Rebekah Brooks Loses It

The saying was that if you wanted to know Rupert Murdoch’s opinion on the topics du jour, you had to read that day’s Sun editorial. Now, with Don Rupioni looking towards the thorny matters of who should succeed him, and who should head up the allegedly soon to be merged News UK and News Corp US operations, the presence behind those editorials has changed.

Now, each morning’s Sun Says rant is more likely to reflect the priorities and prejudices of News UK’s CEO, the twinkle-toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Brooks. And one of her priorities is clearly to kick anyone who is seen as a threat to the monarchy. Which means her prejudices include taking against the Sussexes, something not lost on Haz’n’Megs.

That Harry dislikes Ms Brooks cannot be in any doubt, after a passage from his best-selling memoir Spare became better known. “I asked him to remind me, what was this editor’s name? He said it, and I committed it to memory, but in the years since then, I’ve avoided speaking it, and I don’t wish to repeat it here. Spare the reader, but also myself”. But then he does speak it. Sort of.

“Besides, can it possibly be a coincidence that the name of the woman who pretended I went to rehab is a perfect anagram for … Rehabber Kooks?” Then he twisted the knife. “Who is this editor? Loathsome toad, I gathered. Everyone who knew her was in full agreement that she was an infected pustule on the arse of humanity. Plus a shit excuse for a journalist”. OUCH!

What Haz would also have known, especially given he launched a legal action against the Murdoch press, is that Ms Brooks stands accused of snooping on him, using the full resources of the late and not at all lamented Screws, for several years, determined to catch the then under-18 Prince doing illegal drugs, or consuming alcohol while under age.

That snooping was in full swing by September 2001 - five years earlier than the date usually associated with it, as 2006 was the time when those working for the Screws, Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, were caught hacking not just Haz’ voicemail, but also his brother’s. Sadly, as Mulcaire told, “There was no evidence that Prince Harry was using drugs, soft, hard or otherwise”.

The dossier assembled by Expose News shows that Ms Brooks was obsessed with the Prince. A significant amount of money was sprayed up the wall trying to nail him. It is inconceivable that Haz would not know by now what she had been up to, or, indeed, that she read his comments without being filled with anger, almost to the point of spontaneous combustion.

So it should surprise no-one to read today’s Sun Says, which gives every sign of its writer occupying the no man’s land between plain mardy strop and full-on wig-out. “HARRY’S book is laid bare for all to see. It is an orgy of self-pity and cowardly, baseless abuse. It should shame him forever” is the opening salvo, with “cowardly” and “abuse” beginning the pot-meet-kettle-athon.

We are told “Harry comes across as he is: A monumentally entitled, thoroughly unpleasant bully driven by ugly, petty grudges and utterly blind to his own hypocrisies”. Pot meet kettle it is. Do go on. “What’s more, many of his endlessly self-serving anecdotes fall apart under even the gentlest scrutiny”. No citation. Nor will there be any. It’s just Ms Brooks losing it.

But the silent majority backs her, honest. “Sun readers have seen enough. Their verdict is overwhelming. They consider the book an unforgiveable [sic] betrayal. They say Harry and Meghan must be barred from the King’s coronation which the public will have to fund. And they demand their titles be stripped from them”. Hardly any of those readers have actually read it.

And then comes the dead giveaway. “We understand the Palace’s desire to keep silent”. That’s what all the howling down of Haz’ book is about: his exposure of the inter-dependent and ultimately highly toxic bond between the monarchy and our free and fearless press. The Haz bashing comes almost exclusively from the UK media class and their hangers-on.

The monarchy sells papers and clicks; by palling up to the press, the monarchy protects itself from any drift towards republicanism. But what neither can countenance is the relationship being exposed before the court of public opinion. Nor can Ms Brooks restrain herself from throwing a full-on screaming tirade after Haz tweaked her tail so publicly.

It will get worse: she is, by now, so used to getting her way, and bringing the resources of the Murdoch mafiosi to bear kicking those who dare to stand against her, that she won’t stop screaming until appropriate retribution has been extracted for Haz’ refusal to bow before her. The words “Harry comes across as he is”, used against her, are far more revealing.

Because Rebekah Brooks does indeed come across as she is - a monumentally over-promoted, psychologically unstable, talentless, dislikable and hateful individual without whom the world would be a significantly better place. She is, like so many of her pals and too many of the politicians she has backed, a prime example of what happens when there is no-one to say “No”.

Harry has the press figured out. We are being told that’s a sin. No it isn’t.

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