Gordon Brown

[Ned]

I wouldn't celebrate too much if I were you, because almost the entire British print media will probably have been involved in this kind of thing, from Mail to Mirror.

You may be "celebrating" the death of printed news in this country within the next year if the illegalities are as widespread as looks likely.

[David Johnson]

There may well have been other newspapers outside the Murdoch press that have carried out phone hacking, bribery etc to get stories. I would be surprised if that wasn't the case. If there is evidence, the journalists/private investigators should be charged in the same way that has/will happen with NOTW.

What is beyond doubt though is that there is no other newspaper owner in the last 40 years that has had a worse impact on British political life and culture than Rupert Murdoch with his stranglehold on the printed media in the UK.

The mistake that you are making is in believing that just because Murdoch has closed down the NOTW, other proprietors who the vast majority of people in the UK couldnt even name, will close down their newspapers if employees are charged.

The reason that Murdoch has closed down the NOTW is mainly to try and lance the boil in the hope that his vastly more lucrative side of the business, the BSkyB business survives. The News of the World was a highly profitable newspaper. However, News Corp makes peanuts from the printed press in comparison with the satellite business.

Murdoch's decision was purely a strategic step to try and keep on course with the BSkyB bid. Alas for Murdoch in the light of the news today, it looks like he may have closed the newspaper down for no business benefit whatsoever.

Cheers
D

[jimslip]

I was just reading today how the Sun had hacked the medical records of Gordon Brown's son.

Fucking hacks and paps, line the lot up and shoot the bastards!

[Ned]

There may come a tipping point if there's a stack of newspapers doing this (and let's not forget that NotW was somewhere like eighth placed by ofcom in a list of newspapers involved in obtaining information by dubious means with The Mirror higher than that and The Mail top) where the public just stop buying newspapers and titles close. Or maybe where the corruption involved regarding the police ends up touching very much more than just one newspaper group.

[David Johnson]

Again, you have no evidence to back up your supposition that if other newspapers are charged with phone hacking, people will stop buying those newspapers and titles will close.

This clearly didnt happen with the NOTW in the sense that the story about phone hacking had been around for years, two people who worked for the NOTW had been jailed, a number of people had been bought off and Coulson had resigned twice because of all the flak.

The NOTW was still one of the most profitable newspapers in the UK even though like pretty much all national newspapers it's circulation was less than at its peak, due mainly to people getting their news from other sources e.g. the interweb or 24 hr news channels.

Cheers
D

[Arginald Valleywater]

A great pity they didn't succeed so he and his banker mates couldn't buttfuck the golbal economy....

[Jonone]

The keyword here is global. It's a global rather than a local phenomenon and if Brown can be said to be culpable then he's not the only one.

[David Johnson]

Re. Gordon Brown, a good point well made, Arginald.

The Iceland government have often said "Oh why did we listen to Gordon Brown. None of our companies wanted to get into debt before they spoke to him!"

In Ireland, the Taioseach said "The only reason we wanted to be viewed as a Tiger economy was because Gordon Brown told us we had to do that".

As for George Bush he rued the day he let Gordon Brown dictate US policy for so long.

And as for Greece, Italy and Spain, they all said, "We didnt want to borrow money until Gordon Brown told us we had to" In Greece small businessmen argued "We never wanted to avoid paying any tax, it was that Gordon Brown that did it"

It was like that, wasnt it Arginald?

Cheers

[bernard72]

Not defending The Sin or any other paper but no one has shown any evidence that The Sun hacked into the records.
Got the story from elsewhere I believe.
Thats not to say they or any other paper has not done this stuff.
We just need proof.
And lets not forget that the whole story about MP's expenses was started by somebody stealing documents and selling them to a paper.

[Lizard]

I can't think of a more odious individual than Brown, he shat on all his collegues to grasp at becoming PM, a job he clearly wasn't up to, abused the good nature of a pensioner calling her bigoted, fucked the economy by deregulating the banks, and blamed EVERYTHING on a 'Global crisis', nothing was ever his fault, then upon becoming a back bencher, he only ever turned up when he could be bothered, as soon as the NOTW episode erupted he came out of the woodwork all Nokia's blazing, to accuse the SUN of obtaining details by deception of his son's health, details of which he had already allowed to be printed, he's a utter utter creep. I also find it hillarious that the hunted have now become the hunters, seems like we have forgotten greedy troughing MP's in favour of attacking a free press, I watched that extra large size trougher VAZ and his pious musings, a man who claimed ?75,000 expenses for a flat in westminster, despite the fact his family home (?1.5m is only 12miles away, he also switched his designated second home from the ?545,000 flat to a house in his Leicester East constituency and back again in the space of a year.
I don't think he's the right person to be questioning someone else's morals.
The whole bunch make me puke, MP's who quite rightly have had the heat turned up on them now sitting in judgement on the very same free press that exposed them.