So according to the Met’s Assistant Commissioner, John Yates, the reason they didn’t re-open the investigation into the phone hacking allegations back in 2009 was that the ‘News of the World’ declined to co-operate with them.OK.
So, does that mean that if a ned had broken into an off licence and made away with a couple of hundred pounds worth of drink, leaving his DNA all over the shop, and then the Met had picked him up and he had said: “Right, like I ain’t gonna co-operate wiv ya, right, innit”, the Man from the Met would have replied... “Oh, right son. We’ll not bother to follow this one up. Off you go then”.
I think someone might like to inform the assistant commissioner with ambitions to be the commissioner that that’s actually the way that police work often works. Usually criminals don’t much want to co-operate with the police. Indeed they have been known to tell lies and obstruct the police... No, really, they have.
Maybe it’d be better if he got that under his belt before he applied for the top job...although, judging by some of the wing nuts they have had in the past, for example Ian Blair, who said the phone hacking was just a "tiny fragmentary event... not seen as particularly significant",... in particular, he continued, when compared with the fact that they had had terrorists to chase!
I wondered who would come out with that old chestnut. The massive Metropolitan Police of the English capital, couldn’t, it seems, walk and chew gum. They were busy with terrorists, so the that police bribery and the fact that everyone who was anyone’s phone messages were being illegally listened to, just couldn’t be dealt with.
Just as well that when I was in London I didn’t lose my wallet. How far down the important list would THAT have been?
The trouble for these people is that they are lying to politicians, and if there’s one thing that most politicians are good at....
Pics: Yates of the Yard.... 10 times he asked them nicely to co-operate? Or maybe it was ten something elses.... and his then boss Labour's other Blair.
Corrupt Politicians, Media, Police and Bankers(some sections) = Democracy Britain in the 21st century. Lets export it pronto.
ReplyDeleteYou were probably at work this morning Tris, but it was really entertaining to watch politicians and police vying for power with journalists looking on bemused. Best democracy live I've ever watched. Even Vaz looked good compared to Yates who looked as if he would burst into tears any minute.
ReplyDeleteCH, Subrosa:
ReplyDeleteI think there are a lot of scores to settle as the politicians who were harried by the press for THEIR corruption a couple of years ago get some of their own back. But yeah CH, I'm wondering who is trustworthy now. You could add the church to that list (we still don't know why the pope made Murdoch a papal knight, as he's not even a catholic, but we might be able to guess) and the legal profession (Let's bend the law and chase a compensation claim here; even if there isn't one, I'll make money out of it!)
I heard a lot on the PM show at 5, SR. I couldn't believe some of these police excuses and the faux outrage that suggested that some were on the take. Thank goodness these people have nothing to do with policing in Scotland.
Maybe some of the politicians see this as an opportunity to redeem themselves; Vaz could do with some redemption! But whatever, it gives the impression of being another one of these moments when, if people are just brave enough to grasp it, things could change forever, and hopefully for better.
Good old Inspector Knacker......blood on the carpet? Again! Now get out of that Cameron!
ReplyDeleteTris....This story is getting a lot of play here in America. But I do have some mixed feelings about the issues and personalities involved. On a personality basis, the best outcome would be that Murdoch ends up in a British jail, and would thus be prevented from returning to the states.
ReplyDeleteBut the phone hacking matter requires a more nuanced approach. Of course the spying on hard working private British citizens should be punished. But I do hope that the spying on politicians and royals can continue unabated. Without illegal surveillance of politicians, we have no way of finding out more than a tiny fraction of all the evil that they do. And as for the royals, what has given us more entertainment through the years as the illegal phone taps on Charlie, Camilla, et al? And from a broad democratic American perspective, royalty and aristocracy deserve all the abuse and disrespect that you can heap on them.
Just a thought. ;-)
CH
ReplyDeleteWe need to repatriate it, back to the Metrollops.
Strathclyde's Finest did an investigation into Police/Press corruption, at a cool £1 million quid and didn't get a conviction.
NewsnetScotland has this story
http://www.newsnetscotland.com/index.php/scottish-news/2717-ex-sunday-mail-reporter-claims-scottish-papers-paid-police-for-stories.html
with a comment from a former Sunday Mail senior journalist that one of the top men in the Police team doing the investigation was one of the biggest culprits in tipping off the Press.
Always good to have a man on the inside, it offers many opportunities to influence the conclusions.
This "United" country is a festering corrupt affront to democracy and we need a revolution rather than an evolution in political and public culture. Time to break the mold and the Union.
tris
ReplyDeleteOld Bill didn't wanna tread on Murdochs toes just in case the politicians trod on Old Bills toes.
I mean they know when its a good idea for their career to investigate fully and also when not to
after all it it wasn't for the Guardian(my paper) doggedly pursuing the wrongdoers even when everything was against them.
old Bills strategy career wise would of been for them very rewarding of course now they are being a little bit scape goated by their ex-masters aint life a bitch??
Snotty
Yeah you will never see corruption in an independent Scotland although history does show the last time Scotland was a cesspit of corruption and vice.............in fact there was hardly a Scottish leader who wouldn't sell out the Scottish people at a moments notice.
Nikostratos said...
ReplyDeletein fact there was hardly a Scottish leader who wouldn't sell out the Scottish people at a moments notice.
They are called unionist politicians wanting to go to Wastemincestir.
Niko
ReplyDeleteAnything must be better than this festering cesspit of institutionalised corruption.
At least we know where the Scottish MPs live.
Lord Snooty
ReplyDeleteIt's far more common than people realise and it goes further than the police and the press as a political party/ies and the criminal element are also linked.
He looked uncomfortable this afternoon, I thought Munguin. A bit shouty.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've read the articles you sent me, Danny, thanks mate. It seems to be quite big news over there. Of course with Fixed Noise and the Wall Street Journal in his hands it is bound to be of some interest to at least some people.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad to take a more "nuanced approach" to the phone hacking. I always like your nuanced approaches. They're so...erm unbiased.
And I pretty much agree. very seriously we will have to find other ways of making sure that we hold the politicos to account and keep an eye on their dastardly doings.
As for the royals, hmmmmm, I'm not altogether certain that I much was to hear the private conversations of Charlie and Mrs Parker Bowles. The last one that was reported was so uncommonly revolting that I fear I've already had enough of that pair to last me a lifetime.
I have to say that it didn't look like the American glitteratti were heaping abuse on royal William and the golddigger's daughter last week. It was nauseating the way they were all over them like a bad smell.
They can keep 'em.... Just a thought ;¬)
You're right there Snooty, milord.
ReplyDeleteIf you are going to be investigated for corruption, it's a pretty damned good idea to be investigated by someone you've been corrupting !!
PS: Good article Snooty. I'd no idea it was going on in this country too.
ReplyDeleteSome of the comments are funny.
Niko: I think that Murdoch has files on most of the top police. Almost no one is without at least one or two things they wouldn't want to share with their partner, their kids, their mother, the guys at the golf club.... or their boss.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure that some of them were pressured into not looking into things as closely, because of what Murdoch might be printing about them the following Sunday.
CH: We've had bankers, estate agents, politicians, aristocrats, the royals, journalists and the police proving that they are less than all white.
ReplyDeleteWhat's left: the courts?
tris said
ReplyDeleteWhat's left: the courts?
Who appoints them?
Press Gazette
Tris, You make a good point about the Hollywood glitterati fawning over the royals. Of course the glitterati (and most other Californians for that matter) are crazy. One might hope that they would have received a more reserved reception in rock ribbed New England. But you never know. It's been a long time since John Adams lived there.
ReplyDeleteAs for Mr. Murdoch, there will apparently be high profile Congressional investigations of his activities here in the states. Once you guys get through with him I suppose. ;-)
CH
ReplyDeleteI am acutely aware of the depth of corruption and their now criminal infiltration.
As a born Glaswegian, I know that Labour has always been corrupt but at a local fill your pockets fashion.
Today it is structural and as bad as Tamanay Hall, or an erstwhile N African Arab nation.
I wish that the "Digger" was more available as he has done a wheen of work to graph the web in interlinked corruption.
I could easily guess the name of legal practice up to their oxters in the business and there are a slew of accountancy practices troughing too.
Ahhhh. You have me there CH.
ReplyDeleteSo there's nothing left?
It appears that the Broon's crocodile tears yesterday were just that.
ReplyDelete"Bruce" has a nice we fisking of Operation Motorman and the depth of the corruption of the Press, not just the News of The Screws but, apparently, the biggest user of a certain corrupt Police conduit was the Sunday People.
The two "investigators", a corrupt Police civilian who accessed the info and a "retired" (before or after the shit hot the fan?) PC all received suspended sentences for over 1,000 breaches.
This was endemic and the Police sat on it.
http://www.bruceonpolitics.com/2011/07/14/what-the-news-international-scandal-really-means/
He he Danny,
ReplyDeleteI guess Munguin's Republic is not much read in California, otherwise we'd have hate mail by now.
I don't understand fawning over them, or most other people I guess. I see them as being too real, too much like me, for any of that. What was it Walter Bagehot said in the 19th century (talking then about Victoria and Albert): "We must not let daylight in upon the magic".
As long as you believe them to be entirely different, you can understand them being so treated. The minute that they reveal themselves as ordinary people with ordinary virtues and failings, as they have, you wonder why they are treated so differently from every other person on the planet.
It seems that the glitterati (whose lives are dependent on people accepting that THEY too are different), found in the royals, the same thing that "fans" find in their Hollywood idols.
Perhaps it is part of the human condition to want to be subservient to someone or something, be it a god or another human being. (If so it seems to have passed prince Charles, and for that matter. your rock-ribbed New Englanders by.
Now that he has been unmasked and neutered it seems that there is no one that doesn't want to stick a knife into Murdoch. It's safe now; a few weeks ago they'd have sooner died than risk it. All their dirty little secrets are safe now... (Or is it?)
Even Gordon Brown, who for the last year has barely shown his face in the Commons (where he is employed by us as an MP on £66,000 a year), preferring to write and tour America with books, has been down there in Westminster, giving, would you believe , a speech. (One wonders, if he is that passionate about it all, that he waited so song, and toured with his book before speaking out.)
And if Mr Rockerfeller is getting bent out of shape about Murdoch in the States, it's beginning to look like a retreat to Australia, or Mongolia, perhaps, is the only way forward.
Oh how are the mighty fallen.
Thanks for the link Your Lordship.
ReplyDeleteIt's interesting, following an agenda of course, (Mr Cameron and Mr Murdoch have acted decisively, he says!) but if the facts are there (and he sources them) then I think we can draw our own conclusions.
I think what he's saying is that, in clearing out the mess of the press, we must be careful not to bridle them too much. The power is there. We have to make sure that it is properly divided between the parliament and the press.
Either having too much power is a bad thing.
Tris, I looked up at a news report on TV today and was amazed to see Gordon delivering that speech in Commons. I had no idea that he's still an MP. I usually only see him on US talk shows selling his book and dispensing wisdom on international affairs. ;-)
ReplyDeleteYes, the American politicians are piling on Murdoch now. Senator Rockefeller, in particular, seems determined to drag him before a Senate Committee to answer some very pointed questions. Although a while back, First Minister Salmond and his government declined to respond to a similar "summons" to appear before the US Senate to explain themselves, that will probably not be an option for Mr. Murdoch, a US citizen.
LOL Danny. As a Scottish citizen, not to mention a head of government, Eck is in a slightly different position from Mr M who, as I remember was obliged to become an American citizen before he could own a newspaper in the States.
ReplyDeleteI've just heard that Rebekah Wade is to give evidence to a Commons Committee. As a British citizen, she has little in the way of choice. No one seems to know if there is actually an obligation for Brits to attend on MPs when requested. I heard this morning that the last time that someone was actually brought to the Commons by force was about 100 years ago. A very different Commons, and a very different people.
You couldn't make this up.
ReplyDeleteWallis was employed to advise Sir Paul Stephenson and John Yates on a part-time basis from October 2009 to September 2010. During this time the Yard was saying there was no need to reopen the phone-hacking investigation – a decision made by Yates despite allegations in the Guardian that the first police investigation had been inadequate.
UK banana democracy.
I was falling about laughing when I heard about this on the STV news.
ReplyDeleteWhat a joke. We go around the world telling this country and that about the importance of democracy and being open and honest, and yet we must be the least democratic country in Europe. Whilst I'd admit we probably have some way to go to beat Greece and Italy in the corruption stakes, we are, as you say a banana democracy.
The other thing I thought was hilarious was the fact that Paul Stephenson was dining with NI executives while his force was investigating the organisation for phone hacking.
ReplyDeleteHe said that nothing improper had occurred, but on reflection he could see that the perception could be entirely different from the fact.
So I'm thinking, how did this turnip get to be the head of the Met? Naivety may be an endearing quality in some, excusable in others, but in the chief of police... ??