THE MURDOCH JIHAD CONTINUES

BBC has picked up the Sarah Payne alleged phone hack story and is running it as main item on Ten News. Peston centre stage to help further put the boot into NI. Meanwhile those Piers Morgan/Mirror Group allegations seem to have vanished. Odd that.

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54 Responses to THE MURDOCH JIHAD CONTINUES

  1. Martin says:

    Communist Paul Mason just claimed that illegals in Arizona can be arrested for not producing documents that show them entitled to live in the USA.

    I’m sure as usual Mason has it wrong, the Police can ONLY stop someone if they have committed an offence, then ask about status, he claimed that they could just be stopped and asked if they are legal.

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    • John Anderson says:

      You expect Paul Mason to know the law in the US.  Even when he is doing a piece directly affected by US law ?

      That’s not the Paul Mason I know

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      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        It is illegal to be in AZ without papers, if asked.  That’s what the whole melodrama was about last year, when Gov. Brewer got a law passed about it.  In fact, it’s basically been AZ policy for some time before that.

        Mardell lied about it in May 2010.  Extract from my comment on the May 14 open thread:


        What Mardell doesn’t want you to know is that in fact the law only allows state police to enforce federal laws already on the books:  it’s already illegal to be in the US without proper papers. 
         
        First sentence of Section 1: 
         
        The legislature finds that there is a compelling interest in the 
        cooperative enforcement of federal immigration laws throughout all of Arizona. 
         
        This AZ law did not create a crime out of thin air.  Also left unremarked by Mardell:  it’s only the Hispanic community (aside from the usual neo-Marxist far Left activists) who want amnesty and are protesting this law, because they want all these illegals to be legalized due exclusively to their race, the color of their skin.

        The cops in southern AZ have been stopping suspicious vehicles for years and years.  And it’s perfectly legal.  But by suspiscious I mean a car stuffed with 20 people, or people with accents stopped by legal road blocks which are set up for a variety of reasons.

        It’s no coincidence that Mark Mardell told this exact same story about a year ago, when he was on a mission to prove that the US concern about illegal immigration was racist.  Mason is just picking up that script and reading the lines in his own voice.

        Extract from my comment on Aug. 5, 2010:

        Now for Mardell’s attempt to show how racist this all is.  While driving towards the border, he and his producer get pulled over by a checkpoint on the highway.  These have existed for decades, of course, as there has been a known problem with illegal immigration into AZ since at least the 1970s.  The cops there tell him the same thing the guy in Santa Cruz told him:  We check everyone with an accent, and you better have your papers.  
         
        Mardell professes his own ignorance that legal resident aliens need to carry papers around, and tries to inflate this into some draconian police state potential.  Of course, he thinks we’re all too stupid to realize that this is happening within 25 miles of a problematic border, and not in, say, Prescott much farther north.  So he’s using hyperbole to make this appear much harsher for poor immigrants than it actually is.  And never mind that the cops keep saying they check everybody with an accent (or if they look suspicious, like 30 people packed into a tiny van), it’s still supposed to be racial profiling of Hispanics. 

        From Pg. 5 of the Aug. 4 open thread, @ 8:37:41 GMT

        You can bet this is what Mason is trying to pass off as some sort of cruel attack on innocents.

        Not sure what this and Mason’s other drivel about Sherrif Joe’s tent city for criminals except that a bunch of illegals are kept there for a while, since his real mission is supposed to be about the cruelty of Republicans against the middle class, but he’s probably not too sure himself. It just resonated with him emotionally, so he went with it.

        There’s a reason why I say don’t trust the BBC on US issues.

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    • Mailman says:

      The funny thing is that by being in the country illegally is a crime! Which the police can arrest you for. Well, they should arrest you for it BUT as we all know, al beebs world view is very different from what is going on around us.

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      • David Preiser (USA) says:

        Exactly, Mailman.  And all discussion advocating for amnesty, sympathy for the plight of illegals, etc., completely ignores that fact.  Including Mardell and Mason.  Laws and rules and national sovereignty mean nothing when it comes to emotional causes.  Both Beeboids used the same smokescreen in an attempt to manipulate your feelings.

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  2. Martin says:

    Simon Jenkins (I think) on Newsnight basically said the press was kicking up a fuss over a flogged to death story and that the BBC was also going OTT, he didn’t look popular with Essler and fatty Watson. And he’s from the Guardian!

    Also a chance to kick sky again, which as we know is the BBC’s real hate target.

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    • John Anderson says:

      Simon Jenkins wrote an excellent article in the Graudinge on 19 July – calling the whole thing hysteria :

      http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/19/murdoch-story-berlin-wall-hysteria

      And he was particlularly scathing about the BBC.  Well worth reading.

      I disagree with much of the soft stuff that Jenkins writes – but that article was very good,  a senior journalist speaking the truth about the vindictiveness of the BBC and his own newspaper.

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    • Daniel Clucas says:

      I turned over to see what was on and saw James Murdoch’s face on the background. Enough to make me switch to the Goodfood channel.

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  3. Foxgoose says:

    This NI witch hunt is getting beyond bizarre.  TWatson said on Newsnight “we’re plumbing new depths”. 

    However it turns out that the real truth is that NOW gave Sara Payne a mobile to keep in touch because they were working with her and (shock horror) one of their people had the number in his book ……….oh …..and she herself said it didn’t even have voicemail enabled at the time ……. but she’s still “distraught”.

    You really couldn’t make it up.

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    • Cassandra King says:

      Its more than enough ‘evidence’ for a peoples revolutionary court to convict its political enemies.

      Straight from the Marxists handbook isnt it? Make up smear and accusations to be spread through its client MSM. In reality the left need this smear campaign just like they have needed all the other hateful grubby smear campaigns of the past. The left has a pathological need to destroy its enemies and they will use any methods to ensure the dominance of their ugly creed.

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      This morning’s news roundups with various talking heads, moppets on doorsteps and special guests were littered with the words ‘may’ & ‘could’, before then launching into commentary based on the firm premise that all this current new conjecture ‘is’.

      And they are are getting away with it because, as the Piers/Mirror situation shows, they can leave in the edit suite anything that doesn’t suit the narrative.

      The odd article or blog cannot compensate for the unremitting propaganda pumped out by a broadcast monopoly.

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    • hippiepooter says:

      Foxgoose, the person who had her number in his book was the phone hacker Mulcaire.

      According to a BBC24 report last night its not clear if the phone number on the hacker’s list was the phone NOWT gave her.

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  4. Katabasis says:

    Newsnight ran another lengthy feature on hackgate tonight. Not a single mention of Piers Morgan. Why is that?

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  5. Martin says:

    For those who missed it, check out Richard Bacon tearing into Roy Greenslade over his comments about Piers Morgan. Bacon really is a twat, he says of morgan that he’s denied the hacking so why are you picking on him, is it because you’re jealous of him? I couldn’t stop laughing, if you compare what Bacon has ranted about Andy Coulson.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pstlg

    Today’s show right after the news (about 5 minutes in). I love it when Bacon doesn’t show any pretence of impartiality he just shows his love of any lefty in trouble.

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    • wild says:

      Destroying a free press is always pretty high up on a Leftists wish list because they do not want any light to be thrown on the greed and hypocrisy of the Leftist establishment (the way the BBC promotes Tom Watson as a morally upright crusader for truth is a laugh to those in the know – but then again the BBC do not want you to be in the know) because if you knew what Keith Vaz or Neil Kinnock or BBC executives got up to you might arrive at the conclusion that the Leftist establishment are more concerned with raising their own living standards than raising the living standards of the poor, but then again the the public school twats of the BBC (it is worth remembering that almost none of the Communist Party elite at the time of the Russian Revolution were working class) view the working class as (hopefully) ignorant serfs whose  function is to keep progressives such as themselves in the style to which they see themselves as entitled. As is always the case with Leftists they are passionate believers in redistributing other people wealth to themselves, because they think they deserve it.

      A Leftist who believes in a free society is a contradiction in terms – an oxymoron. 

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    • hippiepooter says:

      Martin, Bacon boased yesterday to an interviewee who’d written a book called ‘The psycopath Test’ or some such, that he’d only scored 7 points “which means I am not a psycopath”.

      Bacon clearly doesn’t listen to himself when conducting interview with people like Greenslade.

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      • hippiepooter says:

        A better link is here:-

        http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012nhkc/Richard_Bacon_with_Howard_Marks/

        At 13.00 mins in or so one hears Bacon getting very plaintiff and ad hominem (“you’re jealous of him aren’t you, because he’s a celebrity?”, on Morgan’s behalf as he does to serve the interests of any Labour supporting figure, as he did towards Lance Price over his revelations about Gordon Brown.  Piers Morgan did of course conduct a very friendly interview with Gordon Brown prior to the last election.

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        • hippiepooter says:

          And hilariously enough his next guest mentions that incidentally the Daily Mirror had gone through his bins when Piers Morgan was editor and Bacon assumes defence lawyer mode once more.

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          • hippiepooter says:

            richard.bacon@bbc.co.uk (cc various R5L colleagues who do practice a public service broadcasting ethos):

            RE: JON RONSON – ‘THE PSYCHOPATH TEST’

            Dear Richard, Congratulations on only scoring 7 points on Jon Ronson’s ‘The Psychopath Test’ and proving ‘I am not a psychopath’. Do you ever listen to the interviews you conduct with the likes of Roy Greenslade over Piers Morgan and phone hacking?  Strange how you get very plaintiff and ad hominem on behalf of key Labour supporting figures.  You acted the same with Lance Price over his revelations about Gordon Brown before the last election.  Piers Morgan did of course conduct a famously friendly interview with Gordon Brown before the last election. I came to R5L as a political refugee from Radio 4.  So refreshing to listen to presenters who care about values of decency and impartiality.  Unfortunately there are exceptions. Saludos,

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  6. Anthony Masters says:

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-14325869

    This is an excellent case of a headline dissonant with the article.
    “Tories outspent Labour by £14.3m in election year”.
    Of course, it is revealed later in the article that Labour has been losing wealthy donors and are now almost entirely dependent on union money. This caused the Labour Party to drop the amount they spent on campaigning by £9.9m, which is about 2/3’s of the difference between the Conservatives and Labour.

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    • Alfie Pacino says:

      On a tangential note, Ed Balls said that he scraped his Morley and Outwood victory (and he scraped through by 1700 votes) despite the Ashcroft Millions pumped into the Conservative candidates campaign, the Ashcroft millions line was a blatant lie and when the figures were published Antony Calvert spent 24k that he raised himself, and Ed Lier Balls spent 26k. I don’t recall him redacting that nonesense…

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  7. Demon1001 says:

    This is off topic but as it’s the most current thread I’ll ask the question of other facebook users.

    On a thread where people were roundly attacking the BBC’s left-wing bias I mentioned this site quoting the url and had to fill in a two word security test.  It said that it was a test to stop spammers but I can’t see how it would help.  I filled it in anyway and it seemed to play ok. 

    Has anyone else seen this and is it genuine?  I ask because a couple of the people I had as contacts on facebook have been driven off by muslim extremists and their fellow travellers.

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    • Alfie Pacino says:

      What you describe is called a CAPTCHA, it’s usually used when a text box needs filling in, and there are malicious codes out there that can populate discussion boards etc. The CAPTCHA. requires a human being to interpret a distorted word or two – once that’s completed it should, as you say ‘play ok’

      Nothing to do with extremists, I think… =-O

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      • Demon1001 says:

        Thanks for that, it seems to be ok this morning.  It’s just that, as I said, two people I had as “facebook friends” have been hacked by evil people.  Thanks again.

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  8. Carti says:

    BBC Television Centre: memo to news staff engaged on Murdoch hacking story; If you find that this investigation is running out of steam, we suggest you probe into links between News International and any or all of the following:

    1. James Bulger
    2. Moors Murder victims
    3. Anne Frank
    4. the boy who stood on the burning deck
    5. Little Saint Hugh of Lincoln
    6. sundry victims of King Herod

    Remember: ANYTHING will do.

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  9. hippiepooter says:

    I’ve just watched the Sara Payne story as a top item on News 24, and there’s an awful lot of ‘ifs’ and ‘buts’ to justify the time they’ve given the story.  If Sara Payne’s number was found in the possession of the phone hacker Mulcair then it is entirely reasonable to say ‘it seems her phone may have been hacked’, but when by the admission of the BBC report it is unknown who may have requested that Mulcair hack the number it is entirely inappropriate that the story is centred upon News of the World, especially in light of the revelations about the Sunday Mirror and that its entirely credible a rival newspaper may have requested a hack.

    I’m beginning to think the BBC has something against News International.

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    • My Site (click to edit) says:

      Sorry, missed this when I posted above. You say ‘if’s & buts’; i say ‘mays and coulds’.

      And this is SKY.

      The MSM is a professional integrity-free zone.

      Harriet Harman just on to talk about ‘the latest affront by the Murdoch Empire’.

      If she’s the one being turned to for objective views, off goes the TV again. I was teetering on the singers/celebrities sharing their vision on US economic theory and why its racist to disagree with Obama and nothing to do with his fiscal competence.

      I don’t mind a spread of views, but gutter dwellers dissing other gutter dwellers solely for opportunistic party political reasons is neither educational of informational.

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  10. john says:

    We know that the BBC has had a long standing non-aggression pact with the Guardian and the Independent.
    Now, it seems, added to this list of indefatigable journalism is :
    enter stage left – The Daily Mirror.
    How quaint of the BBC to get down and dirty with the proletariat by pretending it likes this seminal tabloid.
    However, this new love affair will only last as long as Piers Moron can dodge the bullets.
    And there are a lot of ex-NI snipers out there.
    What a shame !

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  11. Cassandra King says:

    BBC website =-O giving all the angles in unheard of detail, obviously nothing on the Morgan/Mirror angle but that isnt news is it? This new smear from the guardian is of course based on no actual evidence but who needs real evidence eh?

    29 July 2011 Last updated at 06:11 GMT MP wants Murdoch questioned again<img src=”http://news.bbcimg.co.uk/media/images/54330000/jpg/_54330786_012485392-1.jpg” alt=”James Murdoch at the committee hearing on 19 July 2011″/>

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  12. fred bloggs says:

    There are many odd things about this story, too many to go into, but one that stands out is the length they are getting it ti run.  The clear objective is to get the Murdocks.   The overall result may prove amusing, by going after the Murdocks too much not only will they show they are not fit and proper, but also get them kicked out of NI.  Then NI with a clean slate could be allowed to complete the Sky deal!

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  13. ltwf1964 says:

    totally off topic,but i don’t want this to disappear on the old open thread

    seems some tories may finally be waking up to bbc scumland

    Lord digby-Jones on pravda 1 “news” this morning about school leaving age may drop to 14

    started the interview with ” I caN just hear rhe metropolitan elite of the south east crying”he wants to send them up the chimneys”  ”

    and the talking head(obviously one of those he was thinking about) teacher in the studio had to admit that that was what she was going to say

    that or “send them off to the army”……twat

    Lord Digby Jones

    any chance of Cameron growing a set of swingers like yours?

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  14. Cassandra King says:

    The strange thing is that the leftist guardian spreads a smear with no direct evidence and the BBC peddles it as front page news, funny thing is though, there is direct evidence of the left wing Mirror using hacking as a common investigative tool with a former editor openly admitting to knowing about hacking activities.

    Two stories, one based on no actual real evidence and other based around real concrete evidence. Which one does the BBC pimp? Now we al know that the BBC has spent years protecting the labour party, the EU, the greenshirt watermellons HOWEVER this may be the first time the BBC has openly and knowingly engaged in pursuing a politically motivated smear campaign….Oooh apart from the last time they engaged in a left wing axis smear campaign against Lord Ashcroft and we all know how that concerted smear attack ended up.

    Its like the BBC has no fear of being caught, no fear of any regulating body, no respect for the public/decency/probity. The BBC running wild with no oversight or outside auditing. How is this going to end? With live BBC show trials/witch hunts? A baying mob of rent a rabble thugs jeering and throwing rotten fruit at selected political enemies fitted up with Chinese whispers and false innuendo? If the BBC is in training to become a Warsaw pact state public propaganda mouthpiece its doing very well.

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    • fred bloggs says:

      The people being interviewed are now allowed to make quite outragous unsubstanciated accusations without being challenged.   The solicitor Mark Lewis for instance.  Low standards are getting lower.

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    • Martin says:

      Female Guardian hack who broke hacking story was on Sky News last night and got very upset with Anna Botting who kept asking her if she’d paid for leaked info or had dealings with Police.

      Female hack was rather evasive, but I’m convinced the Guardian must be getting info from the Police, how did the Guardian know Coulson was to be arrested before anyone else know?

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  15. ltwf1964 says:

    read a great quote from a Daily Mail reader the other day

    “watch the bbc for their views
    wattch ITV for the news”

    succinctly put I thought

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    • Llew says:

      I like it.

      And now on BBC1 the 10 o’clock views……. 

      Views 24 Channel…..

      Now we bring you the views, gossip and petty pointless protest stories from around your region….

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  16. JohnnyNorfolk says:

    All the enquiries have been set up so there is little more to be said. but the BBC can hide other stories behind this like the melt down of the Euro, Cyprus are now in trouble and France could be nxt, but nothing from thr BBC about it.

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  17. Martin says:

    BBC are losing some of the rights to cover F1, so Dame Nikki is making this the phone in, he’s trying to arouse the rabble, which is odd as most lefty beeboids hate Formula 1, but this is about the BBC losing its power.

    As I’ve posted a few times now the BBC are desperate to kill Sky, some bloke on Radio 5 has just upset Rachel Burden by telling her there will be no live sport on the BBC in 10 years.

    The Tories might not kill the BBC, but with a bit of luck the markets will.

    The BBC are flailing around with this hacking nonsense making themselves sound rather pathetic now.

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    • matthew rowe says:

      Good I hope they lose Moto GP as well bloody useless coverage and totally w%nk presenters rather ruin it for me !

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    • Llew says:

      I wouldn’t be surprised if deep down the BBC were quite happy to lose half the F1 season to Sky because that gives them even more ammo to fire at Sky in the future – the hundreds of thousands of angry F1 fans will now see the BBC as the victim and Sky the aggressor and from the BBC’s point of view, a good thing.

      They probably went in hoping to lose the whole thing to Sky.

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  18. Nick Darlington says:

    After 15 minutes of dramatic unending coverage of the Sara Payne thing by the sickly Eddy Mair (?) on last night’s PM I had to switch off. Surely if this woman was so well in with NOTW, and they gave her the phone, and she contributed to their final edition etc  many of their people would have had her mobile number? There were ‘scribbled notes alongside her number’ – what on earth were they? Highly revealing? Does possessing someone’s mobile number now lead to an automatic case of ‘guilty of phone hacking’? Where’s the evidence? None of the reporters seem to ask relevant questions any more. Unfortunately the ITV News (which I always try to watch in preference to BBC) treated this story with the same amount of abhorrence. If it all proves to be total hype will there be a full 24 hour retraction? Perhaps not. 

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    • hippiepooter says:

      Nick, her number was in possession of the phone hacker Mulcaire and she was informed by the Police that she may have been the victim of phone hacking.  Fair enough to report like this, but what the BBC extrapolate from this and the amount of time they spend on it has nothing to do with fairness.

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  19. John Anderson says:

    The financial news slot just after 7.10am this morning had a fairly long interview with the CEO Of BSkyB,  which has just produced excellent financial results.   Including challenging the mighty BT on numbers of broadband customers.

    But the interview focussed on James Murdoch – did the Board back him as Chairman,  did the CEO have 100% confidence,  what would it take for the CEO to lose confidence,  yada yada yada – question after question after question after question just ON James Murdoch,  virtually nothing about BSkyB’s results.   If I was the CEO I would have slapped the stupid girl snapping at his heels.

    Vendetta ?   What vendetta ?

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  20. As I See It says:

    Seems to me that the BBC hit on a winning formula with the Dowler family show and that Sara Payne is the inevitable repeat/spin off show.

    They shout the name of an established tabloid friendly victim and claim that any suitable NI name/Cameron/Boris is the villain who cast them out in the snow.

    It is obvious that this is all partisan. Anyone who heard Dick Bacon yesterday must realise that some directive has gone out to all Beeboids. He made a proposterous yet doughty defence of the Daily Mirror hack – who remember published those faked photos of British soldiers abusing Iraqis.

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  21. As I See It says:

    The BBC narrative: ‘the public are “Shocked”, victims are “Distraught” the public are “Disgusted”.

    No. All the above were true about the MPs expenses revelations.

    I suggest the public are not shocked and disgusted about the antics of tabloid hacks because they live the real world. Oh, and BBC one more thing – most of the public don’t wear lavender silk panties under their linen suits.

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    • London Calling says:

      Lavender panties? Is that mere speculation or is there something you want to share with us?

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      • As I See It says:

        Fair comment, that was pure speculation about those Beeboid underwear habits on my part….however, to take a leaf from their book, I’m happy to put the idea out there whatever damage it may cause. And then in the fullness of time when I’m proved wrong – so what?

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    • David Preiser (USA) says:

      That reminds me: when the MP expenses scandal was at its loudest, Nick Robinson was on every hour to tell you that the mood in Westminster was glum, and all the MPs were oh so depressed that everyone hated them.  He defended them over and over again, trying to get the public to sympathize with them.  And that’s all aside from how the BBC spent far more energy on Tories than on Labour MPs (The moat!  The moat!)  Where is a high-profile BBC “editor” now to do the same for Murdoch’s crew?  He feels bad, many of the NotW staff who were not involved but are now unemployed are surely depressed just like those MPs Robinson was defending.

      And surely elected officials cheating the taxpayers is equally important to a few reporters playing dirty.  So why no sympathy from the BBC?  A rhetorical question, I know, but I remember Robinson’s disgraceful behavior, and see the glaring difference now when the BBC has no one to protect.

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      • hippiepooter says:

        When you look at the MPs who committed serious enough fraud to get tried and convicted and what Party they all came from, it might account for why Toenails did damage limitation.

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  22. George R says:

    BBC-NUJ, Murdoch, Sky, and F1.

    1.) David Hughes, ‘Telegraph’:

    Rupert Murdoch is a newspaper proprietor, not a mass murderer

    2.)

    “Sky And BBC To Share F1 Broadcast Rights”

    http://tv.sky.com/sky-and-bbc-to-share-f1-broadcast-rights

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  23. JOHN GUEST says:

    After News International switched to supporting the Tories before the last election, didn’t Broon the Incontinent rant at Murdoch that he would destry him?

    I wonder if the BBC is now “following orders”?

    One other thing, aren’t they supposed to have hacked Prescotts phone?
    Why, anything they heard would have been incomprehensible!

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  24. As I See It says:

    Gavin Esler on Newsnight was busy reflating the ‘phone hacking scandal’ and getting excited about the potential demise of the tabloids. 

    With all opposition silenced and with Ed Miliband’s nose bandages off in October it will be full steam ahead for the BBC’s re-elect Labour bandwagon.

    When will a Tory ever stand up and say boo to this BBC goose?

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