Perhaps they'd echo your defence of New Labour - [i"What choice did we have?"[/i

The Tories get some credit for resisting temptation whilst out of power*. I don't agree with William Hague and IDS on very much. But they at least draw a clear distinction between the roles of government and the media. In decades to come Blair's New Labour will undoubtedly be remembered as light years ahead of the Tories in all departments. Yet things could have been so different had Michael Howard been made party leader in the wake of election defeat. Ditto Michael Portillo - a cast iron certainty until Iain Duncan-Smith, the biggest long-odds runner since Foinavon in the National, snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Both Howard and Portillo were quite willing to play the same game as Labour and you can bet neither would have been afforded the ridicule poured so gleefully upon Hague & IDS by the client press.

Given that Cameron was very close to Michael Howard his current methods should come as little surprise.



Don't be silly. Neither side has any wish to see the demise of the other. There's far too much at stake. Government sanctioned enquiries are finely engineered to portray the illusion that the system is self-cleansing whilst maintaining the status quo. Sure, some people will go to prison. A few ministers will lose their jobs. The police will get a kick in the nuts. But any notions of seeing the Murdochs clapped into irons are wishful thinking. From the evidence we've seen it's patently obvious one hard tug of this thread will result in catastrophic damage to the establishment. And how often has this happened in Britain during the last hundred years?

* Credit should also be given to John Major who sought to back way from Thatcher's cosy relationship with Murdoch - only to be viciously briefed against by the likes of Howard, Portillo etc.

I'm dyed in the wool Labour, but I've got a lot of time for John Major. He won the election in 1992 that Labour were supposed to win and take the s h i t for cleaning up Thatcher's mess (as Labour governments normally have to when they take over - 1945, 1964, 1974) instead Major had to do it. And he did it, and shared the pain fairly instead of dumping it all on the North of England, Wales and Scotland. That's why he got murdered in the South in 1997. But to say he backed away from Thatcher's cosy relationship with the Murdochs is to fool yourself. Remember the Sun's front page on Election Day 1992? Or their headline afterwards "It's the Sun wot won it!"
If there was any backing away it was the Murdochs from Major after the disaster of 15th September 1992. As Kelvin McKenzie said when Major (scared to death of a bad press) rang him that evening to ask what the Sun's reaction would be "I've got a pot full of s h i t and I'm going to empty it all over your head"
The Murdoch organisation realised that the Tories weren't going to win next time and altered their allegiance
Tony only had to ask. As I said in my earlier post, what has happened should have freed the parties from having to suck up to the likes of Murdoch. Every dog has his day. IMO Murdoch's had his. (better for RL too if they can be rid of him)

Next week's Leveson should be fun, if the witness list is anything to go by:

Monday: That well known comedy duo; Gordon Brown and Gideon Osborne

Tuesday: John Major, Ed Miliband, Hattie Harperson

Wednesday: Nick Clegg, Alex Salmond

Thursday:Call me Dave Camoron

Given the cast, there's an opportunity for another carry-on film in that lot

Get the popcorn ready!

We will see just how big a pair of stones Mr Jay has.
Hopefully they are the size of grapefruits and he will go for the kill on all of them.


I could be rather fun eh!!

Osborne must be literally [is[/ihitting himself at the prospect of appearing in person, it was the very last thing he wanted. He simply does not have the debating skills of his peers and tory grandees will be watching his performance through their fingers.

Robert Jay is just the sort of onion-peeler that will bring out the spoilt-brat, Bullingdon Boy for everyone to see.

What are the odds on Gideon developing a "bladder infection" over the weekend?

My money is on selective memory loss. I've a theory that Murdoch owns one of those memory erasers from the Men In Black films which he uses after every meeting with politicians.

[url=http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/homeDispatches - Channel 4, 8.00pm Monday should be interesting[/url

Peter Oborne looking at just how close Camoron got to News Corp

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tcher.html One wonders whether Sir John is the only ex-PM telling the whole truth?

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... tcher.html One wonders whether Sir John is the only ex-PM telling the whole truth?

I think the obvious thing is that old Rupert has been lying through his teeth.....



Has for 'Sir John', why are we expected to believe that everything he recounts is the truth??.....Let's not forget, here's a man who is a proven liar, after telling porkies to his missus for years, while boning his work colleague....

Yeah 2 ex-Pm's have now by their evidence accused Rupert of telling lies.
Now if it had just been Brown V Murdoch he would get away with it as it is one against the other but 2 have now pretty much stated that under oath Rupert isn't being honest.

I belive that is perjury (under oath) Rupert and will get you in rather how water (Although i'm not sure how it is punishable in this case).

Edit-Although to be honest they don't agree with each other (Major v Brown) either.

Strangely enough, Louise Mensch (yes her of the I was trolled by someone who actually looked like a real troll fame), was yesterday accusing Brown of lying because he suggested that Murdoch hadn't been telling the truth. Not a peep from her today on what Major had to say on the subject.

I think Jay has been very poor. His only real success came as a result of the revelation of the e-mails, which was hardly down to him. His "interrogation" of Murdoch was dire. And he's allowed Blair, Brown & Major to indulge themselves in exercises in self justification. They politicians will be queuing up to give evidence if this is the best he can do.

As I said, Robert Jay is an onion peeler, there'll be no quick kills in this enquiry but the damage will be done when he's finally peeled back all the layers of bull[is[/ihit, lies and spin.

This could well end up being Camoron's very own Watergate

And its worth mentioning that Watergate didn't have any quick kills either, it took a very long time to peel back all of the evidence until it added up to something very nasty.

The interesting conclusions I'm looking forward to will be the timelines and the link diagrams that will produced at the end of it all

Rebekah and Charlie Brooks in court today too.

It could be an entertaining day all round really.

For anyone on night shift and is having trouble sleeping, click [url=http://www.levesoninquiry.org.uk/hearings/HERE[/url and you'll soon drift off.

Good to se Clegg is wearing his true colours in his tie

And she and five others have been sent for trial.

So let's all be extremely careful about what we say now.

Not sure all Gordon Brown's evidence was that credible though in that part of it seems to have been contradicted by Sir John and just about every other politician and journalist there is.

The problem for Brown is that he tried to put over that he wasn't that upset by actions of The Sun and that he remained calm all the time. He'd have been better off admitting he was angry at them for plenty of things and for the manner of their switching support.

I think his basic problem was that, although nearly everyone would accept his right to be absolutely furious over the disclosure of his son's illness, his subsequent attempts to stay in Brooks' good books doesnt do him any favours. That line about Sarah being very forgiving was about as nauseating as anything said at the hearings.

Indeed even Leveson himself said that if had been him he would have been very angry.

It certainly seemed at the time that Nixon had got away with Watergate - it took two years for the whole story to finally bring him down. However, politicians these days presumably have learned from Nixon's mistakes. I can't see there being any real evidence of skuldugery no matter how much has taken place. For one thing this government haven't been in long enough to get careless. That's how Hamilton, Aitken and Archer were caught - they'd been in so long that they thought they could do anything and get away with it. After all even Thatch herself got away with manipulating contracts to benefit the boy Mark. Hamilton had got away with some bad behaviour in the mid eighties. The Beeb had witnesses to it but these witnesses were leaned upon by Tebbitt and as a result Alistair Milne Director General of the Beeb lost his job.
Hunt is brass faced enough to deny any wrongdoing presumably because he knows that there's no way of proving it.
Osbourne is another serial offender. There's quite an interesting item in today's "Eye" about him and a Telegraph journo.

On his way to Leveson this morning