Key Posts Category
Was The Story of The Alleged Durham Priest Paedophile Suppressed To Time With Pope’s Visit?
With near perfect timing the Northern Echo yesterday celebrated the end of the Dog Days and revealed to it’s readers:
“A priest has appeared in court charged with possessing child pornography.
Father John Shannon was a lecturer at the 200-year-old St Cuthbert’s Seminary, also known as Ushaw College – the Roman Catholic training centre for priests in the North of England.
“Fr Shannon has been suspended from duties since his arrest at Esh, near Durham City, three months ago. The arrest was prompted by information passed by the seminary to Durham Police.
“Fr Shannon was charged with 16 counts of making an indecent photograph of a child on or before June 16, when he was arrested. The offences are alleged to have been committed at Esh and relate to images classed as between levels one and four in severity….level five being the worst. Fr Shannon was charged with a further count of possession of 763 indecent photographs of children when he appeared at Consett Magistrates’ Court.
He was not asked to plead and was bailed to an address in Cambridgeshire, to return for a scheduled committal hearing next month”.
What’s odd about this story is the fact Northern Echo looks to have held it back until the Pope’s arrival.
Later in the Darlington paper’s tale comes the confirmation of a ‘let’s use it at the right time’ editorial policy.
“In a joint statement, St Cuthbert’s Seminary, the Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, and Durham Police said: “As a result of information provided by St Cuthbert’s Seminary to Durham Police, Father John Shannon, a priest of the Diocese of East Anglia, was arrested on June 16 at Esh, County Durham.
“A full investigation was immediately launched, resulting in Fr Shannon being charged with a number of offences on August 6. He appeared at Consett Magistrates’ Court on August 17. Fr Shannon was suspended on June 16 and has resigned from his duties at St Cuthbert’s Seminary”.
Timing is all, but is this suppression of a cracking news story (and a court appearance of exactly a month ago) and a questionable use of a Press freedom?
On the other hand: does anyone remember Deep and Abiding, the yarn which appeared in Anorak a full six months ago and keeping up with the Anorak habit of being ahead of the game? This was a by-product of Ushaw College and from more years ago than I care to want to remember.
There is a long tradition of local suspicion about the Seminary and, as stated at the beginning of this, there is local infamy about the place. It has long warranted a more than passing investigation. Many minds have been improved and, some say, enlightened at Ushaw … in other cases lives may have been, allegedly, ruined.
Only one of the Church’s institutions the Holy Father may have to address in the very near future. – AGW
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Posted: 17th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
After Jennifer Thompson Is Wayne Rooney Off To Bangkok – With Coleen?
HURRAH for Jennifer Thompson and Helen Wood, two girls selfless enough to lay down their bodies for Wayne Rooney, allegedly. But not everyone is getting behind, under and on top of the England striker, who is being forced to head to “VICE CITY”. No, not Manchester, nor even Bristol, but Bangkok.
The Daily Star brings front-page news of Coleen Rooney’s “FURY” that Wayne is taking a trip to the “VICE CAPTIAL”. She is right to be upset. If a top level footballer, a national treasure, is forced to travel thousands of miles in pursuit of paid-for sex, then we are all the losers.
And the Star says John Terry, Ashley Cole and Peter Crouch might all go too. They and more top-level players could go to Bangkok under the guise of an England football team playing Thailand – at football!
Says one WAGS:
“Coleen will go nuts. That’s the last place on Earth she’ll want Wayne to go, particularly without her.”
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Posted: 17th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (10)
What Missing Molly Norris Wrote To Anorak About Everybody Draw Mohammed Day
MOLLY Norris, a self-confessed “frat boy at heart”, put out there the idea of “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day”. The internet went nuts. Drawing Mohammed simply to cause offence is “spiteful and prejudiced“.
Molly wrote to us:
Freedom without responsibility is not prudent. I wish my cartoon would have only been seen as satire about a particular, historic censorship in America. But instead it took on a life of its own. Such is the internet!
Now Molly Norris is missing. The Seattle Weekly reports:
You may have noticed that Molly Norris’ comic is not in the paper this week. That’s because there is no more Molly.
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Posted: 16th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Photos Of Pope Benedict XV1’s Visit To The United Kingdom
IN Photos: Pope Benedict XVI’s visit to the UK is the first papal visit to these lands for 28 years. This is a place the German Pope’s aide Cardinal Walter Kasper called a “Third World Country”. It’s all about making friends and building bridges, people. The photos look at his meeting with the Queen at Holyrood House. This is the Pope’s state visit, the first one ever. Also photographed are: the open-air Mass in Glasgow; the Pope offering victims of paedophile priests “material, psychological and spiritual”; protestors against the Vatican’s stance on birth control, gay rights and abortion; pleased Catholics vying to meet the man; and others bemoaning the £10m to £12m cost to the taxpayer…
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Posted: 16th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)
Wayne Rooney’s Sex Life: After Jennifer Thompson And Helen Wood Meet Samii Darnley
WAYNE Rooney sex fans, meet Samii Darnley. She’s the 20-year-old, dyed-blonde glamour model on the front page of the Sun. Samii is billed as a friend of Jennifer Thompson, the middle-class gel who claims she broke Rooney’s prostitute drought along with one Helen Wood.
Samii is said to have encountered Rooney at a bash full of Manchester United players last Christmas.
The action returns to Rio Ferdinand’s Manchester restaurant Rosso, where Thompson says she serviced Rooney in the lower levels. Wives and girlfriends were, reportedly, uninvited to the do.
Samii, from Preston, is not talking. But a “pal” is:
“She is a stunning girl and he obviously wanted her. He leaned in and whispered in her ear. He was so close she could feel his stubble on her cheek. He was trying it on and making it clear in no uncertain terms he was interested in her.”
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Posted: 15th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
Video: Worm That Lived In Woman’s Eye for Six Years
TO St Thomas’s Hospital, London, where a woman complains of a thing in her eye. It’s a worm. It’s an Ocular Loiasis. It’s been living in her eye for six years. The 21-year-old had been in Nigeria six years prior to her hospital trip. And so had the worm.
On examination, a live worm, 2 cm in length, was seen in the “superior subconjunctival space of the left eye”.
The worm – a male Loa loa worm – was removed. This is the worm’s eye view, so to speak.
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Posted: 14th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comments (2)
In Photos: Cheryl Cole’s X Factor House In Sandbanks, Dorset
CHERLY Cole is renting a £4.5 million house in Sandbanks, Dorset, for her X Factor contestants. Cheryl can’t travel far, what with her malaria. So, her charges will be experiencing the jet-set lifestyle under the low grey skies of the British seaside at winter.
The property is being sold by Eddie Mitchell, owner of Bournemouth FC. The place is kitted out by Chaplins, the north London furniture company in Hatch End that supplies the gear for the Big Brother house. Want to look around it – the home with five bedrooms, views on Poole Harbour and a no buyers? Here goes:
Posted: 14th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, TV & Radio | Comments (2)
Christina Hendricks Loses Her Legs – No-One Notices For 3 Years (Photos)
CHRISTINA Hendricks, the mould for modern womanhood who forgot to say ‘when‘ as she was poured out, has lost her legs. Well, she lost them in 2007, in a GQ photoshoot but some mad reason no-one noticed.
Hendricks, the star hit TV show Mad Men, also has only one eye, three thumbs on her left hand and a tattoo on the back of her neck that says “Mrs Anorak”…
And in case you missed them her:
Spotter : Rumor Rat
Posted: 14th, September 2010 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
British Teen Luke Angel Banned From US Forever For Calling Obama A ‘Prick’
LUKE Angel is banned from ever stepping foot on US soil. His crime? He sent an email to Barack Obama calling the President a “prick”.
Obama never saw the missive. It was picked up by the FBI. They called the police in the UK, who popped over to see the 17-year-old at his home in Silsoe, Bedfordshire.
Says Luke:
“I don’t really care. My parents aren’t very happy about it. The police who came round took my picture and told me I was banned from America forever.”
So much for freedom. (Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is not banned from the US.) Isn’t swearing “the language of his generation”, as a judge ruled in overturning a decision to fine a man who told police to “fuck off”?
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Posted: 13th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comments (14)
Help For Heroes Concert Photos: Prince Harry Smoulders As Robbie Williams And Gary Barlow Unite
AT the Help for Heroes concert at Twickenham, we spotted Prince Harry. And he spotted us. If looks mean anything, this one spoke of love. A brutal love in which one of us gets our face kicked in by minders. But, nonetheless, it was the look of love. We also spotted Robbie Williams, Gary Barlow, Alexandra Burke, Peter Kay, The Wanted, The Saturdays,Tom Jones, Pixie Lott. and Bruce Forsyth. We took photos of them too…
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Posted: 12th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Music | Comments (8)
Move The Ground Zero Mosque To Ground Zero Or Risk Confusing Tourists And Jihadis
TERRY Jones never got to burn a Koran on International Burn a Koran Day – something to do with health and safety and God failing to send down a mighty firebolt to smite the books.
Or maybe it was all just a pathetic televised stunt fomented by a desperate media and enacted by a small man who scrapped about for a cause to legitimise a Koran burning, other than his own bigotry, and fell upon the Ground Zero Mosque – the building being erected a few minutes from where the Twin Towers once stood?
As Londoners know, a few minutes from the main spot can be akin to being on another planet.
The Ground Zero Mosque is an exaggeration on what any estate agent looking to market flats close to the New York Muslim centre would call Ground Zero borders. The Cordoba Centre, as it is called, will be 0.4 miles from the site where the Twin Towers once stood.
“Did you watch Arsenal the other day?” I was asked. Yes, I was at the ground, albeit 0.4 miles away. I then went to the debating chamber at the House of Commons, sort of, took a piss up a tree in the garden at 10 Downing Street, in a manner of speaking, and moved into a lovely garden flat in a part of Hampstead called Kilburn.
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Posted: 12th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)
The Greatest Scarifying Tattoos Gallery Ever Is Revolting
TATTOOS are old hat. The cool kids are scarifying. This involves cutting patterns into the skin. It’s not inking. It’s more etching. Here’s a collection of scarified skin. It’s pretty revolting:
The Greatest Tattooed Mugshots Ever
Tattoos – Lip Ones
The Best And Worst Fan Tattoos Ever
Tattoos – Weird And Stupid Ones
Tattoos – Retro Ones
Tattoos – On Your Arse
Tattoos – Super Heroes
Tattoos On Faces – The Mughsots
Tattoos: The Misspelled Ones
Posted: 12th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment (1)
Terry Jones’ Comedy Koran Burning Is Hot News From Florida To Accrington
D-LIST celebrity vicar Terry Jones, star of the reality TV show – I Will Burn The Koran Unless… keeps getting funnier. The entire non-event organised by Jones of the – get this – Dove World Outreach Center is now beyond parody
It’s 9/11. And the memorial day to the thousands of lives lost and ruined by 9/11 is couched in the Sky News headline:
9/11 Remembered Amid Koran Burning Row
No, not 9/11 Remembered Amid War In Afghanistan.
The possible burning of a book in a televised spectacular is bigger than war. International Burn a Koran Day is huge.
Jones says he won’t burn the Koran if Feisal Abdul Rauf calls off plans to build an Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero.
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Posted: 11th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
Wayne Rooney And Coleen Stop Boasting About Their Wonderful Lives To Ask For Privacy
WAYNE Rooney and Coleen Rooney, currently embroiled in claims that the Manchester United ace has shagged Jennifer Thompson and Helen Wood (NSFW photos), have issued a joint statement in which they say the “last six days have been extremely painful for us and for our families“.
They then blame the media for adding to their pain:
“It is impossible for us, as it would be for any family, to attempt to resolve any issues in the current media glare and against the backdrop of so many inaccurate and intrusive stories.
“We would therefore ask that the media now respects our privacy and the right of our family to discuss these matters in private.”
Privacy? This would be the same Rooney family who appear on the cover of Hello! for Coleen to tell us in June 2010:
“I like surprises and sometimes Wayne will spring things on me, like he’ll say: ‘Come on, let’s got out for dinner – go and get ready’”
Chances are that Coleen does not like all surprises – just the good ones.
In other private moments:
* We’ve seen Wayne take a piss.
* Coleen has shown off six-bedroom home in Barbados in a Hello! boast card:
“People often come up and say, ‘You’re just so normal’.”
* Coleen has told us that baby Kai is “not a crier”
* Coleen has told us that she walks on a gym machines
“You should let babies be babies and just put them in babygros.”
* Coleen told us: “I actually need to start going again because my wardrobe’s getting a bit empty.”
“I do have quite a big wardrobe”
* Wayne told us that he likes to read Harry Potter books
* Coleen has told us about her shopping habits:
“If I really like something I will buy it.”
* Coleen has been apparently airbrushed to flog her perfume
* Coleen has invited Hello! readers to her 21st birthday party
* Coleen has “Porridge with soya milk and fresh raspberries for breakfast”
So. Having traded on the image of a wonderful life the call is now for privacy…
Women linked to Wayne Rooney
Posted: 11th, September 2010 | In: Celebrities, Key Posts | Comment
Andy Coulson, Wikileaks And Waiting For A Guardian Story
ANDY Coulson remains front-page news on the Independent, but the Guardian has dropped the story. No other national leads with the news of David Cameron’s communications master.
The essence of the tale is interesting – did top media man in Government know about illegal goings on while he was editor of the country’s biggest selling tabloid?
And here are the facts:
The NoTW royal editor gets jailed for hacking into voicemails of important knobs and people how might call them; lots of Labour MPs demand to know if they were on the list of people with potentially interesting private lives; The Guardian, BBC and Indy lead with the story day on day; everyone reads about Wayne Rooney’s sex life; and elements on the Left call for tougher sanctions, punishment and tighter rules that will undermine freedom.
As Brendan O’Neill puts it:
The Guardian has helped to create a climate in which everyone from leading bobbies to opportunistic MPs can vent their spleen against the cocky tabloids, and by extension against the idea of press freedom itself. Is there no one at the Guardian who is willing to say at their morning editorial conference: “Guys, I think we’ve gone too far”?
The treatment of the story is something other than entertaining. It is dull.
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Posted: 10th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Politicians | Comment
Koran Burning Pastor Terry Jones And ‘Niggers’ Torching The US Flag
TERRY Jones is the pastor who wants you to burn the Koran on September 11 – International Burn a Koran Day. He’s bought lots of Korans for his followers at the Dove World Outreach Centre in Gainesville in Florida – 50 of them. But there are believed to be more copies of the work in circulation (some as far a field as North Carolina). Mr Jones does not say it is the solution, but it is a start.
It’s all seen as brewing up more trouble for the US forces in Afghanistan, giving the enemy more reason to try and blow the allied soldiers to smithereens.
Maybe Jones and his followers should have wrapped Korans in US Flag first and meet the enemy half way?
Richard Bartholomew looks at some background to the shitstorm created by the little man in a little building:
ON 4 August I blogged on Pastor Terry D. Jones’ book Islam is of the Devil, which had just been published by Creation House. The imprint was of interest: while Jones appeared to be a marginal figure, allied to Fred Phelps but repudiated by everyone else because of his plans for a Koran book-burning, Creation House is owned by the influential neo-Pentecostal media empire Strang Communications. It seemed to me that perhaps Jones, who had been part of the controversial Maranatha organisation in the 1980s, was not as far out on the fringe as he appeared.
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Posted: 9th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (17)
Beautiful Photographs Of Soy Sauce And Other Small Things: A Gallery
SOY sauce has never looked more beautiful than it does in these pictures from the Nikon’s Small World photomicrography contest. These images are created by doctors, scientists, researchers, photographers and amateurs. They are spellbinding.
Posted: 8th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Technology | Comment (1)
Wayne Rooney And Rebecca Hayes’ No Sex Stag Night: Photos
SARAH Tetteh did not have sex with Wayne Rooney in a toilet. And neither did Rebecca Hayes. Finding women who haven’t had sex with Wayne Rooney is proving to be pretty easy for the Mirror.
Tetteh is the paper’s 3am Girl who says she was invited to join Wayne in the bogs. Hayes is the air stewardess who claims Rooney tried to shag her on his Stag Do.
Her no sex with Rooney is the Mirror’s front-page news. The headline is “ROO SWINE”.
Hayes says that while on his Stag do in 2008, Rooney was “really nice” but then she found him “lecherous and flirty”.
Tetteh told us:
“Don’t you know that everyone is looking, Wayne. Let’s just dance.” And when he realised I wasn’t budging he just continued weaving on the dancefloor, leaving us in hysterics.
Wayne is funny and “nice”. He also scores for England. Rooney continues to be presented as likeable and a down-to-earth bloke with a god-given talent who may have shagged a prostitute and who despite his wealth and fame finds it hard to pull.
As Anorak reader CoolAndCalm puts it:
why does this apply to Wayne Rooney and not to Ashley Cole? all the pundits agreed that Cole was the best player throughout the World Cup yet still he is castigated across the media and by the jeering crowds.
Both are cheating rats but it seems its a far greater sin to cheat on the ethereal St Cheryl of Malaria than it is to cheat on the relatively normal Coleen.
Ashley = love rat
Wayne = one of the ladsThe cult of celebrity 2010
Maybe, the tabloids just prefer our footballers who white and not that good looking because they better gel with the readers?
Tabloids Link Wayne Rooney’s Alleged Shag Jennifer Thompson To Ashley Cole
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Posted: 8th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Tongue Tattoos – A Gallery That Says So Much
TONGUE tattoos are good news for anyone who finds themselves lost for words. With tongue tattoo you can say so much with words inked onto your tongue. Or why not try a face, a picture or an invitation to “your mom”? Tongue tattoos turn your mouth into a window to your soul…
The Greatest Tattooed Mugshots Ever
Scarifying Tattoos – A Gallery Of The Revolting
Tattoos – Lip Ones
The Best And Worst Fan Tattoos Ever
Tattoos – Weird And Stupid Ones
Tattoos – Retro Ones
Tattoos – On Your Arse
Tattoos – Super Heroes
Tattoos: The Misspelled Ones
Tattoos – Tramp Stamps 2
Posted: 8th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Strange But True | Comment
The Battle Of Britain In Photos: 70 Years Ago Today Germany Attacked In A Blitz
SEVENTY years ago today, the Germans began to bomb London. Today, 2,500 people packed into St Paul’s Cathedral to remember the Blitz and the spirit, luck and lack of options that saw Londoners survive.
The service remembered all those who contributed during the Battle of Britain with former pilots and other military personnel standing alongside firefighters, nurses and ambulance workers from the era.
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Posted: 7th, September 2010 | In: Flashback, Key Posts | Comments (4)
Andy Coulson: No Inquiry Until Daily Telegraph Wants One
ANDY Coulson is front–page news on the Independent and Guardian. He is not front-page news on any other paper. The allegation is that Coulson, now the director of communications at that No 10, knew journalists were hacking the phones of prominent people when he was their editor at the News of The World. He denies this.
The paper’s royal editor, Clive Goodman, was sentenced to four months in prison for intercepting phone messages.
The New Statesman sums up the story in one line:
The allegations of phone-hacking at the News of the World could be reinvestigated if new evidence comes to light.
So. Is there any new evidence of goings on four years ago?
Tory minister Michael Gove says the latest bout of news is “recycled”. There is nothing new. Well, not quite. There is the testimony of former NoTW hack Sean Hoare who says Coulson knew all about the ahcking. But he has yet to back up his allegations with proof.
So. Gove is right. But the whiff of scandal is being fanned by leading Labour politician. At the weekend we were invited to wonder if Peter Mandelson was a victim of illegality?
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Posted: 6th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (2)
Photos Of Wayne Rooney’s Alleged Prostitute Lover Jenny Thompson
WAYNE Rooney cheated on Coleen Rooney with 21-year-old Jenny Thompson, aka Jennifer Thompson, a prostitute, allegedly. So says the News of The World on its front page, its follow up story on Pakistani cricket – billed as “the most sensational sporting scandal ever”. – relegated by a footballer’s alleged shags.
The allegation is that Rooney shagged the brass when Coleen was pregnant with their first child, Kai. The Mirror says Rooney stopped seeing her in October 2009. Kai was born in the following November.
This story has been a rumour throughout the summer, served up by gossiping hacks to explain Rooney’s lacklustre performances in the South Africa World Cup. Rooney has form, having been linked to prostitutes Charlotte Glover, Gina McCarrick and Auld Slapper, a grandma of 48.
Says Jenny:
“Wayne chased me with sex texts and paid in wads of cash. He didn’t seem to care he was betraying Coleen.”
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Posted: 5th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (9)
Pamela Somerville Was Assaulted By Police But Unlike Ian Tomlinson She Is Middle Class
PAMELA Somerville fell asleep in her car. The car had broken down. The Mail says she has degree is microbiology. This might be the most spurious fact ever. We shall see. She is 59. She is 5ft 2in. She is in Melksham, Wiltshire. She is not wearing a Millwall football shirt. She does not smoke. She is not Ian Tomlinson, who died after being assaulted by police at the G20 protest..
The facts keep coming.
Captured on film, a burly police sergeant flings an innocent 5ft 2in woman on to a concrete floor, knocking her unconscious.
Me is Mark Andrews, He is 6ft 3in. He is a former soldier Mark Andrews. He is stood before the Beak at Oxford Magistrates’ Court.
The Mail tells its readers:
The incident… will inevitably stoke debate about the deteriorating relationship between the public and the police following the death of newspaper vendor Ian Tomlinson, pushed to the ground by a police officer during last year’s G20 protests.
Oh, yes, Mr Ian Tomlinson, who at the time of his death was sleeping in a shelter near Smithfield market. He had no degree in microbiology.
What did the Mail have to say on him? Stephen Glover offered us:
We don’t yet know how drifter and alcoholic Ian Tomlinson provoked a policeman to attack him minutes before he collapsed and died of heart failure.
Not if. How. But that is mild compared to the treatment dished out by the Mail’s Amanda Platell:
However, there is a second aspect of this story, which, I fear, gives another unpleasant insight into modern Britain and it concerns the way Ian Tomlinson’s grieving family relished the media spotlight.
A man died. He was not wearing a suit when he died.
Of course, I am not suggesting that the family are not grieving, but the facts of Ian Tomlinson’s recent life must lead one to question the depth of their grief.
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Posted: 5th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comments (37)
Ban The England Football Supporters’ Band: Join Our Facebook Group
ANORAK.co.uk says lets snuff out the so-called England supporters’ band that weeps out the music of lost causes and expects the lads in the replica tops to join in in a celebration of an American actor jumping a fence on a motorbike.
It is egotism, not idealism, that drives them, which is why they will happily offer their services to anything from a church fête to a Gary Glitter convention.
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Posted: 4th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comments (6)
Andy Coulson And The NoTW Hacking Scandal Invites Labour Attack On Cameron And Murdoch
ANDY Coulson will not be sacked from his job as Downing Street’s head of communications in light of the News of the World phone hacking scandal.
A source somewhere in government tells the BBC’s Gary O’Donoghue that Mr Coulson “is going nowhere”.
But on the Guardian’s front page, the news is less certain:
“Coulson ‘lied’ over phone hack reporter.”
The source of this story is Sean Hoare. He used to work at the NoTW. He tells BBC Radio 4’s PM show:
“There is an expression called the culture of dark arts. You were given a remit: just get the story. Phone tapping hadn’t just existed on the News of the World … I have gone on the record in the New York Times and said I have stood by Andy and been requested to tap phones, OK, or hack into them. He was well aware the practice existed. To deny it is simply a lie.”
News of the World sports reporter Matt Driscoll tells the BBC he thought it was “unconceivable” that Mr Coulson was unaware of the phone tapping because “he would be a part of all the big stories that were being made by the paper“.
In late 2009, the Indy reported on him:
…a tribunal ordered the News of the World to pay Driscoll, 41, £792,736 in compensation for being the victim of “a consistent pattern of bullying behaviour”, led by the paper’s then editor, Andy Coulson.
The Politics
Alan Duncan, the international development minister, is also on Radio 4. He tells the Any Questions show:
“What they are seizing on today are the words of someone [Hoare] who had an alcohol and drug problem who was sacked by the paper.”
The thing has become a political tool to beat the enemy. Ed Miliband, the would-be Labour leaders wades in:
“These are very serious allegations. If I was prime minister and Andy Coulson was working for me I would demand to know from Andy Coulson the truth. I don’t see how he can stay working in Downing Street unless he clears this up and says whether his former colleagues are telling the truth or not.”
Miliband would demand the truth? But Colson says he didn’t know anything of the hacking. Why cannot that be the truth? Or is the truth what you want it to be – what you hope it is to best fit your agenda?
Labour heavyweights join the throng:
Former Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott says he will go to court to find out if his phone was tapped. Ex-Home Secretary Alan Johnson wants a review. Former culture secretary Tessa Jowell tells the Independent:
“I know I was tapped 28 times by May 2006 because the police told me. I had a call when I was on holiday in August 2006 from the Met to say that I had been tapped, but they asked me to do nothing except increase the security on my phone.”
Labour MP Chris Bryant adds:
“I was amazed when Cameron appointed him, because either Cameron is completely naive, or he knowingly employed someone who ran this regime at the News of the World. I simply do not believe Andy Coulson’s version of events. The line is that there was one bad apple [Goodman], but it looks like there was a whole orchard, with every bit of it rotten to the core. I find it inconceivable, if that is true, that Andy Coulson didn’t know anything about it.”
Media Wars
Is this a chance to kick Rupert Murdoch, owner of the NoTW?
Back in Febraury 2010, The culture, media and sport select committee investigted. The report went:
Throughout we have repeatedly encountered an unwillingness to provide the detailed information that we sought, claims of ignorance or lack of recall, and deliberate obfuscation. We strongly condemn this behaviour which reinforces the widely held impression that the press generally regard themselves as unaccountable and that News International in particular has sought to conceal the truth about what really occurred.
The NoTW respsoned:
A statement issued on behalf of News International claimed members were in a political conspiracy with the Guardian, which had originally published new evidence of the hacking, and whose editor, Alan Rusbridger, testified in public at the committee hearings.
The statement said that News International “strongly rejected” the findings.
The story is also big in the New York Times – a paper not owned by Murdoch but is a rival to his Wall Street Journal. It has given the story 6,000 words.
“There was simply no enthusiasm among Scotland Yard to go beyond the cases involving Mulcaire and Goodman,” said John Whittingdale, the chairman of a parliamentary committee that has twice investigated the phone hacking. “To start exposing widespread tawdry practices in that newsroom was a heavy stone that they didn’t want to try to lift.”
Kevin MaGuire, at the Labour–supporting Daily Mirror, writes:
I was told Coulson asked a journalist on The Guardian to try and keep telephone-tapping stories out of that paper. The inference was the journalist could expect No 10 favours in the future. The journalist, who I know well, was insulted and said No.
Told by whom? We want transparency but the sources are not named. One paper’s source are another paper’s spin doctor.
Bill Akass, the managing editor of The News of the World, adds:
“We reject absolutely any suggestion or assertion that the activities of Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, at the time of their arrest, were part of a culture of wrongdoing at the News of the World and were specifically sanctioned or accepted at a senior level in the newspaper.”
The Story
Coulson was the editor of the News of the World editor when its journalists were hacking phone accounts, including those of people working for Buckingham Palace.
Back in 2005, royal aides noticed that “messages they had never listened to were somehow appearing in their mailboxes as if heard and saved”.
Coulson says he had no idea that Clive Goodman, the News of the World reporter who covered the royal family, a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, had obtained the PIN codes needed to access the voice mail of the royal aides.
Scotland Yard told the aides to continue operating as usual while it pursued the investigation, which included surveillance of the suspects’ phones. A few months later, the inquiry took a remarkable turn as the reporter and the private investigator chased a story about Prince William’s younger brother, Harry, visiting a strip club. Another tabloid, The Sun, had trumpeted its scoop on the episode with the immortal: “Harry Buried Face in Margo’s Mega-Boobs. Stripper Jiggled . . . Prince Giggled.”
As Scotland Yard tracked Goodman and Mulcaire, the two men hacked into Prince Harry’s mobile-phone messages. On April 9, 2006, Goodman produced a follow-up article in News of the World about the apparent distress of Prince Harry’s girlfriend over the matter. Headlined “Chelsy Tears Strip Off Harry!” the piece quoted, verbatim, a voice mail Prince Harry had received from his brother teasing him about his predicament.
The Police
A Scotland Yard spokesman says:
“In December 2005, the Met received complaints that mobile phones had been illegally tapped.
“Inquiries took place in 2005 and 2006 which resulted in Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire being jailed in January 2007 for conspiring to unlawfully intercept communications. This brought an end to the investigation. In July 2009, the MPS (Metropolitan Police Service) examined whether any new evidence had emerged in the media or elsewhere that justified reopening the investigation.
“The clear view, subsequently endorsed by the Director of Public Prosecutions with leading counsel’s advice, was that there was no new evidence and consequently the investigation remains closed. There has been no investigation since the convictions of Goodman and Mulcaire.”
And so it goes that the minor royal tittle-tattle is a small story compared to the tale about how the media works. But do the readers care? Today the Sun and Mirror lead with a story on Cheryl Cole. It’s big news.
Now read on…
Posted: 4th, September 2010 | In: Key Posts, Reviews | Comment
