David Wooding - Shove Your Integrity

After the Sunday Times editorial recently, which was little more than a veiled threat from Creepy Uncle Rupe that he was about to come looking for the judiciary, it was only a matter of time before the knocking copy and hatchet jobs began. And, to demonstrate that all the Murdoch titles can be caused to sing from the same hymnsheet, the first attack has come not in the Times, but the Sunday edition of the Sun.

That's what I think of youse bladdy judiciary, ya bladdy Pommie drongoes!

Here, David Wooding, who has the title “Sunday Political Editor”, has penned an article headlined “Exclusive: Judges In The Dock … GUILTY, M’LUDS”, where he tells readers “MORE than 400 judges have been disciplined for misconduct - some for breaking the law they are meant to uphold … A court chief has been sacked, carpeted or forced to resign every week since 2006”. And there were examples.

One judge had “Given money to [an] illegal immigrant”. Another had “Fallen asleep during a trial”, while a third had “Four speeding offences”. Is “Falling asleep during a trial” a breach of the law? Getting a speeding ticket is hardly a sacking offence, unless you get banned and driving is part of the job. And “giving money to an illegal immigrant”? Wooding gives the appearance of trying a little too hard here.

Journalist and author Peter Jukes was not persuaded. “After [Telegraph] debacle, [The Sun] fulfils the [Sunday Times] promise. Public interest or private hit job?” he Tweeted. Note that he did not tag Wooding in that Tweet. But The Great Man was clearly alert - perhaps a little too alert. “How dare you question my integrity. It was an FoI put in weeks ago. You’re no better than [the] dodgy journos you pontificate about” he frothed.

And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here. One, “Integrity” is a strange way to defend an article that gives the impression some of its content came from a few quick Google searches. And two, the information Wooding claims was the subject of an FoI request could easily have been obtained from a publicly available source - the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office.

This would have given Wooding, or whoever was obtaining the information, those post-2006 figures. It is bizarre that the Sunday Sun has gone to all the trouble of putting in FoI requests for information that is openly available - unless there was either some other purpose to the exercise, or those undertaking that exercise did not know what on earth they were doing. Integrity indeed.

And David Wooding fails to address Peter Jukes’ point: as Private Eye might have put it, after considering the Sunday Times editorial with its implicit threat, and Wooding’s hatchet job on the judiciary, “I wonder if the two are in any way related? I think we should be told”. David Wooding proudly holds aloft his integrity, but the Murdoch Sundays give every appearance of undertaking an organised campaign.

In any case, nobody questioned Wooding’s integrity. Until he protested rather too much.

It’s The Last Straw, Jack

Retiring MP Jack Straw, who will bid farewell to his Blackburn constituency in May, has always been a great fan of surveillance. When the Guardian ran with the Snowden revelations, he was dismissive: “I'm not suggesting for a moment anybody in the Guardian gratuitously wants to risk anybody's life. But what I do think is that their sense of power of having these secrets and excitement – almost adolescent excitement – about these secrets has gone to their head”.

And he was keen on greater Internet monitoring powers: “The letter was signed by former Labour home secretaries Jack Straw, David Blunkett and Alan Johnson, along with former Conservative home secretary Lord Baker and defence secretary Lord King, and Liberal Democrat Lord Carlile, who until 2011 was the independent reviewer of government anti-terror laws” reported the BBC in the wake of Lee Rigby’s murder.

Yes, Straw was in step with Alex Carlile, the spooks’ apologist of choice, who foresaw terrible consequences from the Guardian telling the world that GCHQ had an internal intranet with a notice board for sports clubs. Whatever next? There should be lots of snooping powers. But, for Straw, there were clearly limits to this kind of thing.

And those limits included the kind of surveillance that got Straw stung by an investigation which will be airing on Channel 4 very soon, where the former Foreign Secretary proudly tells that his going rate is a mere £5,000 a day. He and another former Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, later told that “they have broken no rules after being secretly filmed apparently offering their services to a private company for cash”.

Straw was, it seems, “mortified” that someone other than the spooks was keen on the kind of surveillance which you have nothing to fear if you have nothing to hide. He may have some difficulty with this observation, though: “It is claimed that Mr Straw was recorded describing how he operated ‘under the radar’ and had used his influence to change EU rules on behalf of a firm which paid him £60,000 a year”.

This may not be improper conduct. But it gives off a distinctly ripe smell. And the only saving grace in this unsavoury reminder of stings past is that not only is Straw on his way out, but also that Mil The Younger moved quickly to do two things: ensure Straw lost the Labour whip, and write to Young Dave “challenging him to follow Labour’s lead in banning MPs from holding paid directorships or consultancies”.

That, as Spike Milligan might have put it, puts Cameron in A Very Difficult Position: Rifkind was due to stand for re-election in Kensington and Chelsea in May, hasn’t stood down from the Intelligence Committee, had the whip removed rather later than Straw, and has told the BBC’s Daily Politics that “I want to have a standard of living that my professional background would normally entitle me to have”. Way to go with the circumspection there.

Miliband has seized the advantage once more. But this is a singularly unsavoury business.

Hugh Grant Proved Right

[Update at end of post]

This morning, the BBC Radio 4 Today programme invited actor and campaigner Hugh Grant to visit the studio and discuss the issue that has caused much indignation among the Fourth Estate - that of the Police’s enthusiasm for rather too much use of the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA) so they can find out where hacks are getting information that was offered to them in confidence.

Surveillance, which was nothing to fear when the deeply subversive Guardian exposed the true extent of the spooks’ overreach, was suddenly A Very Bad Thing Indeed, and this was not just because it had caused the Sun’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn to end up covered in rather more than confusion - perish the thought! The Press Gazette Save Our Sources campaign followed, and amendments to the law have been tabled.

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, there is a difference between actually participating in the process of getting those amendments worded and tabled, and just reporting on the process. It seems that Newton Dunn, seeing that the likes of Evan Harris were involved in the former, decided to belittle his work, which of course has nothing to do with Evan being part of the Hacked Off campaign, oh no.

When Grant discussed the amendments to RIPA, it was inevitable that Newton Dunn’s comments would be raised. He responded honestly that he had not been part of the process, but it was his understanding that the Sun man had very little involvement. For this analysis, he was then pilloried not only by Newton Dunn, who saw his stock falling at an alarmingly rapid rate, but also by someone who knew absolutely nothing about it.

“Predictably, Hugh Grant has got himself in a pickle about RIPA on [Radio 4 Today] for not knowing the facts” blustered Newton Dunn in an effort to stop his cock dropping off. He was then assisted in his hole-digging enterprise by the odious flannelled fool Henry Cole, tame gofer to the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines at the Guido Fawkes blog, who chirped “Hugh Grant car crash on Today programme. Made a huge allegation re [Tom Newton Dunn] then admits he doesn’t know details … ‘I wasn’t there’”.

Sadly for Master Cole, Hugh Grant knew enough detail, and the flannelled fool, er, didn’t, as Evan Harris then explained. “It is true. [Tom Newton Dunn] reported every key step of the policy & Parliamentary work I was doing to amend RIPA. Fair journalism … On RIPA reform, only Press Gazette, Sun ([Tom Newton Dunn] & team) & Guardian reported it accurately. Kudos there. The actual reform not their work”.

So Hugh Grant, in saying that Newton Dunn didn’t actually have much to do with the RIPA reform, was absolutely right. Tom Newton Dunn was being, at the very least, disingenuous, and Master Cole was, as so often in the past, talking out of the back of his neck. He should apologise to Grant. But he isn’t big enough to do so.

Hacked Off prove once again that, when it comes to press freedom, they not only talk the talk, but walk the walk. The Sun and their pals at the Fawkes blog, sadly, don’t.

[UPDATE 24 February 1405 hours: the Mail has decided to join in the organised attack on Hugh Grant, because he challenged the paper and its management at the Leveson Inquiry, which means Paul Dacre has his name on a permanent blacklist.

"In an outburst of fiction worthy of his most far-fetched romantic comedies, Hugh Grant claims Hacked Off deserves the credit for yesterday’s rule change, under which police will need a judge’s authority to trawl journalists’ phone records" scoffs Daily Mail Comment, the authentic voice of the Vagina Monologue. And, to no surprise at all, there's more.

"In fact, the review by the Interception of Communications Commissioner, which led to the change, was ordered the day after the Mail on Sunday revealed how police had abused anti-terrorism powers to seize its newsdesk’s phone records in order to identify a confidential contact". Coincidence does not equal causation, but do go on.

"From that moment, every national newspaper – this one most vigorously – campaigned for the changes, publicly and in submissions to the Home Office". Yeah, right. What Hugh Grant claimed was that Hacked Off was central to drafting changes to the law - which it was. The Mail was just expending righteous hot air.

All that these attacks do is to prove that Hacked Off is upsetting the larger part of the Fourth Estate, which would rather it shut up and go away, leaving the press to behave just as it did when it hacked, blagged, snooped, and bullied its way around. The group will not, and Dacre will have to deal with that]

Boris Johnson - Pants On Fire

Those who look in regularly on Zelo Street will recall the trip made at the end of last month by London’s occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to the eastern part of Turkey - just the odd thousand and a bit miles away from the area he was elected to serve - and the exclusive he gave the Sun’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn, telling that “Jihadis are just a bunch of wankers”.

Gosh readers, there's a burning smell! Oo-er!! Yikes!!!

Bozza’s not at all brilliant reasoning was that those who had piled off to join ISIS, or whatever it’s calling itself this week, were unable to avail themselves of female company - unlike Himself Personally Now - and so had to resort to twanging the wire in the privacy of their own bedrooms, accompanied only by a dirty book and a hanky. Not surprisingly, there was much adverse comment on Bozza’s allegations of log-flogging.

Some of this criticism was published by the deeply subversive Guardian, prompting Bozza to return to the Super Soaraway Currant Bun to register his displeasure. The dubiously researched product from Rupe’s downmarket troops is secreted away behind a paywall, but an enterprising source has taken a screen shot (see how that works, Rupe?), which tells me that Bozza is in urgent need of the nearest fire extinguisher.

“I meant no disrespect to the world’s wankers, who presumably number the blissful majority of the human race … but I certainly did intend to be rude about Jihadis” he explains, before telling “So I was utterly amazed to be attacked, on the front page of the Guardian, by a woman claiming to be from the Muslim Council of Britain. She said I had been offensive to Muslims. How the hell can that be so?”

There was more, I’m afraid: “My great-grandfather was a proud Muslim. He knew the Koran by heart. If the Muslim Council of Britain, or someone purporting to speak for them, cannot see the distinction between peace-loving Muslims and the kind of headcases who are drawn to the conflict in Syria and Iraq, we are all in trouble”. Not as much in trouble as the idiots who didn’t read the Guardian article, and didn’t check Bozza’s copy.

That article, under the joint by-lines of Frances Perraudin and Shiv Malik, did not include comments from anyone connected to the Muslim Council of Britain. The two contacted were Charlie Winter from the Quilliam Foundation, which counters and challenges extremism, and Mohammed Khaliel of community cohesion organisation Islamix. So Bozza got the wrong gender as well as the wrong organisation.

Boris Johnson made it all up. His allegations against the Guardian are a straight-A pack of lies. Worse, either nobody at the Sun checked it, or they applied the principle of Kelvin McFilth and just chucked it in anyway. Now, the Sun telling whoppers is only to be expected. But for a politician who, despite his driving the issue around the houses, would rather like to be Prime Minister, that’s not good enough.

Bozza’s trouser replacement bill must be pretty steep. Because that’s another pair on fire.

CCHQ - Absolute Shower

Party loyalty can mean many things: being selective with the facts, sticking to the script even when proved wrong, digging dirt on opponents, being creative in order to make your side look better, and if all else fails telling whoppers to the point that you become a parody of yourself. All of these behaviours can be seen by the perpetually shameless crowd at the Conservative Party’s Central Headquarters (CCHQ).

Of course, CCHQ can, when the occasion dictates, display the highest principle, especially when trying to occupy the moral high ground in order to kick their opponents. But the kinds of dirty tricks they deplore in others can come in handy, and here we see the barrel-scraping at its worst. One of those subjects that should be a no-go area in politics is to juxtapose Jewish people and marionettes. Not CCHQ, though.

How low can you go?

There they were last Thursday, depicting Mil The Younger as a marionette. One wonders if they paid Disney for the use of the still from Pinocchio. Given the lack of a credit on that Tweet, probably not. The thought also occurs that there is a difference between union members casting votes, and unions actually buying the Labour leadership, but at CCHQ, one need not be accurate and honest, merely on-message.

Then there is advertising favourable news coverage, and especially news coverage that is not news coverage at all. So the following day came the citing of a Daily Mail piece claiming that Labour was split, because splits are A Very Bad Thing for any party. The article’s sub-headings told “Factionalism is growing in party and the top is bitterly divided into camps … Miliband is surrounded by 'clappers' and they are pitted against ‘Ballsites' … Problem for Ed is that some of his 'clappers' are at war with each other”.

Laugh? I thought I’d never start. The article was written by Andrew Pierce, whose Twitter handle is @ToryBoyPierce. Pierce is an unashamedly proud Tory. The piece, dishonestly claiming that Miliband’s staff used the “Dowler Moment” words - they didn’t - is not news. It is a typically catty opinion piece about some of Labour’s staffers.

But such spin is highly effective, especially when so much of the press leans towards The Blue Team. And so it came to pass that the Murdoch Sunday Times decided to run its own version of Pierce’s “split”, claiming that knives were out for “Auguste” Balls, just as they weren’t for Miliband three weeks ago. There was a Miliband-Balls rift, and it was worse than the one between Tone and Pa Broon, honestly.

What CCHQ did not tell was that their pal Pierce had started the idea rolling before the weekend, possibly with their assistance (Pierce has, in the past, had difficulty producing wholly original copy). But they were sure that Miliband and Balls were called the “Ed aches”, or were at “Logger Eds”. There’s still two and a half months to go, and already the factual information is running out. And the humour ain’t making it.

To push this kind of dishonesty, you really need an absolute shower. And that’s just what CCHQ has got. If only the electorate was taking any notice.

Telegraph - No Rest For The Wicked

If the dwindling band of hacks and pundits at the Telegraph thought that the ruckus generated by the gratuitous attack copy aimed at the Guardian, Times, BBC, and anyone else whose name could be recalled was going to recede, they had another think coming with today’s papers. The condemnation over reporting two alleged suicides of News UK employees has made sure of that.

Laughing all the way to HSBC, allegedly

On today’s edition of The Andy Marr Show (tm), former spinmeister Alastair Campbell, with his mental health campaigning hat on, was particularly severe on the Tel for its reporting. When Big Al considers an issue important enough to take time out from his bashing the Tories, you know it’s important. The problem seems to be, as I observed yesterday, that nobody is present on the bridge of the SS Telegraph to do anything about it.

This has been echoed by former Guardian editor Peter Preston, who asked “Why on Earth was Peter Oborne, doughty political columnist, trooping back and forth to the chief executive’s office complaining about black holes and white flags?” His conclusion was that “the damning fact is that – lost in the melee of digital change, buried by the Barclay brothers’ indifference – the Telegraph doesn’t have an editor any longer”.

There are “directors of content”, a “digital content director”, a “director of audience development”, and a “director of transformation and talent”, but when Tony Gallagher was sent down the road, he was not replaced. So the head of advertising is allowed free rein to stick his bugle in on the editorial floor, and where that leads was made only too clear with Oborne’s departure amid silence on HSBC.

Nobody stops the impromptu ordering of attack pieces, so after the successful intervention of whoever instructed the hacks to invent the “Guardian changes headline because Apple” story, the yet more malicious News UK attack was only a matter of time in coming. The Tel’s only response included “We are now putting in place guidelines on how our editorial and commercial departments should work within a modern multi-media environment”.

All of which is stuff all use unless there is someone calling the shots. There is no-one. So while there is condemnation for the failure to even mention the Samaritans’ media guidelines, the Tel is silent on the subject. That may prove harmful, if not fatal, because the rest of the press is anything but silent, and its mood is not sympathetic. One look at the concluding paragraph of today’s Observer editorial is all you need.

“In every business there’s pressure and scope for tragedy. But to equate these deaths [at News UK] with the decision – the commercial decision – to go easy on a big bank in trouble is gross far beyond any Fleet Street club. It demeans those who wrote it and those who ordered it. It will not be forgotten, or easily forgiven”. Meanwhile, as Iain Dale has told, the Tel has lost Brussels point man Bruno Waterfield - to News UK.

It’s not yet too late for the Telegraph. But sooner rather than later, that moment will come.

Miliband Attack Out Of Ideas

The attacks from the Tories, and their press allies, on Mil The Younger continue - but the originality is waning as the desperation increases. Nowhere can this be seen to better effect than in both the official Tory campaigning, and the efforts of those in the Northcliffe House bunker, both of whom are casting around for ideas. It’s looking as if it’s not only going to get dirty, but that it’s going to get boring as well.

Why is this man frightening so many press bosses?

Young Dave has enlisted the services of Lynton Crosby, on the strength of his being able to get his fellow Buller Man Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson into City Hall, and his work with the centre-right in Australian politics. After all, if he could get John Howard, who gives the impression of being a refugee from a Dilbert cartoon, elected, well, returning Cameron to 10 Downing Street should be a cake walk.

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the Crosby modus operandi has been rudely rumbled as it seems there has been some recycling of attack content from Down Under to produce the Tories’ latest Miliband bashing efforts. After adding two and two and correctly deducing that the answer to this is four, Labour’s Lucy Powell and her team are studying Lynt’s older Aussie stuff to see what may come next.

Things are little better over at the Mail, where Glen Owen has penned “Deafening silence of the Labour luvvies: Stars who came out for Brown at the last Election have yet to back Red Ed”, which tells “Ed Miliband appears to be struggling to win the endorsement of celebrities … J.K. Rowling and singer Lily Allen silent on whether they will be backing Ed ... The former Doctor Who actor David Tennant has not yet offered his opinion”.

The approach here was to contact a number of former Labour supporters, then when the Mail was refused a comment, infer that this meant Miliband was in trouble. This fails to take into account the distinct possibility that spokespersons for Jo Rowling and Lily Allen (for instance) would refuse comment not because of any lack of commitment, but because they saw the Mail coming and won’t play its game.

Just how desperate this idea really is was exposed when the article revealed that no comment had been received from Alex Ferguson, with the suggestion that this showed he was not supporting Miliband. As any fule kno, the former Manchester United manager is an unswerving Labour supporter. Saying “Despite persistent approaches from this newspaper, previously pro-Labour stars were conspicuously silent” hides the real reason for silence.

All those contacted will by now be familiar with the treatment given to Labour donor John Mills three weeks ago, where his comments to a reporter were selectively twisted to support the false story alleging that there were “Knives Out” for Miliband. Mills did not think that putting the phone down, even on the Mail, was the right thing to do, despite the shabby treatment he received. But today’s piece suggests supporters are getting close.

The result is desperate knocking copy. If Miliband is so bad, why so scared of him?

Top Six - February 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 places to go and people to see later. So there.

6 Ant And Dec’s Tax Avoidance Takeaway Why would these two cheeky chappies not be keen on supporting a party that plans to get tough on tax avoidance? Got it in one.

5 Owen Jones - Twitter Dirty Tricks Someone bought Jones thousands of fake Twitter followers. Then the Guido Fawkes rabble found out about it before the fakes could be cleared out, and ran an app which looked at recent followers. They then ran an item claiming that Jones’ followers were 96% fake. I opined that, on the balance of probabilities, this was not a coincidence. Paul Staines then threatened legal action.

4 Paedo Email Smears - Someone’s Lying Tom Watson picked up on remarks made over lunch to his fellow Labour MP Chris Bryant by Matthew Holehouse of the Telegraph. The paper later downplayed the idea that someone at CCHQ was planning a “paedophile smear” campaign, but Kevin Maguire of the Mirror recalled something very similar.

3 Toby Young’s Missing School Accounts The West London Free School, domain of the loathsome Tobes, had, it appears, significant gaps in its accounts reconciliations and management accounts. This is important - because it’s our money he’s spending.

2 UKIP - Propaganda Arm Busted The response of Bloggers 4 UKIP to the Channel 4 docudrama UKIP - The First Hundred Days was appallingly dishonest. So was their response to me, in addition to being cheerfully defamatory.

1 A Bully And A Hypocrite The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines has created the myth of not being concerned with the UK’s oppressive libel laws. The reality is that he is a libel bully, a hypocrite, and an unprincipled charlatan. And in threatening to sue me, he has been duly exposed as one. Another fine mess.

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

Telegraph Breaks Its Own Rules

[Update at end of post]

The Editors’ Code Of Conduct, taken forward from the now-defunct Press Complaints Commission (PCC) to the so-called Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) goes into some detail on the reporting of deaths. Moreover, it goes into detail on the subject of reporting suicides. And, following today’s Telegraph story on the apparent suicide of two News UK employees, many will be scanning those details.

Good to see the owners taking the Telegraph seriously

You can see the code guidelines HERE. The Tel’s article does not fare well when subjected to the kinds of questions shown in “Reporting Suicide” on Pages 48 to 51. For instance, “Were insensitive and unnecessary details published about the death?” In the case of the two News UK employees, there appears to have been no justification for publishing any detail of the deaths - including that they were apparently suicides.

It gets worse: the Editors’ Code stresses the need not to publish anything that might lead to others taking their own lives. The mere suggestion that working in this kind of environment might lead to severe stress - by suggesting that workers are pressured to meet targets - together with also suggesting that suicide and press organisations are in some way linked, may do just that.

And within the Code itself - see Page 92 - we see the all-important Public Interest tests. Just going ahead and saying “two people committed suicide when in the service of News UK” has no public interest whatever. Two office workers taking their own lives cannot in itself justify such a story. There would, though, be a possible defence if it could be seen that News UK was pressuring its staff in an unreasonable manner.

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, the Telegraph article, because it is, apart from the fact of the two deaths, complete conjecture, cannot hope to demonstrate anything approaching unreasonable treatment of workers. The only factual information in that area has come from News UK, and describes procedures that see staff talking with supervisors on at least a weekly basis.

So when looking at the Editors’ Code test, “Whenever the public interest is invoked, the Regulator will require editors to demonstrate fully that they reasonably believed that publication, or journalistic activity undertaken with a view to publication, would be in the public interest and how, and with whom, that was established at the time”, the Telegraph is likely to come up short. A long way short.

The attack on the Guardian, pretending that there was a commercial arrangement with Apple which influenced publication, was just cheap, although probably within the Code. The article about News UK appears to be not merely gratuitous, but in breach of the Editors’ Code on as many as three counts. It would, of course, be unique for another paper to complain, but if one of the families does, the Tel may be in deep shit.

They could just pull the article, own up and say sorry. That is, if anyone is on the bridge.

[UPDATE 22 February 1205 hours: as Carl Eve has kindly pointed out, only the coroner can officially pronounce on suicide. And it seems that the inquests on the deaths of the two News UK employees has not yet taken place.

This is important because the Editors' Code guidelines on suicide reporting talk about being "Tougher than the law". The clear conclusion is that calling a death as a suicide should therefore not be considered until there is a coroner's ruling in place.

So that makes a potential fourth case in which the Editors' Code may have been breached. It will be interesting to see the Tel's explanation for that]

Amanda Platell, Phoney Christian

After the Archbishop of Canterbury expressed his “deep regret and sorrow” 70 years after the bombing of Dresden, this did not take long to be deliberately mistranslated as an “apology” by the right-leaning part of the press. When the Church of England then passed adverse comment on some aspects of life in the UK today, that brought the immediate - and wrong - assumption that it was an attack on the Tories.

The stuff of nightmares

In the Northcliffe House bunker, the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre appears to have been apoplectic: Wednesday’s Daily Mail Comment, the authentic voice of the Vagina Monologue, thundered “Instead of commenting on Britain’s disgraceful treatment of its old people, they offer half-baked thoughts on economics, attacking the Government’s austerity programme for spreading ‘insecurity and anxiety’, while (yawn!) blaming Margaret Thatcher’s market revolution for ‘fragmenting social solidarity at many levels’”.

So it was no surprise that the Mail’s Glenda Emeritus, Amanda Bloody Platell, should take the idea that the C of E was full of rotten lefties as the lead topic for her characteristically catty Saturday sermon, telling “it was with surprise and dismay that … I read the 52-page letter from our Church's bishops, advising us electorate to vote Labour. For though it claimed to be impartial, the letter was little more than a Left-wing manifesto”.

Terrible, eh? Do go on (as if she needs any encouragement). “And where does the responsibility lie for such blatant politicking? I fear with the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby … As for his bishops' letter, where was any mention of the issues that are truly undermining Christian values in Britain today: abandonment of the elderly, the scourge of internet porn and drugs, the undermining of the traditional family?”

Let’s take just one of those topics: Amanda Platell has no room to talk about internet porn, having conned the Daily Mail’s readership something rotten in an apparent exposé of such things back in May 2013, only for it to be revealed that the young woman being allegedly abused was not underage, as she suggested, but over 18.

And if we’re going to talk about the Church being concerned for the less well off, which was the general thrust of what the C of E was talking about last week, perhaps Ms Platell, who claims to have been a regular churchgoer for over 50 years, would care to inspect Luke Chapter 4, verses 18 and 19.

“The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me; he has sent me to announce good news to the poor, to proclaim release for prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind; to let the broken victims go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour”.

Perhaps she might also consider Luke Chapter 5, verses 20 and 21.

“Blessed are you who are in need; the kingdom of God is yours. Blessed are you who now go hungry; you will be satisfied”.

Yet Amanda Platell has attended Church for more than half a century and somehow missed the point. Not only is this another grossly un-Christian and appallingly catty column, it exposes her as a phoney. So ideal Daily Mail pundit material, then.

Telegraph In Meltdown

When I called Peter Oborne, who departed the Telegraph very publicly this week, the “Last canary in the mine”, I was unaware how prescient the comparison would prove. Since Oborne left, every criticism he made of the Tel has been proved correct and justified, and in spades. This proof has come not from former employees, or even rival newspapers, but the actions of the Tel itself. The stench of poison has flooded the mine.

Murdoch MacLennan

Following Oborne’s exit, the Tel went on a bizarre rant accusing the Guardian and BBC of being behind an attempt to bring down Young Dave. This sub-Daily Mail self-parody for some reason also accused the Murdoch Times of being in on the plot. All were claimed to have been at work behind the scenes. The only criticism it failed to address, apart from merely gainsaying it, was that from Oborne - who was the first one to criticise.

It got worse: there then appeared an attack on the Guardian, claiming “Guardian ‘changed Iraq article to avoid offending Apple’”. Note the quotation marks. Note also the sub-heading: “Guardian facing series of allegations from insiders over its relationship with advertisers, including suggestions that it changed an article on Iraq amid concerns that Apple might object”. And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here.

One, there is no evidence to back up the headline - hence the quote marks. The “objection” from Apple is entirely fictional. The “allegations” are from “insiders”, which could mean nothing more than someone from the Tel who went round to King’s Place once for a job interview. And two, to put the lid on this hokum, nobody at the Tel was prepared to put their name on the by-line. The story is attributed to “Daily Telegraph reporter”.

That was bad, but today has brought something far, far worse: the Tel “has published an anonymous story on its front page suggesting that two suicides at a rival newspaper could be connected to pressure to hit commercial targets”. The article “said News UK, which publishes papers including the Times and the Sun, had launched an internal investigation into the deaths”. Anonymous. Could be. Look over there.

News UK has confirmed that the deaths were unconnected, and has pointed out that its HR procedures are robust - which would be expected in such an organisation. But why run this story, which is not only barrel-scraping of the lowest kind, but potentially a flagrant breach of the Editor’s Code of Conduct? Does the Telegraph brand not mean anything to Murdoch MacLennan and his team? Is anyone on the bridge?

The attack on News UK has been universally condemned - especially by Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. Thus far the remaining big-name columnists have remained silent. All eyes are now on Charles Moore, the Tel’s former editor and the title’s conscience, and of course London’s occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. Will Bozza keep on scoring that £250k a year “chicken feed” now?

A once great newspaper is disintegrating before our eyes. This is not going to end well.

UKIP - One Under Parr

Following my passing adverse comment on Bloggers 4 UKIP, and the highly personal and cheerfully defamatory response from one Stuart Parr, Zelo Street has been looking a little more closely at this individual and his not always savoury pronouncements. And the conclusion has to be that the person who described Parr as “councillor, former Lib Dem supporter, and twat” was suffering from a case of severe understatement.

Parr is only moderately bonkers on subjects like HS2, where he has told his adoring public that “The Technical Director of HS2, Andrew McNaughton, has confirmed that direct rail connections to London on the West Coast Main Line will be reduced”. Sadly, his obedient support of this week’s UKIP railway policy links to the Stop HS2 site run by Joe Rukin, who has been caught with pants on fire by Paul Bigland.

Parr says of HS2 “the UK leg of the European Integrated Network to give it its proper name”. That would be difficult, considering it would not, at least at first, be connected to HS1 and therefore not connected to any European network. Does he subscribe to the idea that the EU is forcing us to build it? After all, once you’ve swallowed some of the Kipper Kool-Aid, you might as well finish the bottle.

But it is on his apparent sympathy for the far-right where Parr gives the impression of being even more embarrassing to Nigel “Thirsty” Farage than the average Kipper. He recently upbraided the BBC for allegedly referring to the EDL as “far-right”: “the EDL is not a political party, nor is it a political organisation.  It has no political ideology at all and campaigns only against Islamification and unfettered immigration” he asserted.

He also demanded to know “Why do you mis-label left wing organisations such as the BNP as ‘far right”” before losing it altogether and wibbling “I appreciate that the BBC is awash with Guardian-reading communists”. But it is his commentary on followers of The Prophet where Parr really loses the plot, and this, together with apparent sympathy for both the EDL and BNP, once again reflects poorly on UKIP.

In a post titled “Schools advised to cancel swimming lessons for Ramadan”, he concludes “Despite the best efforts of some, the muslim breeding programme hasn’t yet provided a majority muslim population in England and until it does there is no reason why the lives of so many people should be disrupted to accommodate the religious choices of a minority of the population”. You read that right.

On top of all that, Parr, in the days before he got the Kipper habit, described UKIP propaganda as “the usual inconsistent xenophobic crap … stops me from taking UKIP seriously at all”. So he says UKIP literature is crap, sympathises with the BNP and EDL, and talks of a “Muslim breeding programme”. He is still allowed to stand for elective office under the UKIP banner. And some Kippers wonder why they don’t get taken seriously.

Stuart Parr is a joke. As such, he’s an ideal UKIP activist.

Press Gazette - Source Blindness

After it was revealed that the Police had caused phone companies to hand over sufficient information for them to be able to identify the sources of the Sun’s non-bullying political editor Tom Newton Dunn, the penny finally dropped, and there was much righteous outrage against the surveillance state, of the kind that was conspicuously absent when the deeply subversive Guardian tried to alert the world about the same kind of thing.

Speak up press chappies, we can't quite hear you

Then, other papers - the Telegraph was particularly sanctimonious in this matter - told that those who had reported on the Snowden revelations should be subjected to the full force of the law - which law was conveniently not specified - and severely adverse comment was passed on the decisions of Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger. No-one, at this stage, had anything to fear, so long as the Sun wasn’t on the wrong end of it.

Fortunately the wake up call was then taken forward by Press Gazette, with its Save Our Sources initiative: “Press Gazette’s campaign to protect confidential journalistic sources launched following the publication of the Met Police’s 56-page Operation Alice Closing Report on the Plebgate affair”. And there was more.

“Press Gazette picked up on a detail in the report that revealed the force had secretly seized the telephone phone records of The Sun’s newsdesk and political editor to track down police officers who lawfully leaked details of former Government chief whip Andrew Mitchell’s altercation outside 10 Downing Street. Save Our Sources called for action to ensure that police could no longer view journalists’ phone records without the approval of a judge”. And, as Jon Stewart might have said, two things here.

One, why did Press Gazette wait until it was the Sun on the wrong end of the rozzers’ attention?  When the cops went to King’s Place to try and put the frighteners on Rusbridger and his journalists, where were they? Where was the campaign when David Miranda was grilled at Heathrow and his property seized? Why not launch that campaign when the spooks ordered the Guardian to destroy two of its computers?

And two, while we’re talking about the Murdoch empire, and saving sources, when is Press Gazette going to campaign on behalf of all those hacks being shopped to the Police as a result of News UK’s Management and Standards Committee handing over evidence which is now being used to prosecute them through the courts? By all means let’s preserve journalists’ sources - and make it all sources, no ifs, no buts.

I see that the Save Our Sources campaign “has been made a finalist in the British Media Awards' editorial campaign of the year category, alongside BBC Worldwide, The Guardian and Vice among others”, and made a finalist for the Paul Foot Award, “organised by Private Eye and the Guardian”. In the latter case at least, it is to be hoped that those questions will be asked and answers sought.

Protection of sources without fear or favour means all of them. With no exceptions.

A Bully And A Hypocrite

The myth of Paul Staines, perpetually thirsty founder of the Guido Fawkes blog, is built on his being a libertarian and free speech advocate who eschews resort to libel laws which he considers oppressive. As the Independent put it recently, “His normal reaction to real or imagined attacks is not to make legal threats but to use his blog or Twitter for counterattack”. His testimony to the Leveson Inquiry amplified this.

Behold the face of cowardice and hypocrisy

“Humour plays some part in our success …  We campaign on issues we feel strongly about, mainly political hypocrisy, lying and dishonesty …  Editors, pundits and journalists are surprisingly thin skinned and there is much sport to be had in teasing and taunting prominent media figures”. As to legal action, “We have repeatedly ignored injunctions and orders issued in the UK courts”. This is sanctimonious claptrap.

I can say this with confidence because, following the Zelo Street blogpost “Owen Jones - Twitter Dirty Tricks”, my inbox was in receipt of what is known as a Nastygram late last Sunday. In order to save readers the longeurs of this letter, I quote merely extracts from it. Staines did not get off to a good start, calling the blog “Xelo Street”.

Then came “This letter is marked as being ‘Strictly Private & Confidential’ and ‘Not For Publication’. The content of this letter cannot be published, directly or indirectly, by you or at your behest to any third party, other than a lawyer retained by you for the purposes of obtaining legal advice in connection with this letter or the Court, and any publication of this letter (or any part of it) other than as expressly permitted above shall amount to actionable infringement of our copyright, together with constituting further aggravation of the damage suffered as a consequence of your ill­ advised acts”.

Thus the second time recently that the Fawkes rabble have resorted to copyright threats - this is the blog that lifted Peter Oborne’s resignation statement from the Open Democracy website without, er, acknowledging copyright, despite a request to do so.

Staines goes on “I usually ignore your frequent articles referring to me as your imaginative speculation often brings light relief”. Doesn’t make sense. Well, it was late on Sunday evening. Yes, the great libertarian apparently either has a lawyer on call at that time, or has a pro-forma Nastygram ready to go. Can you smell hypocrisy?

What was that about his reputation?

And then came Staines’ clinching argument: “aside from my role at Guido Fawkes, I am an investor in and developer of a number of internet oriented businesses. The baseless accusation that I engaged or engage in wrongdoing of the nature alleged and/or implied by you … goes to the very heart of damaging my business reputation. Metrics, particularly online reach, being a key part of any internet business. To that end, I cannot this time allow you to act unchallenged without any regard for my reputation”.

Reputation. That’s what it’s all about. The slob who got himself kicked out of the IoD recently for being drunk is worried about his reputation. And there were demands: “You are on notice and should immediately remove entirely the article … You should apologise, publicly, in writing … You should undertake unequivocally and in writing not to repeat … This should be done by midday tomorrow (Monday 16 February, 2015)”.

I declined his requests.

On Tuesday morning, Staines was back on the attack: “If you refuse to withdraw this false allegation and make clear that you have no evidence that I had any role in this affair, you leave me little choice. My preference is to settle this with a written correction rather than via Court.  As someone who has been involved in many defamation disputes over the years I have no desire to initiate another with all the associated costs and hours wasted”.

What happened to that deadline? Who knows. And, indeed, who cares? But Staines was not getting his correction. And, to let him know that he was not the only one taking this matter seriously, Tamsin Allen of Bindmans (she features in Nick Davies’ excellent new book Hack Attack, and if you want to know the detail, GO AND BUY A COPY) wrote to him to put him straight. Here is what she wrote.

“We are instructed by Tim Fenton to respond to your letter of 15 February 2015 which you claim to be a letter conforming to the Pre Action Protocol for Defamation. The letter states that words in the article are an ‘actionable defamation’ and you demand that our client, within one day, remove the words, apologise publicly and undertake not to repeat them. You then go on to indicate that you will issue libel proceedings if these steps are not taken and that you will seek to recover legal costs (and, inevitably, damages) from our client.

We are very surprised at your decision to threaten libel proceedings against our client. You clearly do not consider your own writing to be bound by UK libel laws, (see for example your blog post about press regulation ‘None of the forthcoming regulations will make a blind bit of difference to me. I realised early on that the British libel laws were too oppressive and based the Guido Fawkes Blog site offshore from the outset. Lord Black’s draft proposal on behalf of media proprietors for a contractually based regulator is not even designed to govern offshore sites like mine. In truth it would be in my commercial interest and distinct competitive advantage to see the British media heavily regulated, draconian privacy laws enacted and politically correct “media standards” enforced. All of which I would cheerfully ignore.’). You are, at least publicly, an advocate of free-speech and a vocal opponent of libel laws.

A large part of your letter is taken up by anxious attempts to prevent our client from publicising your letter. This section is no doubt an attempt to avoid the embarrassment you would face were your hypocrisy to be exposed. You are of course well-known for publishing confidential legal correspondence on your own blog.

Our client’s blog describes a practice whereby fake Twitter followers are bought. He explains that some politicians had used this practice and been exposed, and that some journalists had been subjected to a related practice where fake Twitter followers were bought by a third party and the journalist then falsely exposed. He speculated as to who was responsible for this in relation to Owen Jones’ account, described some coincidences involving you and your associates and said that his Occam’s razor concluded that Guido Fawkes was behind this. The words complained of are obviously comment. Occam’s razor is a fourteenth century philosophical principle which explains the probability or likelihood of a given explanation being correct. The use of the principle in this context indicates that the words following it are theories, opinions or hypotheses, not statements of facts. That applies to both versions of the statement.

Accordingly, our client does not consider it appropriate to remove the statement, or to apologise. He has already amended the word ‘conclude’ to ‘wonder if’ and he will now publish the following on his website [wording added to post].

We trust that this will be an end of the matter”.

There you have it: Paul Staines, ostensibly libertarian and free speech advocate, supposed outsider, but in reality an establishment sellout, a libel bully, a hypocrite, and an unprincipled charlatan. Another fine mess, once again.

[My sincere thanks to all at Bindmans, and others who have rallied to my cause this week. You know who you all are]