Andy Coulson

Former Member

No threads about the Andy Coulson story.

Has he been in here deleting them?

Former Member

as a former editor of a sunday newspaper, if his journalists were breaking the law regulary, he was either complicit and should be prosecuted, or he is incompetant for not knowing what his staff were up to on a wholesale basis

Former Member

Indeed. It comes to something when your only real defence is that you are incompetent.

Former Member

How on earth is this bloke still a free man, let alone David Cameron's right hand buddy, is beyond me.

Oh well... the longer Cameron refuses to disassociate himself with him, the more damage it'll do, so bring it on.

Former Member

My only question about this is - why are most of the press ignoring it?

I can understand why they didn't say anything about it yesterday - the story was still developing and there wasn't much to report. There's quite a bit more now. Yet at the time of writing this, several papers have got absolutely nothing up about it on their websites. The Express, Star, Mail, Sun, Mirror and the Telegraph haven't run any new pieces about this. The only newspapers which have include The Grauniad, Independent and the Financial Times.

Even the BBC - who are usually keen to use any opportunity throw the boot at the Tories - are holding back, with only intermittent references to it on a few of their blogs. Sky News seems determined to ignore the story entirely, and I haven't seen much about it on ITN's various news outlets.

I'll write more about this when I've got time. No tin foil hat conspiracy of "Stargalaxy is trying to ignore this story" here, merely time pressures.

Former Member

stargalaxy wrote: »

Even the BBC - who are usually keen to use any opportunity throw the boot at the Tories - are holding back, with only intermittent references to it on a few of their blogs. Sky News seems determined to ignore the story entirely, and I haven't seen much about it on ITN's various news outlets.

off topic, but generally the BBC just supports the government whoever it may be, apart from when it does something to directly hurt it.... otherwise it tows the line

Former Member

Charlie Brooker.

Former Member

Tabloid Watch 1

Tabloid Watch 2

Liberal Conspiracy 1

Liberal Conspiracy 2

Also worth looking at Jack Of Kent who has been doing several pieces on this.

This whole story smells bad. I'm not sure that there is enough evidence yet to be certain that Mr Coulson did anything wrong.

However, but there is enough in here to suggest that

• there *may* have been come collusion between the NOTW and Met Police to keep the investigation to a minimum
• that the editor or a national media outlet would have asked about sources before printing a potentially libellous article
• that more hacking took place, than just that for which the two convictions were assured.

I worry that this is turning into a party political issue, or at least may be seen by the public as being a party issue, and yesterdays exchanges in parliament just underline that. It isn't. It's an issue of collusion between the police and newspapers (remember Rebekah Wade gave evidence to a seclect committee that newspapers often paid money to policemen for tip-off etc), that a newspaper actively hacked phones, that other media outlets are reluctant to report this (and so you have to question why) and that, ultimately, the man at the centre of this is employed as the Prime Minister's communications leader. It doesn't matter which party the PM is, it's the role that's important here...

Former Member

Chris Bryant vs. Kay Burley. "You seem a bit dim"

A classic SkyNews moment for you all to enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDYalpZhG_8

Former Member

MoK wrote: »

Chris Bryant vs. Kay Burley. "You seem a bit dim"

A classic SkyNews moment for you all to enjoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDYalpZhG_8

Thanks for that

I could have asked how the fuck is that daft woman still employed as a news reporter, but then again she works for Sky...