Archive for February, 2009
The Day of the State Super-Scrounger
Last October as the full scale of the banking melt-down was emerging, I wrote:
Given the obvious toxicity of these portfolios, it seems that greed must have triumphed mightily over discretion, now that it has become clear how widely and on what an enormous scale these hopelessly dud securities were being accepted. Immoral certainly, fraudulent probably, and criminally incompetent, the culprits must be identified and chastised, in the UK and in the US.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Rumple-chops unchecked
Rupert Murdoch’s highest ranking underling is off. Peter Chernin, LA-based President and Chief Operating Officer of News Corp apparently knows when he’s not wanted, is quitting while he’s ahead and won’t be staying on when his current contract expires in April – leaving the field open for a little internecine scrapping among the young Ruperts, while old Rumple-chops himself steps in to fill the gap temporarily, and pursue his own current hare, the New York Times.
And this isn’t just a matter of gossip. News Corp becomes increasingly dominant among the world’s news/influence peddlers every day. Even people who read the Sun and the NY Post have a vote.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Commons Inquiry – Who Wants Privacy?
There was a ritual confrontation between two closely related but different species of legal beast this morning in the House of Commons. The arena was Committee Room 8, and the ringmaster was John Whittingdale, Conservative MP and chairman of the Culture Media and Sport Committee.
The High Court – especially Mr Justice Eady – was busy last year with a string of high profile libel and privacy cases which, while filling many pages of newsprint, both grown-up and tabloid, showed up a few weaknesses (or strengths, depending on who you’re batting for) in the current state of British media law. The committee, sensitive to public disquiet over these unresolved legal anomalies, announced last November that they would be holding an Inquiry into Press Standards, Privacy and Libel.
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Real prospects for protection of public privacy?
The Media Standards Trust is concerned with protecting the freedom of the press and protecting the public from harm. They are dedicated to achieving the fairest and most fruitful balance between these contrasting points.
Their report published this week, A More Accountable Press makes a strong and publicly supported case for more effective curbs on excessive breaches of personal privacy by some sectors of the press.
Popularity: 1% [?]
estate-agent-speak
It may sound a little supercilious to say so, but one is seldom, in my experience, lexically trumped by an estate agent. But this week in the Ludlow Advertiser, John Amos & Co of Leominster are offering:
“A Quillet of Woodland extending to 1.70 acres situated at Bryneddin Wood, Chapel Lawn, Bucknell [Salop].”
The shorter OED offers only one definition of a ‘quillet’: A verbal nicety or subtlety.
Either John Amos & Co are deploying a metaphor of such subtlety it’s escaped me, or they’ve unearthed a term so long buried in the culture of the Welsh Marches that it has been lost to the lexicographers.
They certainly didn’t find it in the standard dictionary of estate-agent-speak, which deserves commendation.
Popularity: 4% [?]
Government plans to share our personal data must be stopped.
The British government is keen to justify Clause 152, which has been hidden like a small, nasty landmine beneath the surface of the Coroners’ and Justice Bill currently subject to the scrutiny of our legislators.
The Government claims that this clause will, among other things, streamline bureaucracy for bereaved families, who sometimes have to notify up to 43 different government agencies, although your MP would be pressed to name more than half a dozen of them.
From the way the clause has been slipped in and justified, it’s hard not to conclude that it is yet another attempt to allow clandestine Data Creep, by which ministers will be able to order widespread data-sharing not only between government departments, but also with local authorities (notoriously cavalier about personal privacy) and in some circumstances with private sector companies.
Popularity: 1% [?]
Ginger versus orange
Last week, at the London College of Communications, Sun editor, Rebekah Wade delivered the annual Hugh Cuddlip lecture to students of journalism.
In the old days, one of the first things they taught young hacks on the Chuffing Sodbury Argus was to make sure they always spelled the punters’ names right. Not, it seems, any more at the London College of Communications, the country’s premier hack school, who announced their up-coming lecturer as “Rebecca” Wade. I wonder if she was cross. You don’t go round spelling your name “Rebekah” unless you really care.
That, however, is not the point. More interesting perhaps are the criteria by which speakers are chosen to deliver this important lecture (past deliverers: Alastair Campbell, Paul Dacre, Andrew Marr and Michael Grade.) What, you might ask, could the editor of one of the most dishonest, self-serving and prurient of British tabloids have to tell any aspiring journalist that might enhance their future career, other than the clear knowledge that, if all else fails, you can always sell your soul?
Popularity: 2% [?]
Hello Peter
Listening to you at the Leveson Inquiry today, I thought you might be interested to have a look at ...
@Fleur,
I suspect he still has a job because he knows where the bodies are buried. 
Not much to write home about Neville? 
hi peter,great website. i bought your book news of the world and managed to get hold of CAMERA ASSASSIN 2 ...
they finally caught the little toad if he can lie at a small tribunal he certainly can rely on ...