Andy Coulson’s defence: I didn’t believe Clive Goodman would pay police officers – thought he was exaggerating when he asked me to approve the cash. I still don’t believe he paid police officers No comment.
Day 93, Part 2: Andy Coulson, former editor of the News of the World, today gave his explanation for why he approved a reporter’s requests for cash payments to police officers.
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Fascinating that Andy Coulson can’t remember anything Dan Evans told him about phone hacking when he interviewed him for a job and never even suspected that convicted hacker Clive Goodman had employed Glenn Mulcaire, who admitted hacking voicemails.
Day 93, Part 1: Andy Coulson did not knowingly recruit a skilled phone-hacker to the News of the World, he told the Old Bailey today. Mr Coulson also denied Dan Evans played him a voicemail recording of a message he had intercepted from the phone of the actress Sienna Miller.
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Francis Maude: Actively encouraging off shoring Whitehall jobs
David Cameron and George Osborne have been boasting how many new jobs their new economic recovery has created.
What they haven’t told you is that their Cabinet colleagues are actively working to strip Britain of existing jobs and replace them with new cheap skate jobs overseas, including some countries which have high risks of riots and terrorist attacks. And further the new jobs will mean the transfer of personal data on staff, possibly police and criminal records and the transfer of patient details from GP to GP to a foreign country.
I have written about this in Tribune magazine this weekend. But the two ministers are being very crafty – they are leaving it to a private company to sack the former civil servants and transfer your records and appointing a man who can hold both a Whitehall job and a private sector post at the same time to hand the companies the power to do it.
Peter Swann: the man enabling Steria to outsource jobs to his own company’s high risk terrorist destination
His other simultaneous job is executive director of Aon Risk Solutions which in his words is famous for ” relocating corporate Head Office functions and aligning this strategy to Aon’s captive offshore arrangement and existing outsourcing contractual arrangements.”
To put it simply he is an outsourcing and off shore fanatic whose company has had a 43 per cent rise in dividends this year. Incidently his firm provides a Terrorist Tracking Tool and up to date world guide on the dangers of strikes, riots and terrorist attacks in dodgy foreign countries. Download the map here.
So it should be no surprise that within a year a French firm, Steria, have now taken over all the back room jobs for the Department of Work and Pensions, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and the Environment Agency and is now looking at bidding for the Home Office and the Ministry of Justice. Again the move is subtle, Whitehall has created a new UK company to do it, 75 per cent owned by the French. It came one year after the Department of Health ensured that Steria also took a majority holding in a NHS data company providing the ” invisible information” through NHS Shared Business Services, including patient information to GPs and clinical recall services.
And now Steria is arranging that jobs currently in Newport, Cardiff, Sheffield and Leeds are destined to be replaced by ones abroad and staff in Newcastle, Blackpool,Peterborough and York are facing the sack. An analysis of Steria’s accounts – which they are required to disclose under EU law- reveals that they make the most money out of their British operations – but their biggest off shore operation is in India with lesser ones in Morocco and Poland. They also derive 39 per cent of their income from the public sector,
So what will be Sheffield’s loss could well be Pune and Chennai in India’s gain. And here’s the irony Peter Swann’s company, Aon, rates India as a high risk country for riots, commotion and terrorism, while Sheffield is low risk. It is also amazing that to save money our justice secretary, Chris Grayling, and Cabinet Office minister, Francis Maude, are quite happy for Steria to do what they like with our personal data. I bet they don’t take such risks with their own personal security. Perhaps both of them should be removed to exile in Pune.
So Coulson’s jibe “Do his phone” is an instruction to check whether his mate Rav Singh was leaking News of the World stories to other papers.
Day 93, Part 2: Andy Coulson’s instruction “Do his phone” was not an instruction to hack a phone, he told the Old Bailey today.The former tabloid editor said that instead he was requesting a check of a reporter’s phone data to see if he was leaking the News of the World’s stories to rivals.
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So Andy Coulson did listen to hacked messages about David Blunkett but didn’t as editor know that phone hacking was illegal. And he now says he was shocked – senior minister having an affair with a married woman. Not something that Coulson would do himself, of course!
Day 92, Part 1: Andy Coulson listened to tapes of hacked phone messages from a Cabinet minister to his lover, believed they were gross intrusions into their privacy, but decided to publish a story based on them anyway, because he felt it was in the public interest and he did not know that phone hacking was illegal, he told a jury today.
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Andy Coulson rejects claims that he was a bully at the News of the World-instead he was appreciative of journalists’s talent and gave staff bonuses.
Day 91, Part 2:
Andy Coulson today denied a “bullying culture” took root at the News of the World under his editorship.
Giving evidence for a second day at the phone hacking trial, the editor-turned-Downing Street communications director said: “I am not a bully”.
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So Andy Coulson acting editor of the News of the World had NO knowledge that Glenn Mulcaire had hacked Milly Dowler’s voicemail. No comment!
Day 91, Part 1: Andy Coulson had no knowledge that the News of the World’s private detective had accessed Milly Dowler’s voicemail, he told the phone hacking trial today.
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Coulson says he didn’t know about Mulcaire until he was arrested and never took much of an interest in private investigators! The love cheat admits he caused pain to his wife with his “on off” affair with Rebekah Brooks!
Day 90, Part 2:
Andy Coulson had a vague memory of Glenn Mulcaire’s company being mentioned at the News of the World, but thought it was something to do with “finding people” or “surveillance,” he told the phone hacking trial today.
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An amazing piece of evidence revealing that they were up to 2,400 off pay roll people in the NHS was slipped into an inquiry by the House of Lords by the Department of Health last week.
The findings published today in a report by Exaro News reveals that as many NHS staff as Whitehall staff were avoiding paying tax and national insurance at source – bringing the total in government to nearly 5000 in 2012.
Now no doubt some people on short-term contracts can justify this but what is becoming increasingly clear from the evidence submitted by the Department of Health ( see page 91 onwards) that many do not.
The worst offenders appear to be high earners at the top of NHS Foundation Trusts – where over a third -51 out of 147 – had someone at the top avoiding paying tax and national insurance at source. Someone was even off pay roll and claiming a full pension from the taxpayer as well!
Monitor,the regulatory authority for NHS Foundation Trusts, is currently conducting an inquiry into exactly who is benefiting – and as a result numbers are shrinking.
But we don’t know yet whether Monitor is going to name and shame the trusts and the people taking advantage of this tax loophole. Well if the organisation has got any teeth it should be like the National Audit Office and publish a full and detailed report. Avoiding tax while working for the cash strapped NHS is particularly nasty and greedy and should be stamped out. Let’s see if Monitor is going to do its job.
Andy Coulson begins his defence by telling how reporters jealously guarded their contacts amid clashes over egos and rivalry across the newsroom
Day 90, Part 1:
The News of the World had a culture of “secrecy” and “intrigue” where reporters closely guarded their contacts, Andy Coulson told the phone hacking trial today.
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Westminster Confidential 