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As I think I said on here before ? her defence seems to be that she was incompetent (same used by Ian Blair to explain why he didn't know his force was shooting Brazilian electricians on the Underground): To believe that Brooks is innocent, one must accept:

1) She did not know what her deputy and lover was doing when she was on holiday (even though she telephoned him) and never questioned him

2) She had not the slightest curiosity to know where her various news editors got stories from. They might not tell her the sources but an editor usually asks for a general steer.

3) She paid Glenn Mulcaire more than ?100k a year (more than most of her staff) but did not know what he did for the money ? not had she apparently ever heard of him

4) She employed as a PA a complete moron: apparently she entrusted this woman with running her life. A woman who booked the wrong Miliband brother for lunch and got confused between MFI and MI5

5) She married a moron: He can run a stables but apparently drinks Fairy Liquid

6) It was pure coincidence that on the day her husband hid his porn stash, the head of security at NI turned up at their block of flats

I could go on but I find the verdict all too depressing.

I agree. It is so obvious that she knew, how can someone who is in charge of a top-down organisation, where every department is connected and the business is run as a pyramid-structure, not have known what was happening? Perhaps she should give all the money she has earned over the years to charity, after all she was awarded her large salary and perks because the organisation was successful, and by taking the money she was basically saying "I am responsible for how things have gone", but she now seems to imply she was nothing to do with anything. So, why was she paid so well - by an organisation she was apparently just the figurehead of, but seemed to have nothing to do with? Return all the money and perks that you got Rebekah! By your own roundabout admission you were not involved with any of what happened, so why should you be paid in accordance with how things went?

Brooks is lucky she is not being banged-up for several years in Holloway nick. Isn't it interesting aswell how David Cameron today distanced himself from Coulson, and condemned him, but said nothing about Brooks. Presumably he and her will remain good friends, and continue to be part of what the media call the "Chipping Norton set" - even though she is as guilty as Coulson, Cameron must know this but is pretending he does not, and that she only got off on a technicality?

She's very lucky to get away with this. If she was as incompetent as she seems to claim, namely she didn't know what her staff did, and the place was run as a complete shambles where anyone did anything - and any tom, dick or harry was paid money while she was on holiday - to do whatever, and she never heard about it when it was happening or subsequently - then she did not deserve the position she had and did not deserve her large salary and perks - as I said earlier. The smug smile seems to have gone from Brooks' face in recent times, her smile was always condescending, the smug smile always becomes part of a person's look when they are used to being above others and knowing that they can just issue a command and people will jump through hoops for them. She had that look before, for years - that hierarchical "I'm superior to you and you'll bow every time I talk to you" kind of look. It is nice to see there's been more humility and a more ordinary facial expression from her ever since the charges were brought.

Many people over the years have sucked up to her, her boss Rupert, and others in the Murdoch Empire. Tony Blair was one of the most extreme cases of that - he even accepted free flights to Murdoch's Thunderbirds-like island in late-1996/early-1997 to have meetings with King Rupert to try and work out a way they could both help each other - and in return Blair hoped Murdoch would back him through his newspapers in the build-up to the 1997 election campaign. He did, and Blair won with a landslide. Maybe politicians feel they have little choice but to suck-up to the all-powerful Rupert and his senior staff. They can make and break politicians and they decide, more or less, who wins elections here. Murdoch said to Blair in the 1990's that one demand he had of Blair was that Blair would not take us into the Euro. Blair agreed, and hey, we're one of the only large European nations not in the Euro today! Murdoch is incredibly powerful and politicians are shit-scared of him.

So maybe David Cameron doesn't like Rebekah Brooks deep-down, in spite of the two of them giving each other pecks on the cheek and going horse riding together in Cameron's Oxfordshire constituency. He might feel he has to grovel to her and her boss otherwise they will take revenge on him, and that is why he hangs around with them. Maybe Cameron's appointment of Coulson when the Tories were in opposition, and retaining Coulson after Cameron moved into number 10, was part of that too. We can only speculate. Now that Cameron has dissed Coulson, and given one of the only apologies for anything he has given since taking office, maybe the Murdoch empire will take revenge on Cameron for doing so. Although I can't see them suddenly supporting Milliband - The Sun slags HIM off almost every day. Perhaps we are GENUINELY seeing the Murdoch empire wilting in front of our eyes...

'You don't always get the result you want' - Rebekah Brooks certainly got what she wanted, and I'm hoping, as was said earlier, that there'll be an appeal. How can the boss of a top-down organisation, something run under a pyramid structure, with every department interlinked, not know what is happening in their organisation? It is a joke! She should return all the money she ever earned working there because, by her inadvertent admission, she never really ran the place at all.

The Sun newspaper have done one of their pun-headlines for tomorrow (Wednesday). I saw it mentioned on TV an hour ago. I can't remember the full headline, and I can't find a link to it online but it talks about "The Red Tops..." and how they're doing this or that. The gag being that they (The Sun) are a 'red top', and that she (Rebekah Brooks) is one too. You see the joke, haha. The Sun are good with their puns! Lol.

Great day for red tops as Brooks cleared

max_tranmere wrote:

Murdoch said to Blair in the
> 1990s that one demand he had of Blair was that Blair would not
> take us into the Euro. Blair agreed, and hey, we're one of the
> only large European nations not in the Euro today!

Not true. We aren't in the euro because of Gordon Brown not Rupert Murdoch. Brown insisted on five tests being met or we wouldn't join. If it had been up to Blair we 'd be using the euro now.

Appeal by whom and against what? As far as I'm aware the Prosecution can't appeal a not guilty verdict. Or they'd be doing it every time they lost a case...

The way I described it is how I recall it. I remember hearing quite a bit in the late-90's that Murdoch had insisted this of Blair, and when Blair agreed the Murdoch papers, particularly The Sun, started to very strongly back Blair. The Election was in May 1997 (I think it was that month, it was certainly Spring 1997 anyway) and The Sun announced "We Back Blair" in huge letters on their front page a few months earlier. On Election day that year they said "It Should Be You!" (a take on the National Lottery slogan of the day, and with a big finger pointing to a picture of Blair on their front page). It was revealed by the Conservative government around that time that Blair had had two secret meetings with Murdoch on his island, and Murdoch had paid for Blair's flights there. I know Gordon Brown was Chancellor under Blair but he didn't become leader and PM for another ten years (2007). I recall that Murdoch's backing of Blair in the 1990's had a lot to do with Blair promising to not take us into the Euro.