Hacking Trial – Murdoch Pals Circle Wagons

While I’m sure the Murdoch empire will vehemently deny that anyone from the top of the organisation leans on the editors of the Sun and Times, both titles have displayed a remarkable unanimity this morning in their coverage of the Hacking Trial, and the partial verdicts handed down yesterday (the jury is still deliberating on charges against Andy Coulson and Clive Goodman).

That's what I think of youse bladdy hacking victims, you pommie bastards!

And what both titles want their readers to do is look at the twinkle-toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Brooks, while not looking at Coulson, and certainly not any of the other Murdoch stalwarts who have already ‘fessed up to being involved in phone hacking. On top of that, if you’re expecting Rupe’s troops to say sorry for any of their less than totally ethical behaviour, forget it.

Indeed, the mood in the Super Soaraway Currant Bun is nothing short of triumphalist: “Great Day For Red Tops” screams the headline, under the teaser telling “Old Bailey Sensation”, as if a jury declaring itself unable to convict beyond reasonable doubt is “sensational”, rather than the normal result of due process. Look, readers, she got off, and that’s all you need to know.

The Times – oh, how far this former paper of record has fallen – wanted its readers to get the same message. “Brooks Not Guilty”, it declared. There is, as with the Sun, a large photo of Ms Brooks, which tells readers that she is the news, and the news is about her. No other thought need enter. This approved line extended to the Usual Suspects among the grovelling punditerati.

So the Sun’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn obediently instructed his Twitter followers to Look Over There: “Serious questions for the Crown Prosecution Service after Rebekah and Charlie Brooks, plus PA Cheryl Carter, cleared of all hacking charges”. No mention of Coulson. No mention of all the others who pleaded guilty, rather than face trial. And no mention of all the victims.

It was also business as usual for the routinely clueless Tim Montgomerie, who also wanted everyone to Look Over There: “Cameron assumed Coulson was innocent until proven guilty. Most of UK assumed Brooks guilty until she was acquitted today. Rush to judgment?” he opined. It wasn’t about Cameron assuming anything, and most of the population probably didn’t have an opinion on Ms Brooks.

Then there was Adam “don’t you know who I am?” Boulton, an appallingly immodest man with much to be modest about, who wanted anyone not yet asleep to also Look Over There: “Rumours Hacked Off about to rename itself Very Hacked Off” he snarked. Laugh? I thought I’d never start. But good to see he still wants an in with the Murdochs and their hangers-on.

Meanwhile, the thousands of hacking victims don’t even get an apology. Sickening.

Don’t Menshn The Hacking Trial Verdict

After partial verdicts were returned in the Hacking Trial – the jury are, as I type, still deliberating on counts against Andy Coulson and Clive Goodman – there was a rush to hindsight-fuelled judgment by some who might have been better advised keeping schtum and leaving it to those who can delineate arse from elbow. And that includes one person somewhere in New York City.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

Yes, to no surprise at all, former (thank goodness) Tory MP Louise Mensch knew absolutely everything about the judgment, despite knowing sweet jack about it. This was demonstrated in an orgy of self-promoting Tweets, extolling the wisdom of Herself Personally Now.

As Rebekah Brooks was cleared of all charges, off she went: “YEEEEESSSSSS Rebekah Brooks CLEARED take that Guardian I knew it”. Had the Guardian been campaigning for a particular verdict? Well, no, but hey ho, eh?

Then came the opinion: “It was obvious following the trial that charges should NEVER have been brought against her. Disgusting politicization”. The decision on whether to charge cannot wait until after the trial, Louise.

And if she’s got evidence of “politicization”, let’s see it (we won’t). But then came Coulson: “I’m sorry to hear that Andy Coulson was convicted. I thought it was on a knife edge in regard to him and I hope he appeals”. The verdict was unanimous.

In any case, he wasn’t really guilty: “Coulson was the finest communications director the Tories had in the modern age. I don’t believe him guilty, either”. How do you know how good he was? You never saw anyone else at work in that role!

But she somehow knew Coulson, even though she didn’t: “I wish I could say that Andy Coulson was my friend. I do say that I always admired him, I admire him now, I hope to work with him one day”. If he goes down, he won’t want to be let out, then.

Then there was a snark to be had: “Think of all those wretched Guardianistas forced to make revisions to their non-awaited Hacking Trial books hahahahaha”. Like Nick Davies? His Rebekah account is already out there. Hahahahaha indeed.

And she still wanted to meet Coulson: “Andy Coulson is an incredible talent and I hope I have the honour to know him one day. Much respect to Piers Morgan for his Tweet”. No more slagging off Morgan to those select committees, then.

Then there had to be a dig at Hacked Off, even if she couldn’t figure out their Twitter handle: “Dear Hacked Off ... I bet you are. Xxxx”. But Hacked Off, like the Guardian, wasn’t campaigning for any particular verdict, either. Their website tells you that.

So that’s the usual stupidity. And Rupe will be pleased at the grovelling support.

Murdoch Is Served (102)

COULSON GETS GUILTY

And so partial verdicts in the Hacking Trial were given: Stuart Kuttner, Rebekah Brooks, husband Charlie, her former PA Cheryl Carter, and security man Mark Hanna were cleared of all charges, the jury clearly not able to reach the standard of proof necessary, there being “reasonable doubt”. But former Screws editor Andy Coulson, one-time chief spinner to Young Dave, was not so fortunate.

On Count One, conspiracy to hack phones, Coulson was found guilty. This is, remember, in addition to a number of guilty pleas already entered and accepted on behalf of those who were therefore not in the dock of Court 12 at the Old Bailey. This verdict is bad news for one man and his pals: step forward David Cameron, Prime Minister and First Lord of the Treasury.

Young Dave – on the advice of next-door neighbour the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the Seventeenth Baronet – appointed Coulson his spinmeister, despite being advised against it by Alan Rusbridger, editor of the deeply subversive Guardian (something we could not be told until the trial of Jonathan Rees on charges of murdering Daniel Morgan had concluded).

Yet Cameron remained on his course and employed Coulson. Even when the phone hacking story broke, there was no wavering: indeed, a year on from the Guardian’s initial revelations, Dave took Coulson with him into Downing Street. In this he was supported unequivocally by London’s occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson, who pronounced the story to be “codswallop”.

But then, Bozza had form when it came to being a little economic with the actualité, as former Tory leader Michael Howard could have told Cameron: he sacked Johnson from the Shadow Cabinet for lying over his affair with Petronella Wyatt. Coulson eventually gave up the unequal struggle and resigned; Dave made a statement at the time which means he is going to have to say sorry, and soon.

“I have an old-fashioned view about innocent until proven guilty”, he told the Commons. “But if it turns out that I have been lied to, that would be the moment for a profound apology. In that event, I can tell you I will not fall short”. He now has the additional problem of his pal Osborne making matters worse by equating Coulson with Damian McBride – not even prosecuted – to fend off Labour attacks.

Expectations within the Tory Party are that Cameron can get through this by being straight with the House, in the manner that he indicated three years ago. This may be possible. Meanwhile, the man in whose service all the hacking, and other less than savoury practices, were performed remains free to stick his bugle into the body politic as and when he sees fit. Rupert Murdoch remains The Great Survivor.

Blair Apologist Says Egypt Equals Leveson

As the chaos in Iraq continues, with the ISIS insurgency continuing to cause mayhem as it moves towards Baghdad, one unapologetic supporter of the 2003 adventure that started the slide into instability has decided to open mouth and insert foot on the subject of press freedom: step forward Tone’s unswerving supporter John McTernan, given a platform at the bear pit that is Telegraph blogs.

Here, he considers the show trial of three al-Jazeera journalists in Cairo on trumped-up terrorism charges, which ended yesterday with the handing down of seven-year jail sentences.  The three had been doing nothing more subversive than reporting from Egypt on what was happening there. But for McTernan, it was an opportunity to cast fact to the winds, and raise the false spectre of state control of the press.

Now, since the Leveson Inquiry concluded and its report was published, there have been many creative interpretations of its content, many of them substantially untrue, but McTernan takes the blatant dishonesty to a new level. First, he talks of critics of Egypt’s approach: “Prominent among them is that of Index on Censorship, a British NGO noted in the past for its sterling work in defending press freedom globally”.

This is used to segue in to telling that Index “recently appointed the comedian Steve Coogan as its patron – thereby aligning itself with a small band of zealots who are seeking to muzzle the press here in Britain. The Hacked Off campaign, which Coogan often speaks for, is pursuing a regime for overseeing the press that would be nothing more or less than state regulation”. Not true, but hey ho.

There’s more: “The case against Hacked Off is simply put. It wants to use the excesses of the News of the World to create a system that would gag independent journalists and prevent papers from investigating and exposing scandalous behaviour by figures in the public eye”. Hacked Off does not support prior restraint on the press, or as McTernan calls it, “gagging”, so that’s another whopper, then.

“For Hacked Off, this is a moral crusade about the right to privacy in the face of illegal actions by journalists”. And it isn’t campaigning for a privacy law, either. “It is already illegal to hack phones, and it is against the law for police officers to sell confidential information to newspapers”. No John, I don’t want to look over there, thanks. Hacked Off is about press accountability.

Hacked Off is about the press acknowledging its mistakes, saying sorry, retracting false stories, publishing apologies and corrections, and curbing bad behaviour by their staff – while ending the culture of “tough – sue us if you think you’re hard enough”. And it is about a press self-regulator truly independent of proprietors, editors and politicians. But idiot McTernan just wants to compare it to Egypt.

John McTernan is a man without credibility, honesty or principle. He’s a sham.

NHS – Actually Very Good Indeed

Bashing the NHS is one of the right-leaning press’ favourite pastimes. It is an equally popular topic with all those small state libertarians shilling eagerly for the rich and greedy, the kind of people who already pay to go private and don’t like the idea of their taxes contributing to a service which also admits the lower orders. The result is that many believe the NHS does poorly, compared to other countries.

Readers are told that the “free at point of use” model, with no charges for seeing the doctor or attending hospital to see a consultant, is unsustainable, and should be replaced with something like they use in a range of other countries, which often includes France, Switzerland, and the USA. Recent press coverage has been used to reinforce this negative view of the NHS.

For instance, today has brought another wave of stories about Josie Cunningham, who underwent breast enlargement surgery on the NHS. The impression is given that the money was wasted: the NHS is therefore bad. We are told that mistakes by NHS staff cause 12,500 deaths a year: the NHS is therefore bad. Out-of-hours services failed a three year old: the NHS is therefore bad.

Overall rankings from the Commonwealth Fund analysis

It gets worse. Toxic hip replacements caused the deaths of 40 patients: the NHS is therefore bad. The NHS has an “alarming” culture: it is therefore bad. As Sir Sean nearly said, I think we got the point. So just how bad is the NHS, relative to other countries’ health provision? For all of you right-wing Kool-Aid drinkers, the answer is going to come as something of a shock.

“NHS is the world's best healthcare system, report says”. Wait, what? That can’t be right – it’s in the deeply subversive Guardian. Some rotten lefty outfit must be behind it, right? Wrong: “The report has been produced by the Commonwealth Fund, a Washington-based foundation which is respected around the world for its analysis of the performance of different countries' health systems”.

Life expectancy vs health spending - from OECD via Daily Kos

The NHS “spends the second-lowest amount on healthcare among the 11 – just £2,008 per head, less than half the £5,017 in the US”. Of the eleven countries, the USA came last. That one fact led the Daily Kos to conclude “We have a crappy healthcare system”. It’s a message that will either go unheeded or generate hostile feedback: the USA doesn’t like to be told it does anything less well than others.

But the results are there for all to see, including the OECD analysis of healthcare costs plotted against life expectancy. So when you read yet another NHS bashing article in the right-leaning press, ordered up by an editor and senior staff who all go private, or yet another proposal for a public sector that does not include the NHS, remember what those in the USA say about our system versus theirs.

The NHS – actually very good indeed. What you will not read in most papers.

Andrew Pierce – You’re A Fraud

The assault by the right-leaning part of the press, that is to say most of it, on Mil The Younger continues today with the personal encouragement of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre at the Daily Mail. Stepping up to the plate to grovel appropriately before his editor is Andrew Pierce, whose devotion to the Tory Party is so complete that he has named his Twitter handle in its honour.

What's f***ing wrong with my hacks ripping off other people's content, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

The appropriately-named @toryboypierce has, for his hatchet job, chosen to kick Miliband’s media advisor Tom Baldwin, and in a style of zero subtlety. “Red Ed's team and the ghost of David Kelly” screams the headline, followed by “Red Ed Miliband and his deputy Harriet Harman have run a mile from Tony Blair’s loopy claims that the Iraq war was justified”. So loopy that your paper backed them.

But do go on: “The Labour leader stresses that he wasn’t even an MP in 2003 when the war began, and never voted for it. However, Red Ed’s own private office can’t escape close association with one of the darkest episodes of the Blair government’s conduct of the war: the death of government scientist Dr David Kelly”. Ah, we’re playing another game of “Excuse Gilligan”, aren’t we?

Indeed we are: “Tom Baldwin, now Red Ed’s senior media adviser, was the newspaper journalist who named Kelly as the source behind the BBC story by Andrew Gilligan that the Blair government had ‘sexed up’ a dossier about Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to justify war against Saddam Hussein”. As well as saying “Red Ed” rather a lot, but then, Pierce no doubt has his orders.

And do we have Big Al in the mix? You betcha, says Sarah: “Alastair Campbell, who advises Miliband on election strategy and was Blair’s communications chief at the time, wrote in his diaries that releasing Kelly’s name would ‘f*** Gilligan’”. Yes, the old smear that assumes pulling the rug out from under Gilligan caused David Kelly to take his own life. So let me put Pierce straight on this one.

As the deeply subversive Guardian has pointed out, “[Baldwin] hit the headlines in July 2003 when he became one of the first journalists to name David Kelly as Andrew Gilligan's source of information about the dossier into Iraqi weapons of mass destruction” [my emphasis]. Pierce also fails to note Gilligan’s role in having Kelly questioned. And this story is not a new one.

So who did he lift it from? How about “Tom Baldwin’s action as a communications agent for Alastair Campbell started a chain of events which led to the death of David Kelly” written almost three years ago by Tim Montgomerie – now rewarded with a Murdoch staff berth – and which extensively quotes Simon Carr, now working in the service of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog.

You want derivative, badly sourced and slanted rubbish? Pierce is your man.

The Blog Complaints Commission

Stalking and harassment are, sadly, part and parcel of running a moderately successful blog. Sometimes you publish something that others would rather you did not. The more creepy and obsessive register their dissent in ways that are designed to make the blogger keep quiet, or at least think long and hard before revisiting the subject that has caused the dissent.

As seen on the Zelo Street Twitter avatar

This can be done in a number of ways: publishing smears in retaliation is one, but this merely draws attention. Much better is to tell the blogger that you know where they live, you have their phone number on speed-dial. Sadly for one such exponent of harassment, their crude attempt to silence me is about to be shown up as nothing more than laughably amateurish idiocy.

Do you recognise this handwriting?

Who is behind what I publish today I do not know: that is part of the reason for publishing. Any information as to the identity of the author will be treated in confidence, and can be passed by email to the address at right. So what is involved? There has been a series of letters from the “Blog Complaints Commission”, a body that exists only in someone’s imagination, and a lousy bit of Photoshopping.

First letter (some details have been redacted)

The envelopes used for the first two letters were addressed by hand, using a black felt pen with a thin tip. The handwriting appears to be that of the same person. Both envelopes were given the luxury of a first class stamp, and both were postmarked “Mount Pleasant Mail Centre” [central London]. A later letter arrived in a franked envelope postmarked “London EC1”, and from a machine numbered PB338929.

Second letter - does the style look familiar?

All the letters you can see here took exception to Zelo Street posts on the activities of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog. Both claimed that complaints had been received by the mythical “Blog Complaints Commission”, and that there was some duty on me to publish some form of correction. The tone became progressively more threatening.

Third letter - the tone becoming threatening

Indeed, the third letter concluded “We note that you have consistently failed to adhere to Blog Complaints Commission rulings on several previous occasions, and warn that unless you comply you will face harsher sanctions”. Even allowing for the unintentional hilarity, that is a direct threat. Someone knows where you live, and they are going to do something harsh if you don’t leave off The Great Guido.

Now, the Fawkes rabble may have nothing to do with this ridiculous attempt to silence one of their critics. But, whoever is sending the letters, this is stalking and harassment. And it’s bang out of order.

Do you recognise the handwriting? Does the franking machine ID ring a bell? All information gratefully received.

Sun Recycles Tony Benn Smear

According to then editor Dominic Mohan in his supposed “apology” for the paper’s shockingly unpleasant attacks on Liverpool fans in the wake of the Hillsborough stadium disaster, the Super Soaraway Currant Bun had moved on from the bad old days of Kelvin McFilth, and its journalism was more considered, more sensitive. The suggestion was that it no longer made stuff up for the hell of it.

And, as Captain Blackadder might have observed, there was only one thing wrong with this – it was bollocks. We can see exactly how far the Sun has progressed in the last 30 years from its latest smear campaign against Mil The Younger today, the distance travelled being not unadjacent to zero. The same prejudices are in use as then. It’s as if Kel had never left the building.

At the top of a whole page of gratuitous Labour bashing – not that the Sun displays political bias or bends to the dictates of its proprietor, you understand – we see a photo of Miliband altered to show “Inside Red Ed’s ‘Ead” (geddit?!?). This is designed to convey one very simple message: Miliband’s head doesn’t work in the same way as all those patriotic, hardworking Sun readers.

Yes, we’re supposed to get the message that Miliband is not as other politicians. There is something wrong upstairs. This builds on all the “Odd”, “Weird”, “Geek” and other insults that scrape the barrel, but can be got away with. From here, it is a short ride to calling him “batty”, “potty”, “loony”, or just straight “mad”. The language of the playground is safe and well at the Sun.

At this point, those of us of A Certain Age may remember what happened 30 years ago during the Chesterfield by-election, where Tony Benn was Labour candidate, having lost his seat in Bristol the previous year. It was the same as the Miliband attack: if in doubt, allege he’s not all there. As Roy Greenslade put it, “the paper indulged in its most sustained and vicious character assassination”.

“On the day of the poll, the Sun ran a feature headlined ‘Benn on the couch: a top psychiatrist's view of Britain's leading leftie’. It claimed he was ‘a Messiah figure hiding behind the mask of the common man … greedy for power and willing to do anything to get it’ ... It purported to be the opinions of an American psychiatrist who subsequently denied the validity of the opinions”.

The Sun, on the basis of an analysis from someone who had never met Benn, concluded that he was “stark, staring mad”. In 30 years, all that has changed is the identity of the target – and that the paper is now merely inferring some kind of mental health issue, rather than coming out and saying it. The Hillsborough victims were right to tell Mohan and his boss to stick their “apology”.

Same Sun. Same prejudices. Same smears. Same bigotry. And bang out of order.

Liam Fox – Still An Embarrassment

Turning up with all the gaiety of a wet fart in a lift, Liam Fox was somehow allowed on to The Andy Marr Show (tm) this morning to tell anyone still interested in his view that there should be more surveillance because of what may be happening in the Middle East. He also suggested that it would be good fun to strip a few people of their citizenship, perhaps pour encourager les autres.

It was probably buggins’ turn, and Fox was judged to be as senior a party figure as Labour’s Chuka Umunna, who was there to defend Mil The Younger against the latest wave of faux outrage, which in turn had been precipitated by the last wave doing nothing to Labour’s poll lead. But the ability of someone so comprehensively discredited to worm his way onto the airwaves is disquieting.

Why this should be may have been forgotten by some, so perhaps a little memory-jogging is in order. For Fox and the Tory right, the rot set in during September 2010, when a number of leaks were made by someone in the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to the Maily Telegraph. The culprit, let us not drive this one around the houses for too long, was Fox. And Young Dave should have sacked him there and then.

Sadly, it was only with the discovery of Fox’s arrangements with “close friend” Adam Werritty a year later that Cameron finally sacked the SOB (the subsequent inability of most of the press to acknowledge the Guardian as being the title that did for Fox was an interesting side-show). All of that was reason enough not to trust Fox any further than he could be chucked. But then came his “charity”.

The quote marks are because, as Jamie Doward at the Observer pointed out, “Officially it was a charity; in fact, Fox's thinktank was a meeting place for the movers and shakers of the right wing”. Atlantic Bridge, according to Fox, was all about “a network of individual people who can know one another”. Those people were, generally, impeccably right-leaning.

Doward noted that Atlantic Bridge’s website had been taken down, “But old caches of the site reveal that, while shadow ministers, George Osborne, Michael Gove, Chris Grayling and William Hague were all on its advisory council alongside Fox, its UK chairman. All four stood down as awkward questions over its political activities, which contravened charity laws, resulted in the organisation being wound up”.

So not only had Fox been a thoroughly untrustworthy member of the cabinet, he had also been involved in breaking charity laws, and overseeing highly irregular behaviour by his pal Werritty. Why does the Tory Party continue to allow him to be put forward to speak for them? Downing Street must know that he will continue to peddle his own perverse view on security matters.

Or perhaps the Tories are happy for someone to promote paranoia for them.

Don’t Menshn Breitbart London

The attempts by those at the batshit collective otherwise known as Breitbart London to garner more traffic on the back of Michael Fabricant’s unwise dig at Yasmin Alibhai-Brown have had one unintended consequence: they have alienated someone who they might have thought of as being a friend. Yes, former Tory MP and now self-promotion specialist supreme Louise Mensch is not happy.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

Taking time out from another of her chosen occupations, that being her own brand of professional trolling, the representative for the distant constituency of Manhattan Upmarket considered the less than subtle intervention of James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole and decided this was one combination of “red meat Conservatism” and free speech from which she had to distance herself.

“So sad to see [James Delingpole] descending to this crap. Breitbart UK becoming misogynistic joke. The UKIP of sites” she concluded. And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. Del Boy didn’t “descend” anywhere, having been a resident of the gutter for some years now. And Breitbart London (note correct terminology) has been a joke more or less from day one.

Then Ms Mensch, surprisingly, decided to distance herself from the kind of person loved by the likes of Fox News Channel (fair and balanced my arse): “Breitbart think that being some bargain-basement Ann Coulter is going to work in London. It so isn’t. Sod off”. She is correct that Delingpole likes to be thought of in the same way as Ms Coulter. But that won’t play at all well with Roger Ailes.

And Fox won’t be the only ones disappointed by this Mensch rant: “Desperate reaching by the too-smart-for-this [Raheem Kassam] to suggest that using ‘clobber’ means actually hit. Er NO ... ‘Clobber’ is in the dictionary as to ‘criticise harshly’. ‘Punch her in the throat’ however is not”. She’s wasting her breath: the only smart thing about “Call me Ray” Kassam is his fawning over those useful to him.

Meanwhile, Ms Mensch was reaching out to Ms Alibhai-Brown, whether the latter wanted it or not, telling her “although Delingpole is UKIP and not Tory, I am mortified by the abuse you are receiving from right-wing men”. Why “mortified”? That’s exactly the kind of unpleasantness that her one-time pal Kassam and his pals revel in encouraging – against those they don’t like.

Anyone would have thought that Ms Mensch had expected Kassam to have some kind of principles. He does not. He’s with Del Boy all the way. So when she concludes “such violent misogyny and the excusing of violent fantasies against women make me sick. [Breitbart] should fire Delingpole” she might as well include “Call me Ray”. Either way, it looks like the end of a beautiful friendship.

Breitbart London – not making friends, and so not influencing people either.

Top Six – June 22

So what’s hot, and what’s not, in the past week’s blogging? Here are the six most popular posts on Zelo Street for the past seven days, counting down in reverse order, because, well, I have domestic stuff to do later. So there.

6 Telegraph Blogs – What Future Now? After Damian Thompson, clueless pundit of no fixed hair appointment, departed suddenly from the editor’s chair at the bear pit that is Telegraph blogs, one had to wonder if this “feature” would in future be worth the candle.

5 Iraq – It Wasn’t The Sun Wot Won It The Super Soaraway Currant Bun was a fervent cheerleader for the Iraq war. Now it’s trying to, shall we say, finesse that one a little bit. And failing miserably.

4 Flannelled Fool FBU Bashing Fail The odious Henry Cole, tame gofer to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, has made his name kicking Trades Unions, and especially that which represents firefighters. Then he found his apartment block was on fire.

3 IDS – You’re A Whingeing Fraud Iain Duncan Cough railed at the hated BBC for reporting in a style of which he did not approve. Meanwhile, his department is a shambles of ineptitude. Not that the politicised press releases will tell you that.

2 Big Tobacco Useful Idiots Exposed The row over plain packaging for cigarettes led to The Australian running a misleading story about the measure’s effect. ABC Media Watch called them out for it. But in the meantime, a number of media outlets in the UK ran the misinformation as fact.

1 Ian Hislop, You’re Wrong Private Eye’s editor quit as a patron of Index on Censorship after Steve Coogan joined. And here’s why he made the wrong call.

And that’s the end of another blogtastic week, blog pickers. Not ‘arf!

IDS – You’re A Whingeing Fraud

And so it came to pass that the great Iain Duncan Cough was given a platform by the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, and to no surprise at all, blamed everything that was wrong with the world on the hated BBC. He “has launched the strongest government attack on the BBC since the last election, accusing the corporation of being a ‘bigger opponent’ of welfare reform than even the Labour Party”.

“The Work and Pensions Secretary reacted with fury yesterday after the BBC led its bulletins with more criticism of the Government’s changes to the bloated benefits system ... Mr Duncan Smith claimed the corporation had run five negative stories this week alone about sickness and disability benefits, and ‘ignored’ a major announcement on an extension of his flagship new universal credit”.

When this kind of copy appears, there is usually a good reason for it, and it does not take long to find out why Duncan Cough might want to divert attention elsewhere. “This morning, the Public Accounts Committee, which scrutinises public spending, has deemed that the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) is a ‘fiasco’ and the incompetence of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) is ‘shocking’”. It is?

According to a post on the Economist site, it is: “Meanwhile, a similar story is emerging about Universal Credit (UC), which is meant to simplify Britain's messy web of overlapping benefits ... As of March 2014, 6550 people have claimed the new benefit, up from 4,350 in December. At the current rate of enrolment, UC will cover all 5.3m of Britain’s working-age welfare recipients in around 600 years”.

“Welfare reform was intended to be one of the big achievements of the coalition government. But almost all of the radical ideas promised are turning out to be duds. Universal Credit in particular is proving to be one of the great Whitehall disasters of recent times ... For the moment, it is clear enough that spectacular ambition has combined with equally spectacular incompetence”. Ouch!

The Economist post is comparatively mild in its analysis compared to the forthright dissent of Sue Marsh, who has noted that Duncan Cough can’t be shifted from the DWP, that he won’t engage in the most basic of debate on welfare reform, the right-leaning press won’t challenge him, and all the while he’s sprayed £18 billion more up the wall over the last four years than he’s saved.

But it’s all the BBC’s fault. How can he get away with this? Because, as Sue points out, Duncan Cough has politicised his department’s press office, which has recently installed former Sun managing editor Richard Caseby as its head. Thus the open channel to compliant hacks and obliging editors, while the reality is that the whole thing is so fouled up that the supposed “reforms” are grinding to a halt.

Iain Duncan Cough is a whingeing fraud. He is not fit to hold public office.

Tories Want To Demolish World’s End Estate – 2

Having noted the clear concern of the Residents’ Association over the apparent threat to the Cremorne and World’s End Estates from a proposed Crossrail 2 station off the west end of the King’s Road in Chelsea, we move to this month’s Transport for London (TfL) consultation on station options in the area, which, ominously, uses very similar language to the notices posted across the estates.

Feeding in to the TfL consultation has been a separate Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) consultation from last year on residents’ views of the scheme. As can be seen from the map included here, a “buffer” of 500 metres around the initially suggested site near Chelsea fire station was drawn, the clear suggestion being that the station would not be located outside this area.

World's End Estate, with Cremorne Estate to top right of photo. The "southern entrance" to the proposed Chelsea West station would be at the lower right

However, and it is a rather significant however, the TfL document now contains an option called “Chelsea West”, which is not merely 500 metres away from the area around the fire station, but twice as far away. Chelsea West has been added during the past year: it was not part of the Crossrail 2 proposals in 2013. TfL has helpfully included maps to help us see the area where it is intended to be sited.

RBKC map with 500 metre "buffer" shown

Remember also the wording on the notices posted on the estates: “at the request of RBKC Leader Councillor Nick Paget-Brown, TfL has considered some sites further west ... TfL will therefore consult on a station within the Cremorne Estate. This would include two entrances: a northern entrance onto King’s Road and a second entrance located immediately to the east of Cremorne Gardens”.

TfL map showing Chelsea West option - which has been added during the past year

Now look at the Chelsea West location on TfL’s map: the station entrance on the King’s Road would indeed be “within the Cremorne Estate”, and the entrance “immediately to the east of Cremorne Gardens” immediately south of World’s End. Now note the wording on the notices posted on the estates: “the size of the surface level worksites that would be required”. Back to the TfL document.

TfL detail of Chelsea West site - note entrances described as "King's Road and Cheyne Walk"

“The Chelsea West option would require additional land for a station between King’s Road and the River Thames ... and could only proceed in parallel with plans for wider regeneration and redevelopment of the area”. What is standing on that land right now? The Cremorne and World’s End estates. And this proposal has been added to the Crossrail 2 consultation only in the past year.

Then it has been publicised only at the beginning of this month, with that consultation to finish before the end of July. There are questions that need to be answered here, from the input of Paget-Brown and his colleagues, to any encouragement being given by the Mayor, to where any displaced residents will be relocated, and who may be the property developer lined up to benefit from it all.

Someone must be called to account, and give the answers. More soon.

Tories Want To Demolish World’s End Estate – 1

The tendency for London’s Tory councils to leap into bed with property developers was all too visible in Hammersmith and Fulham, with the scheme to “redevelop” the West Kensington and Gibbs Green estates, along with the Earl’s Court exhibition centre, which may not now go ahead following the Blue Team’s ejection from power. But elsewhere in south-west London, council tenants may not be so fortunate.

The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea (RBKC) has no threat to Tory rule, with 37 out of 50 seats secured last month. Here, a potentially controversial new feature will be a station on the Crossrail 2 line. This was slated to be in the area of Chelsea fire station, but, as those on the World’s End and Cremorne estates found out recently, someone has decided to explore a site further to the west.

World's End Estate from the air, with the Cremorne Estate at top right

World’s End estate dates from the early 1970s: a mix of medium rise and tower blocks, it has worn rather better than 1950s and 60s developments. Residents have known for some time of rumours regarding the dread R-word, as in redevelopment, but what was not expected was that Crossrail 2 would be used as cover, and by what appears to be the personal choice of the council leader.

World's End Estate viewed from across the Thames

A notice dated 10th June has been posted on the estate, and makes worrying reading: titled “Crossrail 2 Consultation”, it tells “Transport for London is about to start consulting on the proposed route for a Crossrail 2, including a station in the Borough. Previously its preferred option was to locate this station on the King’s Road near the fire station”. And then comes the however.

What the unsuspecting residents saw

“However, at the request of RBKC Leader Councillor Nick Paget-Brown, TfL has considered some sites further west ... TfL will therefore consult on a station within the Cremorne Estate [next to World’s End]. This would include two entrances: a northern entrance onto King’s Road and a second entrance located immediately to the east of Cremorne Gardens”. That spans Cremorne and World’s End.

Then comes the R-word: “This option sets some challenges, as it could only come forward as part of a larger regeneration programme for the estate. This is due to the size of the surface level worksites that would be required”. The Residents’ Association appears to have added “Urgent – Please Attend to Vote ... These are not meetings – you only need to vote against the knocking down of the estate”.

So there you have it: the proposed Crossrail 2 station has been moved around 1km west so that it would be located directly under the Cremorne and World’s End estates. This would then be used as cover for a money-spinning “redevelopment”, for which read demolition, followed by replacement with upmarket properties which might just be out of reach of displaced tenants.

And it’s all been done by stealth – as I’ll show in a follow up post.

James Delingpole – Top Trolling

Yesterday, I considered the situation at the batshit collective otherwise known as Breitbart London, and concluded that the site’s backers would require more traffic – a lot more – before any more money is thrown at the operation. Then today, to prove my conclusion true, James “saviour of Western civilisation” Delingpole went off on a rant which can have had no purpose other than as clickbait.

"Gay marriage" ... "Global warming" ... "Eco crucifixes" ... "Red-meat conservatism" ... "Desperate trolling"

“There is nothing wrong with wanting to punch Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in the throat” he asserted, in reaction to the row over loose cannon Tory MP Mike Fabricant’s attempt to let as many people in the UK know that he is a Grade A tosser. Fabbers has been caused to apologise: Del Boy, though, has declared that there is nothing for which he should apologise. So he’s penned an excuse note.

“He's talking about Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, almost certainly the most irritating socio-political commentator in the land. Her wittery voice is annoying; her prim, de haut en bas twittery manner is annoying; her views are annoying. She's the living embodiment of almost everything which is most maddening about the left-liberal chattering classes” whines an irritating socio-political commentator.

And everyone has to agree with Del: “Have you seen the interview she did on Channel 4 with Cathy Newman and Rod Liddle? If you are capable of watching the video to the end and not reacting in the visceral way that Mike Fabricant did, then you are frankly weird or so incorrigibly left-liberal/rampantly feminist that you have completely lost touch with what it is to be human and normal and honest”.

He proposes giving Fabbers a medal: “Far from being censured, Fabricant ought surely to be praised for illustrating in his tweet the wise restraint which forms the basis of civilisation ... [he] is offering an eminently practical solution to the problem of his beast within: he is vowing never to come within interview distance of someone as intensely irritating as Yasmin Alibhai-Brown for fear of what he might do”.

And it’s not about the Tory MP: “This is not really about Fabricant. Nor is it about the content of his tweet. It's about an increasingly shrill, co-ordinated, left-leaning, professional grievance lobby which exploits confected outrages like this in order to destabilise its enemies and advance its politically correct agenda”. I can see Del waving his patented “air quotes” already.

There is no news value in Del Boy’s rant, and nor is there any comment value. We’ve been here before: constructing the mythical “liberal-left” strawman only to knock it down in a mock triumphalist barrage of sneering and sundry bullshit. The only value is to generate hits, and Delingpole will have to churn out a lot more of this if he wants to remain in the style to which he has become accustomed.

“Executive editor” sounds so much grander than “professional troll”, doesn’t it?

Mike Fabricant – You’re A Tosser

One can only marvel at the inclusiveness of today’s Tory Party: its ability to welcome into its ranks so many who have completed comprehensive dickish studies in the faculty of dickishness at Dickish University in the county of Dickishshire is without parallel. And one of the Tories’ greatest exponents of dickishness is an MP: step forward Mike Fabricant, who represents the unfortunate voters of Lichfield.

Mr Not Very Fab-Dabby-Dozy had observed a disagreement on the subject of “British Values” during a mildly heated debate on yesterday evening’s Channel 4 News, between Yasmin Alibhai-Brown and professional slob Rod Liddle, which ended with Ms Brown telling him “I have no words for how much I loathe you”. Fabricant took to Twitter to voice his dislike of her.

“I could never appear on a discussion programme with [Yasmin Alibhai-Brown]. I would either end up with a brain haemorrhage or by punching her in the throat”. Well, that’s intercoursing subtle and no mistake. Cathy Newman, who had refereed the bout in question, attempted a little gentle persuasion: “do you want to rephrase that?” she hinted. Then the house came in on him.

Miriam O’Reilly was not impressed: “‘Punching her in the throat’ – have you lost your mind – you are an MP!” then adding “Let me take a guess at how ‘punching her in the throat’ will go down with the women in your Lichfield constituency”. Jenny Jones was of like mind: “Wow, a bit thin skinned for an MP? And a bit of a dinosaur thinking violence solves anything?” Then the pundits arrived.

James Chapman of the Mail warned “best withdraw the latter part of that one pronto Michael”. Do we have a Guardian person in the house? You betcha, says Sarah: Zoe Williams concurred “I am genuinely sickened by your remarks about Yasmin Alibhai-Brown. This is just thuggishness. This isn’t politics”. So, with a media consensus breaking out, it was time for Fabbers to say sorry. Perhaps.

“Just out of dentist” he told [I somehow figured out it wasn’t a hair appointment]. “It appears that some people who don’t know me think I actually go round punching ‘in the throat’. Not true”. Say sorry, Mike. “If anyone seriously believes I would threaten anyone with violence, I of course withdraw and apologise”. No, apologise properly.

“I am afraid I know I would get very angry if I had been on the Channel 4 debate last night. Glad it was Rod Liddle and not me”. Say sorry, Mike. “So just for the avoidance of any doubt: I am v sorry for Tweet. It was wrong to joke about punching and I completely withdraw and apologise”. So eventually, but only after, it seems, the idiot was threatened with having the Tory whip withdrawn.

Yes, there goes Mike Fabricant, digging himself deeper while remaining deaf to reality – until he was forced to say sorry. What a weapons grade tosser.