Monday, February 27, 2012 

The Sun may yet set.

On Saturday and Sunday, both the Guardian and Independent suggested that rather than it being an atypical moment of Murdochian chutzpah and genius, the bringing forward of the launch of the piss-poor Sun on Sunday (or The Sun Sunday as the paper's front page has it) was to ensure it hit the streets before the worst of the allegations against the paper had come to light.

And so it has proved. You can really take your pick as to which are the most damaging. Sue Akers's statement to the Leveson inquiry made clear that the arrests as the Sun are about a "culture of illegal payments to sources", mostly for tittle-tattle, as the Management and Standards Committee suggested they were, and not about lunches and small-scale tips as unnamed voices from the paper have claimed. Next was the release of an email written by Tom Crone to Andy Coulson from 2006 at the time of the arrests of Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire, which makes clear that the police had identified around 100 potential phone victims then, making it incredibly unlikely that Mulcaire was being used only by Goodman as everyone at the Screws and News International subsequently claimed. And lastly, there's the substantial settlement with Charlotte Church, with Church setting out how the News of the World had effectively blackmailed her mother into giving an interview on her depression and self-harm, insisting on taking photographs of her arms.

Whether any of this will affect next week's Sun on Sunday sales remains to be seen. The Sunday red-top market was the most gaping of open goals considering how terribly poor the opposition is (only the Sunday Mirror comes anywhere near to being worth 50p) so it's no surprise whatsoever that a Sunday edition of the best selling daily paper has done well. Had we known last week though that there was such apparent compelling evidence against the Sun, many more voices would have been risen against a replacement coming out while the "swamp" is yet to be drained. In that respect, it is still a typically Murdochian triumph. Whether it continues to be is something else entirely.

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2/27/2012 03:56:00 pm | |

Wednesday, February 15, 2012 

On the rights and hypocrisies of both Abu Qatada and The Sun.

Maajid Nawaz from the inconsistent Quilliam Foundation makes a good point over at the Graun when he says that by approaching the Abu Qatada story from a different angle, it in fact portrays our legal system in a very positive light. Here is someone accused by the most outspoken media sources of wanting every single one of us infidels dead, and yet we're doing our damnedest to secure from Jordan guarantees that he won't face evidence from torture should he be sent back there, in order to a satisfy a court that other European countries in similar circumstances have simply ignored. Rather than it being an outrage that we're letting someone described as a real threat walk the streets, even if it's only for 2 hours a day, it shows that we're not willing to sacrifice the very values that made our society strong in the first place for the sake of a little extra supposed security. As he says, one of the government's own (ridiculously broad) definitions of extremism covers those who attempt to "undermine the rule of law".

Less convincing is his following argument for how we we could limit Qatada's influence, that by highlighting his use of "manmade law" to maintain his status in this country we could undermine his credibility amongst the jihadists that regard any such complicity as heresy. As Nawaz undoubtedly knows, there is also a school of thought within extreme Salafi circles that considers it perfectly permissible to go against their traditional values, as long as through such actions the end result is a blow against the prevailing system they seek to destroy. This isn't to say that Qatada is an adherent to this takfirist way of doing things, even if has, as has been alleged, links to al-Qaida, who have decided on numerous occasions that killing Muslims is acceptable if the ends justify the means. More likely is that he simply doesn't want to go back to Jordan on the perfectly rational basis that it's far more unpleasant in prison there than it is here. Nonetheless, the concept of those who wish us harm using the very protections they themselves don't believe in against us is far easier to understand and complain bitterly about than the supposed damage his hypocrisy might do to his image as a respected extremist sheikh.

Which brings us, however tenuously, to the Sun. The Graun is reporting that "senior journalists" at the paper are considering launching legal action against News Corp's Management and Standards Committee for a potential breach of the Human Rights Act, as previous rulings have found that Article 10 gives sources similar protection to that of hacks themselves. This doesn't necessarily mean that in every instance newspapers wouldn't be forced to hand over material provided to them by sources if it was demanded by a court: the Grand Chamber of the ECHR found that such an order could still be justified "by an overriding requirement in the public interest". Whether this would cover the instances where the MSC has handed such information to the police is dubious, especially if it's true as the Guardian is now reporting that the Sun was keeping some of those leaking material to them on retainers worth thousands of pounds a year.

It could though be worth bringing a case, as Geoffrey Robertson suggested today in (where else?) the Times. Like with Qatada relying on laws he doesn't personally believe in to keep him in this country, so it seems that the same Sun journalists who have been condemning the HRA for years on the orders of their editors may well turn to it in an attempt to stop the Plod from breaking their doors down at six in the morning. While we could then describe this as a example of typical tabloid hypocrisy and humbuggery, we should instead perhaps take our cue from Nawaz: it simply shows that however much they complain about it, the Human Rights Act and the European Convention on which it's based protect both the best and worst in our society equally, just as it should be.

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2/15/2012 11:03:00 pm | |

Tuesday, February 14, 2012 

Not quite payback.

For those who spare themselves the daily assault on sanity that Newsnight increasingly resembles (last week saw Naomi Wolf and Katie Price on the same panel, with the artist formerly known as Jordan fobbing off Paxman's inquiries as to why she had decided to repeatedly mutilate her breasts) you'll have missed last night's tussle between Charlotte Harris and Nick Ferrari over the arrests at the Sun. Harris quite reasonably felt it was a bit rich for the employees of the Sun of all papers to complain about the tactics of the police, considering how often they seem to have been invited along in the past on dawn raids or had helpful information leaked to them. Ferrari instantly decided this meant Harris regarded the Met's antics as "payback", and therefore they were absolved as it was about time.

Rather, the response not just from the Sun but also from those defenders of the free press at the Daily Mail just showcases the everlasting truism of Corporal Jones's catchphrase: they don't like it up 'em, as indeed the Sun itself has often commented. The Sun and the Daily Mail, in their fantasy ideal world, want a police state for real criminals, the burglars, murderers and paedophiles, a slightly less rigorous regime for white-collar offenders, and an almost free society for Mr and Mrs Law Abiding Citizen. This though is not an ideal world, and the kind of treatment that the Sun openly applauds when it comes to collaring drug dealers or suspected terrorists is simply unacceptable when those being arrested are among the "legends of Fleet Street". The dawn raid is in fact fairly standard police procedure, as it's when those being sought are most likely to be home, and carrying out the arrests all at once also makes sense when, as the High Court heard recently, even directors at News International may have attempted to destroy evidence. Informing those due to be brought in may well have given them just such an opportunity.

It is also doubtless the case that the Met under its new leadership, the last commissioner having had to resign as a direct result of his links with former News International employees, wants to be seen as both independent and as following the evidence, having miserably failed to do so when first alerted to Glenn Mulcaire's activities. For this new spirit the Met is naturally being roundly assaulted. Richard Littlejohn, that chronicler of police PC madness, writes of how his fellow hacks are being subjected to "Gestapo tactics" and how Knacker of the Yard is guilty of a "massive abuse of power". Similar to the complaints when Ruth Turner and Damian Green respectively were arrested, with MPs from Labour and the Conservatives quick to denounce the burgeoning police state when it was their own being nicked, so now we have those other lovers of ever increasing police powers deciding that it's not such a good idea after all now that the attention of coppers has turned towards them.

The Sun being the Sun, it couldn't possibly help exaggerating. Trevor Kavanagh in his piece yesterday and in his subsequent interviews talked of how "up to 20" officers were ransacking the homes of journalists, only for the Met to point out later that "no more than 10" had been involved in any such arrest and subsequent search. Difficult as it is to comment when so few details about Operation Elveden have been made public, although that's hardly stopped Kavanagh, with others whispering that this is all about relatively inconsequential things rather than out and out corruption, it remains the case that payments to the police are illegal, and have been for years. While there's a potential public interest defence for every form of subterfuge, and it's possible that revelations from within the police could have exposed corruption or incompetence, far more likely coming from the Sun is tittle-tattle or worse on arrested suspects, such as the stories the Sun and News of the World printed on the Koyair brothers, all of which were wrong.

Kavanagh's conclusion, that this myriad of inquiries and investigations might result in a cowed press where politicians decide what WE can and can't read might have more traction if the likes of the Sun didn't already trumpet what their chosen man of the moment wants the public to hear at every opportunity. Similarly, if any politician was calling for statutory regulation, or if Lord Leveson was even hinting that would be his chief recommendation, it would be time to start worrying. Instead, as Steve Richards points out, politicians still have an awe for the press which it increasingly doesn't deserve. The real risk from the current police investigations is that it puts whistleblowers in general off, especially if they believe that their details might at some point yet be sifted through. Journalists can't work without sources, and if they fear being exposed even if no money changes hands, then we do have a problem. It should be noted though that the most recent breach of confidentiality between journalists and sources came at the Sunday Times, where editor John Witherow handed over emails between Vicky Pryce and the paper's political editor Isobel Oakeshott, almost certainly resulting in the charges against both Pyrce and her ex-husband Chris Huhne.

As amusing as it is that the boot is now firmly on the other foot, it doesn't really compare to the hilarity of News International employees finally discovering just how ruthless Rupert Murdoch is. Despite all they've done for him, or think they've done for him, it counts for nothing when there's the potential for a corruption investigation into News Corporation as a whole in the US. Kavanagh might not like the suggestion that there's a swamp at the Sun that needs to be drained, but this is essentially Keith being cruel to be kind: the Management and Standards Committee's cooperation is surely preferable to the closure of the Sun as a whole, isn't it? As for these legends of Fleet Street, Rupe couldn't care less, as was shown when he maintained he'd never heard of Neville Thurlbeck, the Screws' chief reporter and onanist extraordinare. Appealing to someone still set on world domination, even if it no longer involves his British newspapers, isn't going to cut it any more.

In any case, the Sun simply can't help itself. As Kavanagh and friends complain bitterly about their treatment at the hands of the Met and how really unfair it all is, the paper itself campaigns for the immediate deportation of Abu Qatada. Who needs the rule of law anyway?

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2/14/2012 07:58:00 pm | |

Monday, February 13, 2012 

All together now: awwwwwwww.

Trevor Kavanagh's self-pitying whinge in the Sun today following the further arrests at the weekend under Operation Elveden would have been rather undermined if he'd mentioned it's all the result of the internal investigation by the Management and Standards Committee, tasked with the exact "draining of the swamp" Kavanagh claims isn't necessary. Still, always better to blame and attack everyone other than those actually responsible, isn't it?

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2/13/2012 03:09:00 pm | |

Friday, March 04, 2011 

Scum-watch: The Wapping intifada.

What's the best possible way to belittle the uprisings across North Africa and the Middle East? The Sun and Trevor Kavanagh seem to have alighted upon it:

Judge has attacked the same freedom of speech that people in Libya are fighting and dying for

Yes, apparently the revolutions haven't been all about the overthrow of hated dictators and the demand for basic human rights, but instead the desire to know such essential information as the fact that a banker's been shagging someone other than his wife. Stay classy, Dominic Mohan!

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3/04/2011 10:48:00 pm | |

Monday, March 16, 2009 

Scum-watch: Kavanagh demands Muslims personally apologise to him, and crime confusion.

Almost a week on from the protests in Luton by around 15 Islamists, those out to milk it for all its worth still haven't let go. Today Trevor Kavanagh in the Sun, having previously treated us to Islamophobia in response to accusations of Islamophobia instead introduces us to his amazing knowledge of both the terrorist threat and the Muslim community:

IF you thought public fury over the latest ‘IRA’ atrocities was impressive, wait for the uproar over the next 7/7.

For the jihadists haven’t gone away, either.

They are just furious that a few flint-eyed extremists from the Real IRA and Continuity IRA have beaten them to it.

How does Kavanagh know this? Simple: he doesn't. The jihadists haven't gone away, it's true, and undoubtedly the threat from them is worse than it is from Republican dissidents, but it's also worth bearing in mind that there now hasn't been a major attack foiled since the liquid bomb raids, over two and a half years ago, not counting the dismal failure of the Tiger Tiger and Glasgow airport patio gas canister attacks.

Last week’s Belfast demos involved peace-loving citizens from both sides of the community.

The question is, will we see peace-loving Muslims, preferably some in hijabs, filling the streets of Bradford after the next Islamist outrage?

Most British Muslims are as appalled by violence as the people of Northern Ireland.

Some bravely condemned the Luton fanatics who spat bile at our soldiers as they marched home last week.

But would they turn out in their thousands to denounce another massacre like the London Tube murders?

Unlikely. Yet, if they fail to join other British citizens in publicly expressing disgust, they risk being seen as silent sympathisers.

Kavanagh here doesn't see the flaw in his own argument. He is suggesting that Muslims would be the only ones that wouldn't turn up to denounce a second 7/7 attack, yet there was no response after 7/7 akin to that which we saw last week in Northern Ireland, also unlike the response in Spain to the Madrid attacks there. And why preferably some in hijabs? Because Kavanagh assumes that women wearing them must be more extreme, or more devout? This mirrors Kavanagh's previous comments regarding hijabs, which he described as "provocative", when they are nothing of the sort. Niqabs maybe, hijabs from this secularist's view unpleasant and unnecessary but not "provocative". Kavanagh's remarks that if they fail to live up to what he demands of them they "risk" being seen as "silent sympathisers" could not be more clear: he views them as outsiders unless they distinguish themselves by denouncing something that was not done in their name but by those who claim to share their religion. He wouldn't subject any other group in this country to this sort of treatment; what makes it's acceptable to do it to Muslims?

Not satisfied with this, he then, like the Sun has repeatedly, questions the allegations made by Binyam Mohamed regarding his rendition and torture:

But lying is the default position for Islamists. Which is why we should question Guantanamo inmate Binyam Mohamed’s claim he was tortured by America and hung out to dry by the British.

On balance, I prefer the word of our security services.

The Ethiopian asylum seeker is another ex-druggie convert, deluded by fantasies of Islamic purity in hellholes such as Chechnya and Afghanistan.

Yet we are giving him sanctuary, at huge cost and potential risk.

He is not British. He should be sent home, along with ALL foreign terror advocates who trade off the freedoms they are so determined to destroy.


Except he doesn't claim that it was only Americans that tortured him. His main mistreatment occurred in Morocco, where he was rendered by the Americans (undisputed, as we have the flight logs which showed a trip on the correct date on a plane associated with the rendition programme) and where, as the Intelligence and Security Committee has already said, MI5/6 provided his interrogators with questions which were used while he was tortured. How much evidence does Kavanagh actually want? Does he want to see Mohamed's penis, which was sliced with a razor and still bears the scars? That he has lived here since he was a teenager has no real links to any country other than here is irrelevant to Kavanagh; he should just be thrown out because of his own ideological bias.

Much of the rest is the same old spouting that the Sun has cranked out for years, all without anything approaching proof or anything approaching insight, bringing up the old already disproved idea that it's foreign imams that are brainwashing the youth when in fact the radicalisation process is far more complicated and more to do with groups of like-minded individuals and the internet than simply listening to the sermons of the Qatadas and Hamzas. The new tactic is to quote at length those who have turned their back on radical Islam, even when they themselves are discredited. Shiraz Maher, who produced a report which had the most ridiculous and rigid recommendations for the government when tackling extremism for the think-tank Policy Exchange, discredited over Islam after Newsnight exposed that it had fabricated parts of a previous report is given space, while Ed Husain, more reliable but also unwieldy in what he thinks should be done, unlike his more amenable colleague Majjid Nawaz, also of the Quilliam Foundation, is also given room to voice concern over how Luton didn't turn out to denounce 15 people who weren't even all from the town, despite pictures from mosques on Friday which featured many worshippers condemning the protests.

All of this covers up the fact that the very thing Kavanagh seems to want is in fact just as likely to alienate as it is to unite. Demanding that Muslims as a block denounce something that doesn't in any way represent them is the exact sort of thing that is guaranteed to cause resentment towards a society which is already fearful and sceptical, and in some cases even prejudiced against them. The Sun's entire coverage of terrorism and the war on terror has been conducted in an "us and them" style, completely wedded to the Bush administration's policies on it, and scornful of the alternatives. That this has been counter-productive could not be more plain, yet the paper continues to defend it, ridiculing those tortured and demanding that terror laws be ever further tightened.

Elsewhere, the Sun's leader is typically confused (url will change as usual):

CRIME statistics alone cannot reveal the truth about Broken Britain.

They can be twisted any way the Government likes.

The Tories point to Justice Ministry figures showing convictions for teenage violence and theft doubling since Labour took office.

True, says the Government — but only because we’re bringing more yobs to book.

In fact crime is DOWN by a massive 39 per cent.

Does someone really need to explain to the Sun that just because crime is down that doesn't mean that convictions must also be down? It seems like it. As with Kavanagh, the Sun has already decided what's actually happened: Britain is broken and the government twists the statistics. True, it doesn't help when the government is caught doing just that, such as over the knife crime statistics released late last year, but the Sun itself fell for that and then claimed that no one had believed them anyway. The Sun then launches its own survey:

Crazy, isn’t it? So we must all decide for ourselves.

Today, we report four teenage murders in three days.

Do you think crime levels are lower than in 1997?

Do you feel there are enough police to keep order? That sentences are sufficient deterrent?

Do you think Labour really has been “tough on crime”? Do you feel safer than when they came to power?

We’ll bet the answer, every time, is No.

And the Sun is determined that the answer remains no, as its hysteria over "Broken Britain" and demands for ever more police and prison places continue unabated.

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3/16/2009 11:59:00 pm | |

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