News of the World shuts down

[paddington]

Yeah, what with the Coulson arrest, and now Hunt giving evidence today, it's shaping up to be a bad week for David Cameron.

It's not like I can remeber Cameron having a good week. Honestly the highlight in the last month was him calling Ed Balls names.

[Horza]

Just by the by you can get Jeremy Hunt's shade of puce at most good hardware stores. #brickingit

[Lummel]

Lucky for Cameron that he's got an extra long weekend to Chilax properly then.

The bits I heard of Hunt at the inquiry today sound like he's in a hole and still digging.

[Horza]

I need to get up in six and a half hours but I just can't look away. This is a politically-dead man walking.

[mormont]

So now we know: if you're recorded making a remark that suggests you might be against a takeover, regretfully you have to step aside from the decision on whether to allow it, because we cannot allow even the perception that you might be biased.

But if you have made it clear on multiple occasions that you're in favour of the same takeover, you're just the chap to be put in charge of the same decision. You're capable of putting aside this bias completely and making the decision fairly, and we know you did this because you're telling us so. Any impression of bias is unfortunate, but the Prime Minister is perfectly willing to accept your assurance that you put your personal feelings aside completely. The two cases are not comparable.

Does this even sound plausible to Jeremy Hunt?

[Horza]

• Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson and five other former News of the World journalists, plus the private investigator Glenn Mulcaire, charged over phone hacking.

• Six ex-News of the World employees, including Brooks and Coulson, face charges of conspiracy to intercept Milly Dowler's voicemail messages.

• The eight charged are: Rebekah Brooks, Andy Coulson, Stuart Kuttner, Glenn Mulcaire, Greg Miskiw, Ian Edmondson, Neville Thurlbeck and James Weatherup.

• All eight charged with a six-year conspiracy to intercept voicemail messages of more than 600 high-profile people.

• Neville Thurlbeck, the former News of the World chief reporter, and James Weatherup, the ex-assistant news editor, charged on suspicion of conspiracy to intercept the voicemails of Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt.

• CPS announce three others will not face charges. Prosecutors defer decision on two other suspects.

[Usotsuki]

Ex-Downing Street communications chief Andy Coulsonand ex-News International executive Rebekah Brooks are to be charged in connection with payments to police and public officials.

The Crown Prosecution Service said they were among five people to face action as part of the inquiry.

That is pretty much what I wanted for Christmas, well that and a sparklepony.

[Horza]

Murdoch on tape:

Murdoch was recorded this March in London during a meeting to reassure 20 or so of his senior staff, many of them among the hundred or so journalists and informants already arrested over allegations of illegal payments to police. According to Exaro News, which exclusively published the transcript and redacted recordings on Wednesday, more than one of the journalists was covertly recording the conversation.

Two years ago, called to appear in Parliament over the mounting hacking scandal that shuttered News of the World, Murdoch appeared apologetic and said it was “the most humble day of my life.”

To his staff at The Sun three months ago, he said they’d been “picked on” by a mixture of the “old right-wing establishment” and “even worse, the left-wing get-even crowd.” He claimed the police were both “incompetent” and “out of control.” When told by the Sun deputy editor Geoff Webster that “It would be nice to hit back,” Murdoch replied: “We will, we will.”

Two years ago, in Parliament, Murdoch testified that paying police for stories was “wrong.” To his staff in March, he said “it was the culture of Fleet Street.” Challenged by a Sun journalist who had arrived at the paper only 10 years previously and had been told to make payments to police, Murdoch conceded that this was an “inherited” practice for more than 40 years since he took over the paper. “We’re talking about payments for news tips from cops,” he said. “That’s been going on a hundred years, absolutely.”

Just another hard-working, plain-spoken currency lad being done in by the bloody Establishment. Onya, Rupes.

[Lummel]

Murdoch on tape...

further developments

Scotland Yard detectives were on Friday attempting to track down a secret recording of Rupert Murdoch admitting to Sun journalists that payments to public officials were part of "the culture of Fleet Street"...

The development is the clearest indication yet that police in London are ready to examine Murdoch's private disclosures since the tapes emerged on Wednesday night. Murdoch is recorded saying the culture of paying police officers for stories "existed at every newspaper in Fleet Street. Long since forgotten. But absolutely."...

On one clip published by Exaro News, an unidentified Sun journalist asks him: "I'm pretty confident that the working practices that I've seen here are ones that I've inherited, rather than instigated. Would you recognise that all this predates many of our involvement here?"

Murdoch replies: "We're talking about payments for news tips from cops. That's been going on a hundred years, absolutely. You didn't instigate it." Earlier in the tape, Murdoch tells the Sun journalists: "I don't know of anybody, or anything, that did anything that wasn't being done across Fleet Street and wasn't the culture."

News UK, formerly known as News International, has maintained that Murdoch "never knew of payments made by Sun staff to police before News Corporation disclosed that to UK authorities". Scotland Yard, meanwhile, said it would not give a "running commentary" on Operation Elveden...

I think I know what I want for Christmas. What about everybody else?

[Horza]

Neil Chenoweth: 'The stalking of Rupert Murdoch'

This is always the crucial breaking-point in any cover-up: the willingness of underlings to take the fall and their faith that their organisation will take care of them. That this tape was made, and released is clear evidence that that willingness and trust isn't there.