Archive for April, 2009
Will Myler be a Wapping liar?
Next Tuesday (May 5th) News of the World editor, little Colin Myler is summoned to give evidence to the Culture Media Sport Committee Inquiry into Press Standards, Privacy & Libel.
Last week they had the Mail’s Paul Dacre and this week, Peter Hill from the Express, in fine displays of obfuscation, filibustering, disingenuousness and downright lying. (Did Dacre really not know that his paper was the first, cruelly, to reveal the whereabouts of much traumatised Elisabeth Fritzl? I don’t think so. Do you?)
Little Colin is not as muscular and perhaps a tad more troubled by his Catholic conscience than the hard-hearted Mail and Express men. Lucky for him, Tom Crone, leading in-house lawyer to the Wapping hackery is coming along to Westminster, too, to hold his hand, and no doubt, jump in to stifle him if he feels a sudden rush of truth coming on, or to protect him if things get too tough.
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But is it art?
Like all dedicated seekers of truth – eternal and ephemeral – this blogger likes to expose himself (though not in his Burberry mackintosh) to the edges of human experience – last week, in two unusual expeditions.
Ludlow Racecourse is an attractive sporting venue set on the gravel-bearing flood plain of the River Teme. There has been recorded horseracing there since 1729, and about a hundred years ago a fine members’ stand was erected in cast iron. Facing north, it prevents a low winter sun from shining in the punters’ eyes. However it also exposes them to the full blast of any northerly wind descending off the Shropshire Hills.
A serviceable, if not architecturally outstanding Members’ Bar and Restaurant was put up about a dozen years ago, and now earns extra revenue – like any sensible Members’ Bar – as an antiques fair and general entertainment venue. Last week it hosted an auction of German Nazi memorabilia.
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Muckraker Dacre ducking and diving in Westminster
Despite a display of arrogant disdain and disingenuousness, Mail editor-in-chief Paul Dacre was given a soft ride by the House of Commons Culture Media Sport Committee when he gave evidence to their Inquiry into Press Standards.
It was disappointing to see that besides the chairman, John Whittingdale, only five of the ten members turned up. I hope there were good reasons for their absence; after all, Dacre is now surely the most influential – and most feared – newspaper editor in the country and it seems likely they would have wanted to put their questions at first hand. I truly hope they didn’t stay away because they didn’t want to upset him. For Dacre has a history of intimidating Members of Parliament – even Prime Ministers, as he did (and subsequently boasted about it) last year when he persuaded the government to remove Clause 76 from the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, which would have made offences against Section 5 the Data Protection Act 1998 punishable by imprisonment – thereby protecting those of his journalists who make a habit of doing that sort of thing.
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Who said goodbye to Sir Christopher?
Sir Christopher Meyer was chairman of the Press Complaints Commission until the beginning of April when he handed the contaminated chalice to Baroness Buscombe. I wonder who was at his leaving party, and how long the baroness thinks she will have a commission to chair, for it’s clear that the PCC in its current form has limited life-expectancy.
I’ve been consistently sceptical – some might say hostile – towards this pointless organisation and its former chairman in my book, News of the world? Fake Sheikhs and Royal Trappings and in this blog [www.peterburden.net/archives/101 ; www.peterburden.net/archives/120] because their record shows that they act almost always for the newspapers whom they are supposed to regulate rather than the public.
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The Fake Sheikh's fake sting in the slums of Mumbai
Just when we thought he’d finally run out of bad ideas, Mazher Mahmood, clapped out “Investigations Editor” of the News of the Screws, has managed to squeeze his by-line on to the front page of the notorious Shag Rag once more. No doubt in the wake of Madonna’s failed attempt to adopt a second child in Malawi, the counterfeit sheikh has concocted a massively spurious claim that Indian child “Slumdog” star, Rubina Ali was offered ‘for sale’ by her dad, Rafiq Qureshi.
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If Cameron's to avoid the hardest word…
It’s not surprising, I suppose, that the furore over Damian McBride’s emailed smear plans, sent from No10 should evoke a hard-hitting response from Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown’s own spinner during the ’90s. Seeking an Achilles Heel among the Tory image makers, Whelan homed in on the unwholesome presence at Central Office of their current spinner-in-chief and media wizard, a man very accustomed to propagating nasty stories about well-known persons, Murdoch golden boy and former editor of the News of the Screws, Andy Coulson, who, Whelan reminded Patrick Wintour in the Guardian, had been forced to resign after denying all knowledge of a Screws Private Investigator tapping into Clarence House mobile voicemails. I imagine David Cameron is thinking hard about retaining the services of a man who might find the temptation to slip back into his old habits too hard to resist, potentially causing Cameron as much embarrassment and “Sorry” saying as Brown the Frown has undergone this week. They say Rebekah Wade’s shortly to clamber a few more rungs up the News International ladder. If I were Andy, I’d get into her slipstream now, ready to replace her shapely bum on the editor’s chair at the Sun.
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Noddies, teledeceptions and Susan Boyle
I wonder if any of you recall that fuss – when was it, a year or so ago – about ‘noddy’ shots on television interviews? These were clips filmed and inserted retrospectively by television interviewers, which were intended to give the impression that the interviewer was reacting thoughtfully to what was being said (although he/she was probably groping frantically for whatever the producer had told him to ask next, or, possibly, thinking about where he was going to have a drink afterwards) and going on to ask the next question, as if, extravagantly, there were two cameras covering the event. It was felt that viewers needed sight of the response to believe the interview was genuine – essentially, a lie to create a more convincing version of the truth.
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The TESTAROSSA at the Point-to-Point.
There were no Ferraris at the Ludlow Hunt point-to point, held on Saturday below the massif of Titterstone Clee on a magnificent spring day, where the SUN put in an appearance in more ways than one. Shropshire (and I’m glad about this) is a long way from London and is not Ferrari country (apart from the chap who owns the excellent Golden Moments Indian restuarant). However, there was a Red-Headed visitor from the metropolis who kept us on our toes. I was first alerted to her presence by finding former racehorse trainer, erstwhile Lothario, latterly Telegraph columnist and newly arrived novelist Charlie Brooks waving the punters into the car park. Staying with local friends, he was taking the opportunity to promote his new novel among the large gathering of horse folk.
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Tony tells the Pope
In the post-Thatcher years, while the Tories vacillated in their search for a new identity, there was a need in Britain for a leader with conviction, like Tony Blair, albeit in his case, self-conviction not political conviction. His raw hubris turned out to be just what the voters wanted. Whatever else we may want to blame him for (and there turns out to be even more than we thought), we cannot deny that tugging the Labour party closer to the centre (some would say way over to the other side) was a healthy thing for a democracy jaded by polar politics.
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Venetia wins the dignity stakes
It was a pleasure last Saturday to see the graciousness and lack of vanity with which the trainer of Mon Mome, the (staggering 100/1) winner of the Grand National, acknowledged her victory.
Venetia Williams has qualities that would have allowed her to succeed in whatever career she’d chosen. She’s brave, independent and dedicated. She had been a good amateur race-rider herself until, within a fortnight of hitting the turf at Becher’s Brook in the 1988 National, she fell again at Worcester and broke her neck. It augured well that she came through a potentially fatal or seriously debilitating accident still able to walk and pursue the next phase of her life with horses.
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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 ...