Today has been the turn of Murdoch Junior to be subjected to a light roasting before the Leveson
Inquiry. Inevitably, the question of News Corp trying to get its hands on the
part of BSkyB that it did not already own was raised, and here Junior has dropped Jeremy Hunt the
Culture Secretary in the mire by telling that Hunt spoke to him while Vince
Cable, the senior minister, would not.
Any news we can claim for ourselves?
This was compounded by Junior also pitching Young Dave into
the freshly filled vat of poo by revealing that the BSkyB bid was also
discussed at the Christmas dinner attended by the PM and hosted by the
twinkle-toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Brooks, when the latter was CEO
of News International (NI). Cameron has previously been tight-lipped about what
might have been said on that occasion.
These two revelations may well lead to Hunt walking the
plank and Cameron having to eat humble pie – not the kind of thing a Buller Man
likes to have to do, especially when he has lackeys to do that sort of thing –
so they are doubly significant. This realisation has caused the perpetually
thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer, the flannelled fool Henry Cole, to
wake up and retell recent history.
Thus the Guido Fawkes blog has hurriedly jumped aboard the
bandwagon that it for so long told its readers did not exist. So in an item
this morning, a reference was made to another
post from January last year, showing the faithful that The Great Guido was
on the ball all along, being first about the Christmas meeting between Cameron
and Brooks.
Sadly, one non-trivial detail seems to have escaped the
Laurel and Hardy of the blogosphere: on January 19, they are still talking of “the Guardian waging war on NI and Downing
Street’s spin chief Andy Coulson” (as well as playing down the meeting
because Cameron and Brooks living ten miles apart means “in truth they are near neighbours”). All those “co-conspirators” and they didn’t pick up
what was brewing.
Because what was
brewing was that Coulson departed
two days later. The clueless pair at the Fawkes blog hadn’t had a
sniff. Yet now, a post that was clearly slanted to rubbish the Guardian is held up as a shining example
of prescience. And it gets worse, with the pretentious “Rumour reaches Guido that correspondence ... will be published by the
inquiry later”. Like with all other attendees, then.
And the less than dynamic duo have now put the lid on their
own can of utter cluelessness: while they are busy kicking Ken Livingstone
(again) in the service of their beloved Bozza, at the main event, news has
emerged that Hunt’s advisor illegally gave Junior
access to market sensitive information. If the culture secretary hasn’t yet
resigned, he needs to get his skates on sharpish.
Another fine mess,
once again.
Tim, perhaps you should refer to JH (in one of those Private Eye-ey ways that you do) as we do in our house, as "The Hulture Secretary" ;)
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