Lord Fowler had the first question on Thursday and used it to call for an enquiry on telephone hacking by newspapers. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201011/ldhansrd/text/110616-0001.htm#11061643000197 I came in on a case I took up some years ago when the then editor of the Sun, Stuart Higgins, was involved in a case of sexual harassment of staff. He left the Sun I think under pressure and later I received the legal papers describing the abuse and its effect on the woman concerned. News International paid her a considerable sum – I was told around £500,000 but that may have included medical payments as well. I posted details on my blog some years ago and the BBC and a couple of newspapers reported it. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2003/nov/12/uk.pressandpublishing Interestingly the Sun claimed that I had used Parliamentary privilege which I hadn’t. I said it in Parliament but also in the national media. I think they were trying to say that they would do something about it if they could – a weird defence!
In order to give him a chance of replying before publishing the information I had called Stuart Higgins and his immediate reply was ” You shouldn’t do this to me – I’m on my way to a school governors meeting” This from an editor of a tabloid!!
The point I made in the question was that when I wrote to Rupert Murdoch asking if he knew about it I got no reply – and I tried more than once! They also put an injunction on the woman requiring her not to comment on the case. So when you hear newspapers complaining about injunctions ( not unreasonably at times) just remember that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander!
It is hard to believe that Rupert Murdoch had no knowledge of telephone hacking by his journalists.
Agreed, Lord Soley.
And I find it very hard to believe that the same Rupert Murdoch, as a member of the Roman Catholic Church, had a medal hung around his bowed head by The Pope (“) for human communications services towards the People of China (“).
One wonders too, debilitatingly, how far one’s own individual-little-citizen’s telephone, computer and mail may have been undetectably infiltrated.
1855F170611.JSDM.
@Miles: Phone tapping is not always as undetectable as those who carry out such surveillance imagine.
The issue of Murdoch goes much further than an individual so powerful, because of his grotesque financial stance, as is the political influence he can so readily buy.
This erodes democracy and removes the voice from those who have to rely on lesser resources. Unfortunately, Murdoch is not a loan reed. Too many unsavory individuals are now in positions of tremendous power not granted them through the ballot box, but, through their ability to extort information and use it to advance their personal gain, without threat to their aims or personage.
hard to believe that Rupert Murdoch had no knowledge of telephone hacking by his journalists
Would an accountant/businesman be interested in
how his employees earned his money, as long as they did?
The freedom of the press is anarchic, not to be accountable, except by paying up, when somebody sues successfully, and making huge profits from chaos, whenever possible.
Maude’s last paragraph, is entirely accurate.
A political argument, such as Blair’s “Third Way”, in 1994-97, was so obviously a cogent one, and not one that any other politician had the savoir to use, that support for him by the press, was not a difficult thing to do. It might have seemed as though they had the power to swing a general election, but in reality only, themselves, following the ebb and flow of political fortune.
hard to believe that Rupert Murdoch had no knowledge of telephone hacking by his journalists
Would an accountant/businesman be interested in
how his employees earned his money, as long as they did?
The freedom of the press is anarchic, not to be accountable, except by paying up, when somebody sues successfully, and making huge profits from chaos, whenever possible.
Maude’s last paragraph, is entirely accurate.
A political argument, such as Blair’s “Third Way”, in 1994-97, was so obviously a cogent one, and not one that any other politician had the savoir to use, that support for him by the press, was not a difficult thing to do. It might have seemed as though they had the power to swing a general election, but in reality only, themselves, following the ebb and flow of political fortune.
Please start making more of a fuss about this scandal in the Lords. There only seems to be a few MPs determined to get to the truth.
So, RM, got away with it then?
Money sure does buy anything in this place doesn’t it. Even principle.