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Exclusive: Gotcha! Shocker Sun Tape Reveals the Real Rupe

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rupert murdoch picture courtesy of The Guardian

rupert murdoch picture courtesy of The Guardian

Today  I have  read a transcript and heard a rather sensational tape of Rupert Murdoch facing the music  for 45 minutes from his embattled Sun staffers and executives as his organisation hands over loads of information to the Met Police in the current hacking and bribery investigations.

Full amazing story is on Exaro at: http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5025/rupert-murdoch-secretly-admits-i-knew-about-bribing-officials

Exaro provided extracts of the audio to Channel Four News for a special report tonight and a  full transcript – suitably redacted to protect people for legal reasons – is on the Exaro website: http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5026/transcript-rupert-murdoch-recorded-at-meeting-with-sun-staff. Tomorrow you can hear 13 minutes of  the great man, sometimes angry, sometimes put out as a grown man sob about his plight at a private meeting inside  the mighty News International (now News UK) London  HQ. All will be revealed on the Exaro website.

In a series of extraordinary revelations the media mogul reveals:

He knew the practice of paying public officials had been going on for years at The Sun and the News of the World

He attacks Britain ‘s judges ( Lord Leveson watch out)  for being biased against News International and put his faith in juries to acquit them all.

He describes the Met Police and other police forces as ” totally incompetent ” in their investigations into News International. He cites the way police turned up to arrest Rebekah Brooks as a particularly crass example. Another staffer reveals the police pulled up his floorboards in searching his home.

He says the police inquiry into the Sun is about “next to nothing.” This contradicts what he said to Parliament.

Hints that he may give the arrested journos their jobs back – ” even though I am not supposed to say this.”

Names checks Lord Puttnam and people close to Gordon Brown ( Tom Watson Mp?) for wanting to get at the Sun for years.

Claims the Management Standards Committee set up by Murdoch is refusing to hand over stuff now to the police after journos complain about a decade of expenses and authorised payments being turned over to the Met.

Also  the recording reveals that the Sun’s  agony aunt,Deidre Sanders, read out a letter to Murdoch from one of the wives of the newspaper’s executives. The letter is so poignant that the executive bursts into tears , interrupting Murdoch’s  angry reaction.

News UK in a statement to Exaro deny some of this. “The Sun has been and continues to be supportive of its employees. Mr. Murdoch has great empathy for those whose lives have been overturned and continues to believe everyone charged deserves the right to be presumed innocent unless proven otherwise.  It is simply false that Mr. Murdoch knew payments were made to police before News Corporation disclosed that to UK Authorities. The MSC continues to cooperate with those authorities, under the supervision of the court.”

However what is really revealing is how different Murdoch  is at this meeting in comparison with his appearance before the Commons Culture,.Media and Sport. The bumbling elderly media boss who had never heard of Neville Thurbeck and never knew anything because it was only one per cent of his Empire is transformed into a man who says spends an hour every day worrying about his staff and has a great grasp of detail about people who have been hacked.

Perhaps the super rich have a secret stash of regenerative pills- not available on the NHS – so they improve with age. Or perhaps it is all the adrenalin flowing in front of his staff.

Altogether this is an amazing revelation of what the real Rupe is like in private. Just for the record, Rupe,to obtain this story no phone or computer hacking was used and no payments were made by me.  But I must congratulate you  for the way you have trained your staff and executives to make covert recordings. It does you credit when it is in public interest.

No animals or children were hurt in this investigation.Only the rich and powerful.

Libel lawyers plan new way to silence the internet trolls

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Britain’s libel lawyer community are extremely excited about a radical judgement by a New Zealand judge which effectively has banned  a troublesome troll for mentioning again the name of the person she attacked on the internet for the rest of her life.

The decision has been highlighted on the Inforrm blog  (see http://inforrm.wordpress.com/2013/06/21/new-zealand-has-the-harassment-act-just-swallowed-the-law-of-defamation-steven-price ) as a radical, cheap way of  avoiding expensive libel actions.

As the Wellington barrister Steven Price puts it: “Why sue for defamation when you can get an injunction by showing that a publisher has harassed and distressed you instead? For one thing, you don’t need to worry about all those pesky defences such as truth and honest opinion.”

As the Inforrm blog says: “The case was brought by lawyer Madeleine Flannagan )who was repeatedly savaged online by Jacqui Sperling, a friend she fell out with. Sperling called her a liar, a perjurer, a prescription drug addict, a vexatious litigant, and a fraudster, and labelled her incompetent, abusive and “bonkers”. She also published private financial and medical details about Flannagan.”

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Jacqui Sperling

The case was undefended but the judge cited the New Zealand Harassment Act and ordered her to take down over 100 posts to be taken dow “unless and until the court permits reinstatement,”

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madeline flannagan

It also forbids her from directly or indirectly mentioning Flannagan or her family online for the rest of her life.

These rather drastic measures do effectively curb her  free speech – though they don’t apply to the printed word – she could still distribute leaflets across NZ attacking Ms Flannagan.

British interest is evidently combined by moves recommended by the Law Commission which want new take down orders to be enforced by judges  where false allegations cause considerable harm to an individual.

I must say Ms Sperling’s attacks do sound particularly  nasty. But one has to ask whether such a  harassment ruling could be used say by politicians or people under sustained  investigation for more legitimate reasons to get blogs taken down they don’t like. Or will it bring legal harassment tourism to New Zealand – if the blog happens to be read by people in Auckland or Wellington.

And will  it be effective? It is almost impossible to remove any copy made of a blog by someone else – so some of the damning blogs may still be there despite Judge David Harvey’s ruling. On the other hand it does serve as a warning to some nasty vicious trolls that they can be stopped without going to the libel courts.

Work Programme providers’ plea is an insult to everyone they have mishandled

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This is not good news for the BBC, the work programme or the government. If you take in context the scandal involving A4e which provided placements under first programme I did an extra investigation on top of the work done by the Public Accounts Committee exposing failings in A4e internal audit. My investigation revealed in one small town Bridlington A4 e had placed people with as firm going into liquidation, one run by people from a a house in Rotherham that never filed accounts, another with a company not registered at Companies House, and two with a cafe and taxi firm that subsequently went bust. In other places it turned out they had sent one person to a lap dancing club in Liverpool and a person with a criminal record to a firm which didn’t want to employ people with criminal records. See my own blog https://davidhencke.wordpress.com/2012/05/22/exclusive-how-you-got-state-funded-work-experience-in-a-strip-club-with-a4e/

Mike Sivier's avatarMike Sivier's blog

It isn’t very often one can say a news report was shocking – not because of the subject matter, but because of the way it was reported.

That was the situation tonight with the BBC’s item in which Work Programme providers complained that they need more money to “help” the most challenging jobseekers into work.

This group, of course, being benefit claimants in the work-related activity group of Employment and Support Allowance.

This group being the most consistently abused and neglected element of the new underclass created by the Conservative-led Coalition government, demonised and hated by the right-wing press, often attacked in the street (to judge from first-hand accounts), many of whom have been driven to suicide or death caused by their conditions, which have been worsened by the unacceptable (and to most people reading this, inconceivable) amount of stress the DWP, Atos (the private company assessing their fitness…

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Will data journalism save investigative journalism?

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The collapse of the print media and the rise of the free internet is threatening to destroy the income that allows traditional journalism to thrive.

As papers  and TV cut and cut again staff  they have fewer and fewer  resources to scrutinise and investigate government, business, crime and the dodgy guys have a much greater chance of getting away with it.

So just like the ancient search for the Holy Grail  journalists have been looking for a way to fund their time-consuming and expensive investigative operations. Some have sought world-wide alliances like Alan Rusbridger,editor of The Guardian, to bring an international flavour – like the Prism survellience scandal – to journalism. Others like Rupert Murdoch have thought pay walls  and monopoly control will fund journalism.

But they might just be a third way. The government’s decision enthusiastically endorsed by Francis Maude, the Cabinet Office minister, to open up data has provided an amazing opportunity for a new breed of journalists – data journalists – to exercise their amazing mathematical  and computer savvy skills- and create new stories. But they have also opened up an extraordinary lucrative way to raise cash from business for a tailor-made service to meet their individual needs.

Exaro, the news organisation, who employ me on a freelance basis, may have just found the answer to marry this. By exploiting government data  Exaro’s data journalists have  produced a major story on the state of liquidations in England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland ( see http://www.exaronews.com/articles/5008/liquidations-are-running-at-four-times-level-before-credit-crunch ). But this journalism led investigation – by Tim Wood, Henry Taylor and George Arnett – also has a very lucrative spin-off that may bring an income worth hundreds of thousands of pounds.

As Jasper Jackson ( son of the late Mark Jackson. my friend and one of Fleet Street’s great colourful  journalist characters) discloses ( see http://www.themediabriefing.com/article/exclusive-exaro-news-channels-investigative-journalism-into-data-products) the possibilities of a tailor-made service that can change the finances.

As Mark Watts, editor in chief of Exaro, puts it: ”

“There are data journalism teams out there, but they traditionally don’t worry about making things commercial. What we are doing is rather different because it is journalists who are doing it, generating material for editorial purposes, but in the same breath doing it for commercial purposes.

The editorial aspect is important. The data interrogation techniques are very specific and journalists are also able to present things in a meaningful way. There is a sense of having to distil it, and make sense of the data.”

So have we discovered the Holy Grail, the way to break stories, subsidise other important investigations, without compromising editorial integrity? Francis Maude may have to put up with data journalism providing an income stream enabling us to investigate  and scrutinise him and Cabinet ministers even more thoroughly. A double-edged sword at times.

Defamation Act 2013: A boost for free speech, Part 2: Public Interest and Privilege – Timothy Pinto

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This is a second good piece of news for bloggers who follow political scandals, local councils, the NHS and bad practice in public services. You needn’t worry if you don’t get it 100 per cent right.You are going to have new rights protecting your reporting and comments so long as you can justify it is the public interest and produce fair accounts of public events. The great thing is you can report public protest meetings with full protection. Another invaluable piece of legal advice for all those following public affairs.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Houses of ParliamentIn this second part of four posts by Timothy Pinto of Taylor Wessing, he considers the changes to common law and statutory privilege which will result from the Defamation Act 2013. Part 1 on “Serious Harm, Truth and Honest Opinion” can be found here.

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Defamation Act 2013: A boost for free speech – Part 1: Serious Harm, Truth and Honest opinion – Timothy Pinto

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I am reblogging this post because it provides free of charge some vital legal advice from an expert for bloggers who challenge power and authority. It makes it pretty clear that bloggers can now without fear of libel threats be highly critical of private companies who provide bad services to the public. It also makes it tad more difficult for nasty public figures- I am thinking of Barnet councillor Brian Coleman recently convicted of common assault of a member of the public – to bring actions when they acquire a bad reputation. This is good news for free speech, democracy and holding companies and public figures to account.

INFORRM's avatarInforrm's Blog

Defamation Act 2013This is the first of four posts by Timothy Pinto of Taylor Wessing where he provides analysis of the key provisions of the UK’s Defamation Act 2013 and its likely practical implications under English law. The four posts will cover: Serious harm, Truth and Honest opinion, Privilege, Intermediary liability, and Other key provisions.

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Exhibit C – the “paedophile”

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I have put this excellent blog up to show how important it is to have really good lawyers dealing with child sexual abuse cases – and how plans by the man I dub the ” political mugger ” Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, wants to put this at risk by putting out future legal aided work to the cheapest firms. His package includes encouraging the accused to plead guilty which would have been a disaster in this case. He also wants to put out of business thousands of competent lawyers from taking up cases by excluding them from tendering for work..And incidently if you haven’t got the cash depriving you of your right to have a lawyer of your choice in criminal cases.. I wonder if Grayling would care if the wrong person had ended up in this case in jail – as long as he had saved money.

barristerswife's avatara barrister's wife

This post is one of a series that seeks to dispel the myth that everyone who ends up in court is a scumbag criminal. It is another example of how easy it is for good guys to end up in court. It is another case that illustrates why everyone should be entitled to independent, quality, legal representation and the chance to go to trial and clear their name.

At the moment your rights are under threat from proposals in the MOJ consultation paper Transforming legal aid.  I hope that reading this post will help you understand what these proposals will mean for our justice system.  I hope that once you understand you will want to sign the Save UK Justice petition to have these proposals debated in parliament.

NB this is a true story. Certain details that don’t relate to the factual and legal process have been changed…

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Revealed: Cameron’s nudge,nudge survey to woo marginal voters

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David Cameron outside Downing Street. Picture courtesy: Guardian

David Cameron outside Downing Street. Picture courtesy: Guardian

David Cameron has started his re-election campaign by sending out a private questionnaire and personal letter to targeted voters in marginal seats with leading questions on cutting benefits,encouraging immigration and freezing petrol. My story is in this week’s Tribune magazine.

The survey bears all the “dog whistle”  hallmarks of libel trigger happy Lynton Crosby and the execution of Giles Kenningham, now at Conservative Central Office.

The survey also wants to get hold of e-mail addresses of all the participants for future use by Conservative Central Office. It purports to be a simple request to evaluate how the government is doing to help families and asking for advice on how to continue existing policies. The tenor of Cameron’s letter is couched in party political terms.

He says: “Even with the enormous deficit we inherited from the last government forcing us to make tough decisions in every area, I am committed to doing everything possible to help families with the cost of living in these tough times. So I’d like to know what you think about some of the steps we’ve taken so far – and I’d like to know your ideas about what more the Government can do to help families like yours.”

cameron's survey letter to marginal voters

cameron’s survey letter to marginal voters: click on it to read better

There follows a detailed questionnaire on the economy, welfare benefits. And direct questions on attitudes to life  and to political leadership – such as whether or not you believe in rugged individualism without the support of state and that people can get on regardless of  background or not.

The choice is between “How well I do in life is first and foremost down to me. OR How well I do in life is primarily decided by forces outside of my control.”

The main economic question is slanted against Labour saying : “Even before the banking crisis hit in 2008, the UK was borrowing too much money to pay for public services and public sector jobs that, in the long-term, we couldn’t afford.” Some of the choices are extraordinary – such as a question asking whether a two tier benefit system should be introduced – and existing benefits cut by more than half for those who have only just started paying tax and national insurance.

Voters are invited to put in figures for benefit levels, new caps for the “bedroom tax”,and to comment on evicting council tenants who earn too much money.

David Cameron’s and Ed Miliband’s leadership the questionnaire proposes a dramatic choice. People are asked to choose between “We need leaders who are prepared to listen and to do what people really want” or “We need leaders who will stick to what they believe is right, even if it is unpopular.”

Three rather different questions are asked on immigration, same sex marriage and education  – one definitely pre UKIP surge. The immigration question is ” On balance immigration has been a good thing for this country”. The other on education looks like it had been inserted by Michael Gove: ” Educational standards have been steadily improving in recent years”.

Altogether a very interesting disclosure from a Labour marginal seat in the Midlands. One wonders what that Lynton Crosby  fan (NOT) ‏@LordAshcroft would make of it for fairness and as a tactic. It does suggest Labour need to wake up and small the coffee on campaigning double-quick and start working hard in these marginal seats.

welfare questions - click on it to read it better

welfare questions – click on it to read it better

Lynton Crosby launches Twitter libel action against Labor

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Lynton Crosby: Latest figure to pursue Twitter Libel Action. Pic credit: BBC

Lynton Crosby: Latest figure to pursue Twitter libel Action. Pic credit: BBC

Just as David Cameron could do without any further distractions  Lynton Crosby, his top strategist for the 2015 general election,  is about to become embroiled in a lengthy and costly libel action 10,500 miles away from Downing Street.

Mr Crosby the aggressive campaign adviser  who helped Boris Johnson win the last London mayoral election  and well-known for his ” dog whistle” techniques to woo voters is about to cause a furore in Australia in a trial that a judge says is already ” heading down the path of a famous defamation.”

He is the latest top figure after Lord McAlpine, the former Tory treasurer, decided to sue people for Twitter defamation ( in his case wrongly accused of being a paedophile), to take his chances in the courts. The interesting thing is this case is that it centres around his very election techniques that helped right wingers win power in Australia and could become controversial over here. He is also a tweeter himself (@LyntonKCrosby)- at least while he was helping Boris Johnson’s campaign. Indeed his tweets were quite sharp about the BBC, and the Left during the campaign and he also got into trouble (not on Twitter) over describing the Muslim voter in uncharitable terms – something which he denies.

The full story of the impending libel action is revealed in some detail on the Inforrm blog (http://inforrm.wordpress.com/2013/05/07/news-conservative-strategist-lynton-crosby-and-an-australian-twitter-libel-action/) .

Official Australian Government portrait of Mike Kelly MP, defence materials minister and twitter libel fighter

Official Australian Government portrait of Mike Kelly MP, defence materials minister and twitter libel fighter

The man being sued by Crosby is an Australian defence minister, Mike Kelly ( ‏@MikeKellyMP)

in the Labor government who tweeted that Mr Crosby had used unethical polling techniques to help win the election for the Liberals. The damaging tweet said: ““always grate [sic] to hear moralizing from Crosby, Textor, Steal and Gnash. The mob who introduced push polling to Aus.”

Crosby took exception to this as push polling is illegal in Australia  as it attempts to change people’s opinions by pretending to conduct a neutral poll. As Inforrm reports ”  Crosby  and his company claimed his opponents said he ” had introduced a polling technique that had the deceitful purpose of deliberately influencing voters with material slanted against the opposing candidate.  They seek aggravated damages because they say Dr Kelly failed to apologise, used sensational language and published the tweet knowing it was false, or with reckless indifference to its truth or falsity.”

But Mr Kelly is not backing down despite losing an attempt to have the libel thrown out and being ordered to pay $100,000 costs. He has got the financial backing of the New South Wales Labor Party and both sides will be back in court on June 7.

So Mr Crosby is about to be a bit distracted just when he should be advising Cameron on how to handle the rise of Ukip. But there is also interesting side to this story. Will Crosby launch similar type actions against prominent Labour tweeters here – if they dare attack him during the 2015 election campaign. Will Tom Watson, Labour’s campaign manager,a prolific tweeter and man prepared to take on the wrath of Murdoch, find himself in the centre of a fresh row.

Whatever happens there no seems a much bigger chance of what  former party Tory deputy chairman @LordAshcroft tweeted only a week ago ( “Lynton Crosby becoming the story. Dirty linen/public. Whatever the merits not good for the Tories.” This was not about this story but the blogosphere could be about to get a lot more controversial, nastier and dangerous during the 2015 election.

Brian Coleman Convicted: A Tory bully and now a thug

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Brian Coleman: convicted of assault. No moreexpense account lunches

Brian Coleman: convicted of assault. No more expense account lunches

On the day the purple spots of UKIP started to pop up across the English shires, one former prominent Conservative councillor got even more than just a  drubbing at the polls.

Brian Coleman, former mayor of Barnet, former chair of the London Assembly and chair of the London fire brigade, pleaded guilty to assaulting a  woman cafe owner who tried to  film him breaking his own parking regulations.

Rather than acknowledge that he was breaking the law and the hypocrisy of what he was doing, Coleman resorted to violence that might be associated with a common street brawler. He hit her and grabbed her breast in his attempt to snatch her Iphone..

The representative of the party of law and order ended up with a £1400 fine and restitution for injuries to Helen Michael. For all the gory details of the hearing and the remarkable silence from his fellow Tory councillors in Barnet, read the detailed  and tremendous account by Mrs Angry,   on her very popular  Broken Barnet blog ( http://wwwbrokenbarnet.blogspot.co.uk ).

Frankly after Mr Coleman’s attack on decent firefighters in London, his botched privatisation of the London  fire service through AssetCo and his rude attacks on other Barnet citizens, including a desperate single mum, justice was done.

I am sure it is only a matter of time before Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, feels moved to disown his behaviour. Or perhaps not . it is too embarrassing for  Tory words.