News of the World perjurers and hackers to be outed

Coulson and Goodman - who's telling the truth?

As the dust settles on the streets of London and other cities following the rampaging and violence of last week, attention is now turned to the crooks and deviants of society in other echelons of society. Britain's so-called broken society must include a few of the phone hackers and cheapskate journalists that have been declared "openly discussing" illegal activities in the editorial offices of News Corporation's red top rags.

Clive Goodman, convicted phone hacker of the Murdoch empire, now tells a juicy story that could implicate Andy Coulson in the ongoing scandal. Coulson has said on oath that he knew nothing about such wrongdoing. If he is found to be telling an untruth, then it is inconceivable that he would not get arrested on perjury charges.

I cannot understand why the Prime Minister is so besotted with Coulson. None of these journos appears transparent. In fact all involved are tainted it seems. Cleaning up Britain must include using some of those Clapham brooms and brushes on this lot of society breakers.

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I did not have an inappropriate conversation with that woman!

Tight-lipped and no pyjamas in sight!

I've pondered overnight about David Cameron and his understanding of the word inappropriate. I've wondered about his understanding of the word transparency. Was he any good at English at Eton? Maybe he has studied Lewis Carroll? Carroll's great character of Humpty Dumpty is as relevant today as it was when the reverend scribe thought him up. Making words mean what you want them to mean.

I don't take Cameron to be a fool. He's not naive either. But he's making his cabinet look like fools. Jon Snow interviewed the hapless Hammond last night and inappropriate was inappropriately explained away. Does David Cameron take us all for fools? We know he had a conversations with News Corporation and Rebekah Brooks was there for a lot of the meetings. So if the discussions were not inappropriate they must have been appropriate. But this tells us nothing. The country now thinks Cameron is a shifty schmoozer and it's all his own doing. He goes on about transparency but can't tell us if he talked about BSkyB. So what do we all think?

HE SPOKE ABOUT BSkyB!!

Newspapers from the Daily Telegraph to the Guardian think he did. The BBC thinks he did. ITV, Channel 4, Sky News, Five News all think he did. Who in the country does not think he spoke about BSkyB? It's all a complete mess.

This is just like Bill Clinton saying he never had sexual relations with Monica Lewinsky. It is all Humpty Dumpty stuff. I wonder what Cameron thinks just as he nods off for the night. Does he praise himself that his mastery of words got him out of a jam or does he really confront himself with his own transparency? I think the latter. He does not need a dream to come to him in the night, like Ebenezer Scrooge. He needs a mirror like the one that showed Snow White to the Wicked Queen.

It's just a moral outrage that we can be so abused as a nation as to think this is the high ground of politics. I'm still waiting for transparency. Maybe that judge can peer through the mist and fog of it all.

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Murdoch attacked in Parliament

John Kirriemuir in Grinnell, Iowa, USA emails the BBC to say, "How come I can't take a small bottle of water onto a plane, but someone can attack the head of News Corp, in Parliament, with shaving foam?" Good question. Perhaps we might have the answer by the end of the day.

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Rupert Murdoch - a sad case and a sad spectacle

I've just taken about ten minutes of Rupert Murdoch's questioning before the Culture Select Committee. Strikes me as being very sad all round. An 80-year old man, forgetful and fumbling for facts, comes across as someone well past his retirement date. I somehow find it hard to watch, hence coming to sound off on my blog. I'll go back now and have a cup of coffee. News Corporation shareholders must be holding their breath, wondering what is going to come next.

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Rebekah Brooks quits News International

Rebekah Brooks resigns

The news that Rebekah Brooks is leaving her post as chief bottlewasher at News International has helped me clear my cold and let my head think more brightly. I've been sneezing and sniffing. Not good to view a computer through watery eyes. So she's gone. Thrown in the towel. Can't say I'm surprised. If she was still in post when she sat before John Whittingdale and his cultured colleagues next week, all we would have got is "Why are you still there?". Well now she's not. But the rumblings still rumble on.

The trouble with large corporations is that they think they are above the flotsam and jetsam of daily life. Banks, oil companies, utilities, airlines, newspapers...they have all been ducking and diving, with integrity getting the blows. I think they live in a parallel universe. The banks are getting stress tested today. Is fractional reserve banking going to be tested to the stress limits? I doubt it. Keep pushing the buttons guys!

Matthew Wright of the Wright Stuff fame on Five TV thinks Rebekah Brooks is OK. She's a decent person he says. Well, if she is let her just tell the truth and shame the devil. We can't have this going on for years, with one titbit following another. The FBI are now digging around for nuggets. Somebody has suggested the phones of 9/11 victims were hacked. If they were, then Rupert Murdoch might as well go and hide in the outback of Australia. This could be like a political Mount St.Helens. At the moment, American TV is treading carefully as is their wont. But if the FBI get a bite on something, the game plan changes immediately.

Far better to own up now, tell it all and say SORRY! Otherwise if something nasty is revealed, it's News Corp in the trash bin.

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Rupert Murdoch finds the temperature rising

It's tough at the top and that's no laughing matter

Rupert Murdoch had not long been back in Britain when he saw the thermometer rising and the sun shining in London. Yes, today is a nice summer's day. The heat is on. And as far as Murdoch is concerned, he's got his hands on some hot irons he's trying to cool down. All around him people are speculating. Speculators are speculating. Will the BSkyB deal go through? Not likely! Let's take our money and run. Renault has run from Murdoch. So has the Church of England, although rather like David Cameron they are giving him a second chance if he mends his ways. He did get a pastoral bashing, though.

So what happens now. Murdoch is the story, along with his protegee Rebekah Brooks. She must have presented her case well to him. Selective memory loss is a corporate stock in trade. The trouble is that one has few friends in corporate wonderland when things go wrong. Look at Southern Cross. Today it has been crossed off the business map and is no longer a viable enterprise. Most knew that long ago. What we don't know is whether the skimmers will have to account for their fat bank balances.

Murdoch's personal bank balance isn't too bad I'll bet. But his corporation looks like it is in trouble. He needs advertisers and he needs investors. Both look like they see his "brand" as being toxic. Britain has never taken well to Rupert Murdoch coming into Britain and monopolising the media. However, he has saved much of what he took over from oblivion and that is to his credit. What is not to his credit is the corporate sleaze that now seems to be unfolding from the files and folders of his business empire's records. Honour and integrity should be at the heart of business. Far too much of it though is permeated by wrongdoing and a high-handed attitude to customers and suppliers.

Well now they are biting back. Investors should sit up and wonder if they are actually close to criminality. Suppliers should ask themselves if supping with devils (as many corporations have become) is a good thing. And customers should test whether they should buy from companies that have been found to be doing iffy things.

David Cameron says the buck stops with him. If it does, then the clean-up of British business starts with his government. Out with the pan and brush, Prime Minister!

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BSkyB shares take a tumble after Murdoch's gamble

I'll get my hands on the buggers who got in my way!

Rupert Murdoch thought he might be in the clear with BSkyB if he got rid of the News Of The World. No such luck, cobber! He's now in a real bind. He's got Rebekah Brooks standing in front of him as some kind of human shield. He's got existing BSkyB investors seeing their investments shrink like Alice in the Pool of Tears and he's got Andy Coulson festering in a police cell.

The public don't want him, the media is wary of him and he's in the sorry situation of looking like a gambler with a dodgy hand. Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, is taking the long view. Very long I'd say. And Hunt said he would be taking advice from Ofcom and the Office of Fair Trading. They might advise that Murdoch was not a fit and proper person.

The sky's the limit they say. In this case that's probably very true. Murdoch faces oblivion if he doesn't mend his ways.

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Guilty before God?

This is what a quartet of media maestros look like when sitting in church with their thoughts! Distracted, maybe? Or are they just generally looking sheepish because a rogue cameraman snapped them?

Murdoch looks like he's got indigestion. Andy Coulson is at the back looking furtive. Rebekah Wade, editor of The Sun, looks like she's deep in thought. And the guy at the front with the shaggy grey hair? He's Murdoch's chief bottlewasher Les Hinton.

Have they got anything on their minds? Seems like they did when this snap was taken. However, as with lots of corporate types, they have what's called convenient amnesia. So Scotland Yard won't come knocking on their doors. More's the pity!

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