Red Top Rundown
Neville Thurlbeck and the woman from the CPS
The Screws ‘apology’ for its wholesale phone-hacking activities, of course, is an act of cynical pragmatism.
For them the only thing that is “A matter of genuine regret” is the fact at they’ve been finally, irrevocably caught.
They paid millions in legal fees and settlements against the actions brought by Max Clifford and Gordon Taylor to avoid having to make disclosures.
Now, by putting their hands up and offering and uncontested settlement, they avoid the massive legal costs, and still don’t have to disclose any incriminating details.
What they are admitting to now are crimes which the Metropolitan Police should and could have uncovered four years ago.
We need to know what hold the Screws had over the Met and individual senior officers which deterred them from doing this.
Former MP and CMS Committee member, Adam Price has said that the paper also put pressure on MPs to deter them from questioning the ridiculous and mendacious Rebekah ‘Testarossa’ Brooks.
Even more alarming than this, is the closeness between the Prime Minister and Andy Coulson, clearly a party to many conspiracies to hack voice-mails and almost certainly now a candidate for collar-feeling, and his former boss, the Testarossa, who was one of the few outsiders at his birthday party at Chequers last year. She too is inextricably involved in these crimes.
Why, too, have the CPS been so docile?
Why was a female employee of the CPS seen on holiday, motoring through France with the Screws star shag’n’brag reporter, Neville ‘Onan the Barbarian’ Thurlbeck?
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Neville ‘Onan the Barbarian’ Thurlbeck – not hard at work
This is what Neville Thurlbeck – recently arrested for questioning by MET officers on the phone-hacking investigation – does for a living. Actually, that’s not quite true – here he is, just about to enjoy one of the perks of the job – as News of the World Hacks have been doing for years while they scour Britain for the muckiest rubbish they can think of.
I hope this doesn’t spoil your breakfast, but it’s important we should know how diligently this man goes about his work. – before we judge him too harshly.
- Neville Thurlbeck girds his loins for another hard day at the Muck Face.
Thurlbeck is the hard-nosed hack who usually handles the dirtier celebrity shag’n'brag stories for the News of the World. A sting went badly wrong for him a few years ago. He’d set out to expose a naturists’ boarding house whose owners allegedly offered ‘extra’ sexual services to guests. Having made his investigations, Thurlbeck carelessly forgot to ‘make his excuses and leave’ (in the time-honoured News of the World manner). Instead, no doubt to his eternal regret, he made his excuses and came. He was caught on film begging the couple to have sex while he stood at the foot of their bed, exposed what, in its primmer days, the News of the World would have called his ‘manhood’ and indulged in an unmistakable act of onanism. Since the film was posted on the internet to the delight of his fascinated colleagues, it was inevitable that sooner or later the moniker ‘Onan the Barbarian’, bestowed on him by an uncharitable ex-colleague, would stick.
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Screws to sack Onan Thurlbeck?
Rebekah ‘Testarossa’ Brooks will have to think hard before she allows Screws editor, little Colin Myler to sack Neville ‘Onan the Barbarian’ Thurlbeck for his clear involvement in criminal activity. He has been part of the evil cabal at the centre of Britain’s most evil newspaper for a long time – a lot longer than recently fired Ian Edmondson. And he knows an awful lot about the illicit information gathering techniques of the paper’s hacks, which of them have done it and when. He has committed other crimes too.…. He told Mr Justice Eady in the High Court that he had no idea where the story about Prince William leaving a jokey message on Prince Harry’s voicemail had come from. It could only have been acquired by illegal hacking; he knew this – his by-line headed the story.
Telling lies to judges in court is an imprisonable offence.
If Rebekah decides he has to go, he’s going to cost Master James an awful lot in ‘be discreet’ money. We’ve never heard how much his former dodgy colleague, managing editor for 25 years, Stuart Kuttner was awarded when he was sacked (to get this arch-organizer of illicit practices out of the way before the dung hit the windmill).
Have the MET raided his gaffe yet, I wonder? Not too late, DAC Sue Akers.
What next?
If Ian Edmondson was involved, so was Andy Coulson
If Andy Coulson was involved, so was Rebekah Brooks.
If Rebekah Brooks was involved, so was Master James.
And if they were, it’s very likely that Les Hinton, CEO of The Wall Street Journal (the brightest bird in Rupert Murdoch’s bush), was involved, too, becasue he was Executive Chairman of News International at the time.
And then there’s the Fake Sheikh, the nation’s most mendacious hack……
Watch my next blog….
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As Jeremy Vagina looks into the Abyss
Of all the poisoned chalices to be passed by a much-loved colleague — Should the government allow the venal and highly self-interested News Corp to dominate the British news agenda by giving them control over a significant share of the news outlet? — the BSkyB decision could not have been more sensitive, especially when the boss is so obviously in lerve with the Testarossa – Rebekah the Larrikin – accepting her invitations; inviting her round, too, from time to time for quite intimate gatherings. She probably loves the intellectual stimulation, which she doesn’t get from hubby, Charlie ‘Bonker’ Brooks.
It all smells pretty nasty, Young Vagina, so chuck away the nose peg, and send Ol’ Rumplechops and his billions packing. If you don’t, you’ll look as big a fool as your boss does just now over his ‘loyalty’ to Andy C.
And you don’t want that, do you?
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News International in Bed with BSkyB
Andy Gray (a BSkyB sports reporter) is currently suing the News of the World (a News International title) for invasion of privacy in illegally accessing his voicemail.
BSkyB (39% owned by News International) has just announced that Andy Gray has been sacked - not for crass, flippant sexist comments about female linespersons, but for an undisclosed unknown, off-air incident a month or two ago.
Like suing his employers for hacking his phone?
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Murdoch or Desmond – who should we fear most?
IN the Independent this morning, Stephen Glover (who co-founded the paper in 1986) takes a worryingly soft approach to Rupert Murdoch. He suggests that because the old cobber is now 80 he has become less of a threat to a diverse press in the UK, and anyway, his English newspapers don’t concern him as much as they did 25 years ago – as if he no longer had an agenda in Britain.
But Glover must know that if the Murdoch bid to own all – rather than just 39% – of BSkyB succeeds, it will make a clear and potentially dangerous difference to the channel’s editorial drive. It is patently the case that without a co-owner to balance the Murdochs’ pursuit of their own interests and priorities, they will simply deliver a version of political news and events that matches their aspirations, as they already do in the papers they own.
For instance, when the story of the News of the World’s first phone-hacking pay-off to Gordon Taylor was revealed by the Guardian 18 months ago, Sky News sent a unit to Ludlow to interview me – as an informed commentator and clearly identifiable critic of Murdoch’s approach to British media – and broadcast the interview live and unedited. It seems inconceivable that a 100% Murdoch-owned Sky News would do the same.
The Times and the Sun, for instance, (unlike the Guardian, the Telegraph, the Mail, and Glover’s own paper, the Independent) seem happily unaware that the Prime Minster may be harbouring in Downing Street a man who was not only party to, and therefore chargeable with criminal offences under the Regulation Of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA), for which two of his employees were jailed, but also heard to declare under oath at Tommy Sheridan’s recent perjury trial that he had no knowledge of the illegal activities going on at the News of the World, when he was editor. Very few informed observers believe that this is possible; thus it could be that Andy Coulson could be facing a charge of perjury himself at some future date.
Glover (with either startling naivety or gross disingenuousness) goes on to ask why those who castigate Murdoch don’t do the same to Richard Desmond.
But, of course, they do, so far as there is a comparison to be made between Dirty Dick and the Dirty Digger. Desmond is the worst kind of sleaze merchant to be operating a national newspaper or TV channel, but the possession of low standards of sexual morality and bad taste are lesser crimes than the desire to influence in an utterly undemocratic way the operation of a sovereign government.
Neither Mr Desmond himself, nor any of his senior executives are close personal friends of the Prime Minister, as Murdoch’s Rebekah Brooks is. He doesn’t have a trusted ex-employee installed in an office a few doors down from the PM. His national newspapers (the Daily Express and the Daily Star, whose Sunday edition employs former criminal and Screws royal reporter, Clive Goodman) are low-grade, clapped out arse-wipers that carry zero authority. His TV Channel is a despised depository for much of Britain’s worst television. I don’t imagine anyone in Downing Street gives a toss what a Desmond paper says.
It’s hard to guess Glover’s own agenda in writing this piece. Perhaps his paper’s new owner, Alexander Lebedev (also not an ideal candidate for British newspaper ownership) asked him to. Or perhaps he’s not getting on well with Mr L and he’ll pop up in the pages of a Murdoch newspaper one day soon.
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The Met Keeps its Head Firmly up Murdoch’s Bum
As if we needed any more proof that we now live in a MURDOCHRACY, the metropolitan guardians of our democratic law last week showed clearly where their loyalties lie. They chose to believe Andy Coulson’s preposterous contention that he just didn’t know his hacks were breaking the law all around him when he was editor of the nation’s leading Sunday Arse-Wiper.
Anyone with a brain who has followed the progress of investigations into and civil actions against the illegal activities of what Max Mosley has pithily described as “a criminal organisation” is aware that the cocky, grey-suited little fellow who now occupies an office by the PM’s in Downing Street (acting as a high-speed link between his current boss and his former bosses) could not possibly have been unaware of the methods used by his hacks to get many of their exclusive stories about the private peccadilloes of s’lebs and other public figures, and that he was – putting it bluntly – lying his arse off when he made this claim to Parliament and subsequently to the police and anyone else who has asked (including the regrettable Tommy Sheridan in a Glasgow court this week).
Of course, it isn’t only the Met who are guilty of sucking up to Rupert Rumplechops by believing and protecting his man, it is also – and this is more than just regrettable – our wholesome and otherwise right-minded new Prime Minster. After the last election, a majority of voters weren’t too dismayed at the idea of the coalition; as it becomes clearer that this has turned out to be a NewsCorp/Tory/Liberal coalition we are rapidly becoming less happy about it.
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Will Nicola See It Through?
The last time a High Court judge ordered Glenn Mulcaire and the Met to produce disclosures about their part in the Coulson/Screws phone-hacking saga, they were let off the hook when Max Clifford, whose lawyers had asked for them, accepted the tainted Murdoch shilling (and the rest) and dropped his claim.
If his assistant, Nicola Phillips, now suing the Screws for the same thing, sees it through and it is confirmed that Ian Edmondson, senior news editor under Andy Coulson, specifically ordered the targeting of her voice-mail, the Screws and Coulson and, by extension, the Prime Minister will have a lot of egg on their visages. However, the judge is unlikely to award her more than a miserable £20K – £30k for the personal affront of having her voice-mails recorded on the paper’s behalf by Glenn Mulcaire.
But past events suggest that the Screws will make her a much larger offer. We can only hope that she has the principles, the bollocks and enough collateral support to see the case through, because I’m not so sure that George Galloway will when his case reaches this stage.
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Still a Case for Waterboarding?
The Sun “Newspaper”, best-selling of Britain’s shameful Shag-rags, has been advised by ex-SAS ghosted “novelist” Steve Mitchel (aka Andy McNab) that waterboarding is an efficient way of extracting the facts from reluctant informants.
In July last year, I suggested this treament for the former editor of the Sun’s sister paper, the Screws’, Andy “Notso” Coulson after he failed comprehensively to tell the truth to the Commons Culture Select Committee.
Under the heading “A Case for Waterboarding?“, I blogged……..
The MPs on the Culture, Media, Sport Committee must have been asking themselves yesterday, what on earth a reasonable person could do when confronted with three hardened, well-rehearsed liars, all desperate to avoid having their collars felt?
Experienced interpreters of body-language can enjoy a revealing session by tuning into the video-archive of yesterday’s oral evidence in front of the CMS Committee in Portcullis House.
Andy Coulson – bullish, assertive, knowing his best defence is attack, with a dash of cheeky chappy charm.
Tom Crone – for once not so sure of his ground, nervously cutting in a little too quickly when little Colin Myler gets it wrong, with a giveaway sheen of sweat on the strong, ruddy features.
Stuart Kuttner – eau de nil, haunted, shaking like an aspen, fiddling, fiddling, picking up his water, putting it down undrunk, rearranging files and pens, moving his large spectacles from side to side – meaning, for those who speak body language, that he is shitting himself; that after an ignominious dismissal by … who? Which Mr Murdoch? … his long, wicked career at the Screws is well and truly on the skids.
Little Colin Myler doesn’t need to lie. He wasn’t there when events at the centre of this enquiry took place. [When he’d arrived, he did arrange a few training sessions in act-cleaning-up for his newsroom hacks. But did Mazhher Mahmood and Neville “Onan the Barbarian” Thurlbeck attend? From the continuing and relentless shoddiness of their output, it seems they were excused – or just weren’t paying attention.]
When Crone, legal boss of News Group is asked about the terms of a pay-off to Glenn Mulcaire, a former investigations contractor who has been imprisoned for carrying out tasks from which his company profited, and he claims he doesn’t know what those terms were (although he’s very sure that Mulcaire did not sign any non-disclosure agreement), you have to conclude either that he is suffering from severe amnesia and should instantly be relieved of his post, or that he is not telling the truth.
He directed the MPs to ask Stuart Kuttner.
When Kuttner told the MPs, confirming that an arrangement had been made with Glenn Mulciare, he too was utterly unfamiliar with the terms, conditions and size of the pay-off, and that he didn’t know who in an organisation of which he has been Managing Editor for 22 years was responsible for making such arrangements, you have to conclude that he has become insane – for imagining that any rational person would believe him.
When Andy Coulson tells his questioners that he has no recollection whatever of a story, flagged on the front page of an issue of the paper that he’d edited, occupying the whole of Page 7, depicting a verbatim transcript of a message left by one prince on another prince’s voicemail, knowing that not a single person in the Wilson Room in Portcullis House, or viewing the session on Parliament TV, or in the evening news broadcasts would believe him, you a have to conclude that here is a youngish man who sees his whole future in jeopardy if he breaks and admits to a scintilla of knowledge of the phone-hacking that was involved in acquiring the story.
It was very clear that before the three men came in to answer the awkward questions that would be put to them, they had agreed between themselves that they would simply declare either that they didn’t know the answers or that they couldn’t remember the events
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Coulson Comes Clean – Again
So Andy Coulson has trotted round to administer a little white-wash to his deeply soiled public image. The report that he was interviewed by police at an unnamed solicitors’ office means precisely nothing.
Coulson, after all, is a man who in the full glare of a Commons Select Committee hearing was quite relaxed telling the members (+assembled hacks and anyone watching Parliament TV) that he had absolutely no memory of how the News of the World , which he then edited, had run a story – a big royal story with a front page strap – that could only have been acquired by breaking the law.
I don’t imagine, in the privacy of his nominated solicitor’s office, he was put under any greater pressure to remember.
Expect a police statement along the lines:
“Mr Coulson satisfied investigating officers that he was entirely unaware of the illegal phone-hacking activities of the journalists he employed.”
If, on the other hand, we are offered anything more damning, then at last we can believe that the police intend seriously to pursue Coulson with prosecution for a crime for which two of his people have already been jailed.
And the nasty smell that that has hung around the Downing Street press office since David Cameron arrived last May will finally be evicted.
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