that has driven her brother – and potentially the company – over the cliff.  

After Bloody Friday, and the late but inevitable resignation of Rupert Murdoch’s two closest personal lieutenants – Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton – News Corp are trying to run damage limitation: apologies in the British Press, denials of hacking 9/11 victims.

But despite the best attempts of their PR firm Edelman, this will not wash, and there’s already enough known and proven in the public domain to turn our attention to the Newscorp Executive who took over from Hinton as head of Newscorps European arm, and who supervised the payout of millions in hush-money to the victims of phone hacking two years ago: a certain man by the name of James Murdoch.

As Michael Wolff – the Vanity Fair writer and biographer who knows the ins-and-outs of the family court – tweets:

Wolff also corrects the rumours yesterday that Elisabeth Murdoch said “Rebekah fucked the company” at a book party last Sunday. No, she didn’t say precisely that. James’ sister said:

“James and Rebekah fucked the Company”

So here’s a little more about the crass libertarian ideology that has driven her brother – and potentially the company – over the cliff.