Privacy
Screws’ Bob-a-Jobson deplores royal protection of privacy
The News of the World’s quaintly styled Royal Editor (former incumbent: Clive Goodman – lately at Her Majesty’s Pleasure), Robert “Bob-a” Jobson, is cross, and dangerously ratty in today’s edition of the scurrilous arse-wiper.
Jobson has churned out a handful of ‘Royal’ books, stuffed full of the usual well-thumbed myths and cliches. Now the chubby oil-slick claims in today’s Screws that the Queen has ‘slapped a gagging order on all palace staff – to preserve royal family secrets.’ He says that over 200 royal staff have been told to hand back any handwritten notes, letters, or other items given to them by their employers while in service.
Parliament must clarify Privacy Law with clear legislation.
BBC Radio 4’s Westminster Hour last Saturday featured a short debate between Conservative MP Nick Herbert and Alfred (Lord) Dubbs about the use of Cl.8 of the Human Rights Act in recent privacy cases. Herbert, like Mail editor Paul Dacre, argues that Parliament, not judges should be making any new laws on invasion of privacy.
Madonna seeks the jackpot
Yesterday in the high court, Mr Justice Eady entered a judgment in favour of Madonna in her claim against the Mail-on-Sunday for breaching her privacy and copyright by publishing photos of her wedding to Guy Ritchie eight years ago (and it feels like only yesterday).
The shots, the diva claims, were copied by an interior designer working in her Los Angeles home, and sold to the paper for a mere £5,000.The pictures were originally the work of photographer Jean-Baptiste Mondino, who presented them as a private gift to the couple. Madonna had put the photographs in an album that she kept in her home.
The DNA profiles of millions of innocent Britains made safe from the snoopers.
There is a curious and pleasing irony in the European Court of Human Rights’ decision in favour of the Sheffield Two, who have fought the British police through all domestic courts to have details of their DNA profiles removed from a national criminal register. The ruling as been almost universally applauded here, not least by those sections of the British public – the UKIP, the BNP and Tories of Little England tendencies – who most deplore the concept of “Europe” and indeed “Human Rights”.
Mr Scowell is keeping his hair on
Simon Cowell is not everyone’s favourite celeb – mainly because he’s (sort of) honest about the performances of the weeping wannabes who appear on X-Factor and his shows in the US.
But not being popular doesn’t make him eligible for having his Roller bugged by hacks employed, we may safely assume, by one of our inglorious Shag Rags (Sun, Star, Express, Screws, People, Mirror). Although we may deplore his taste in owning a Rolls Royce and having a hair cut like pan cleaner (is Max Clifford going to have a go at his crimper, too?) he, like every one of us, is entitled to his private life, and should have recourse to the law to protect him if the editors of the sad hacks harassing him publish any shots or other material of him going about his private business.
Shag & brag players should pay for invading privacy
Lord Pinocchio Archer’s cast off, Sarah Symonds is evidently making a career of what the tabloids still call “Kiss and Tell”. Like poor old Beck’s former Shag-and-Bragger, Rebecca Loos, she’s in a mutual relationship with the Screws: they to sell papers to half-wits who believe them; she to grab a chance to become some kind of celebrity, maybe even with bit of a telly show – anything to get her boatrace seen in the gossip pages of the Daily Arse-Wiper.
PCC demands apology from News of The World
On July 7th I blogged about the absurdity of a classic Screws front page fantasy headed ‘BURRELL: I HAD SEX WITH DIANA’, with a photo of the Princess filling the page.
At the time it was clear to anyone with any perception of the Screws version of the truth that the whole story was nonsense. They’d paid Burrell’s brother-in-law, a shifty little chancer called Ron Cosgrove to tell them that Burrell had told him (back in 1993) that he’d had sex with Princess Diana.
Even foul-mouthed chavs have a right to privacy
Of the many shamelessly self-promoting food processors currently crawling all over British television screens, Gordon Ramsay is the least appealing. That he should allegedly have ended up with one of Jeffrey “Pinocchio” Archer’s cast-offs is about what he deserves, especially one who’s so cheap she’s happily sold her story and posed for the country’s most pernicious Shag Rag.
But even foul-mouthed, culinary bullies are entitled to privacy – however many more alleged lovers the Screws may try to haul from his cupboard.
Mendacity is contagious
British Sky Broadcasting, as most of us are all too aware, is part of the Murdochs’ News Corp. A nasty ailment they’ve picked up from their bedfellows in Wapping has just got them into trouble again.
For they have acquired from them the compulsive habit of making up stories and saying what they like about anyone, with no reference to the actualité. They had the astonishing, absurdly fanciful effrontery to describe Robert Murat, a totally innocent man, as acting like Soham murderer Ian Huntley in the days after Madeleine McCann vanished in Portugal.
A new set of teeth for the Press Complaints Commission?
In April 2009, the Press Complaints Commission will have a new boss, Baroness Buscombe. Peta Buscombe is a former lawyer of broad experience, most recently as Chief Executive of the Advertising Association, where she earned the respect of a number of admirers.
In many ways she looks more suitable for the job at the PCC than the incumbent, Sir Christopher Meyer, former British Ambassador to Washington, who has never really recovered from indiscretions and his own inner thoughts revealed in DC Confidential – a book about his time in the US.Lady Buscombe has a reputation for being a toughish cookie who doesn’t hang back when a there’s a job to be done; the media watchers will be anxious to know if her sympathies will be with the public or the press.
My first response to our vegan's colleague's 'reply to all' email, was not one of shame that I, like the ...
Ed Sturton not sexy?! You've got to be kidding! 
My mother used to tell me that I'd be known by the company I keep. I wonder what David Cameron's ...
You pose an interesting question; here are some more questions for you, at random....... is Mandelson, like the Rothschilds, Jewish? ...
Glad to see the bile level are back to normal.