No new police investigation into News of the World phone tapping allegation

Jo

Ha Ha Ha Ha!

Tories 1

Labour 0

Cjamesk

The left wing media will try to drag it out that`s for sure.

As I posted earlier this story has no legs and if there was ever an own goal so spectacularly scored it is surely this gaff by the BBC,Guardian et al.

I`m looking forward to the "long game" response ;)

Cameron fan

It won't stop the BBC being in full on 'smearing the Tories' mode. I hope Cameron has taken note of how they have behaved.

Laura, UK

Let's hope the Guardian has delivered Murdoch for the Tories. Labour are playing a very dangerous game indeed.

Tory Girl

Yet again Cameron keeps his head when all around are losing theirs, the mark of a true leader. BTW Prescott has made a total idiot of himself AGAIN.

Stan, London

Yates should be very careful Labour will turn their attack guns on him he's not towing the Labour line.

LABOUR_PRIDE

WOT A STITCH UP! THE TORIES HAVE MOBILISED THEIR FRIENDS IN THE MEDIA AND MURDOCH HAS CRUSHED A STORY THAT WAS ABOUT TO BRING DOWN HIS EMPIRE. THIS IS A CONSPIRACY AGAINST LABOUR!

Gawain

Does this expose the Guardian, the BBC and Prescott to defamation actions ? I do hope so, couldn't happen to a nicer set of people !!

paul holdstock

can you imagine the utter dross that bugging prescotts' phone would yield?
whoever paid for it to be done, if indeed, anyone did,
must be certifiable.
that fact, is perhaps the 'real' news story here.

jon dee

A sneering smearing Labour hysteria has been halted by facts that did'nt fit their sleazy intentions.

Sad to see the BBC jump into bed so enthusiastically with Labour politicians, when a cool head was needed.

Whatever happened to BBC impartiality?

Excragrat

Nick "Impartial" Robinson at the Beeb seems determined to make this story "run & run & run" with three blogs on the this same topic today alone. How strange is that? The U.K. going rapidly down the proverbial tubes seems to be a non-event compared to this old news from days of yore. It will be fascinating to see how much play this gets on the BBC this evening and tomorrow too. Nick Robinson's blogs today cerainly seemed to bring out some very busy but erstwhile quiet/unknown Nulab trolls with multiple posts each. It makes one wonder where that spin-like dirty tricks odour emanates from.

Jeremy

"It'll be fascinating to see how much play this story gets in the papers tomorrow."

For the reasons I have already stated in your previous thread on this matter, I still think that it's essentially a non-story.

But what it does tell me is that if Labour were not concerned over Mr Coulson's effectiveness in his current position, then they would not be "targeting" him at all. After all, if he is no good at his job, then why bother to "target" him in the first place?

Dave is right to keep him in place.

TomTom

Hardly surprising with the Political Police at the Met

CH

Won't matter, the BBC have already mansged to confuse any misconduct of the NOTW with Cameron, as if he were some how responsible. Heads up this is how it's going to be from now to election day!

Swiss Bob

You can see the statement here: MPS Statement – Alleged unlawful tapping of mobile phones.

logdon

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article6676476.ece

Move along. Nothing to see.

Maybe the police are acting with a bit more wariness and political decorum after the recent Green debacle?

Their reputation with it's love/hate aspect amongst the public is certainly tipping towards the latter. Being seen as the puppets of political masters who would stoop at nothing to keep the narrative onside has certainly done them no favours.

Or, is is the revenge of Yates of the Yard after all the run around of cash for honours?

Whatever, if there is no legal case have the news 'legs' been amputated or can Labour and their media cronies wring another aspect out of this?

Labour must know that by now they've been well and truly rumbled on honesty and that any further wringing of the tale will smack of desperation and spin.

As for Prescott's frenzied and overheated newsround, this will certainly ruin his day.

"In a statement delivered outside Scotland Yard, Assistant Commissioner John Yates said that only a limited number of people had had their phones tapped and there was no evidence that the telephone of John Prescott, the former Deputy Prime Minister, had ever been bugged by the newspaper" ......."There has been a lot of media comment today about the then Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott. This investigation has not uncovered any evidence to suggest that John Prescott's phone had been tapped."

oldtimer

Yates of the Yard also said, very pointedly, that there was no evidence that Prescott`s phone/voicemail had been tapped. You would not have thought that listening to the BBC`s 6 o`clock news - it was game set and match for the Guardian so far as the BBC was concerned - until Robinson pointed out that there was no new evidence since the original case was concluded and that Prescott`s voicemail had not been tapped.

At the moment this has the look, feel and smell of an elaborate smear operation by the Labour party machine via the Guardian, supported by an eager BBC editorial staff.

The high dudgeon on view in the HoC today has also been something to behold. Am I alone in thinking that Mr Huhne MP is a prize pratt?

Paul

YOu might notice that every now and then there are little negative stories appear in diverse places about the Tories, but they never get any legs. One of the most recent was the one was about Camerons German accent. There was the one about Osbournes finances. I imagine the dirty tricks campaign in the Bunker is behind all of these, and they hope that at least one will catch.

Andy

@Labour_Pride 6.29

Where the hell do you get that from?

I am struggling to understand why the Conservative Party are being drawn into this other than they employ this man.

He has already resigned from thepost from which he was responsible for this.

I fail to see why there are clamours for Dave to sack him.

It simply seems to be a desperate attempt to portray Dave in the same light as Damien McBride (who was doing his dirty business under the nose of the PM).

Crazy!

AngloWelshDragon

No, oldtimer, you are not alone. This is a labour sear and Huhne is a complete tit!

Paul

If LABOUR_PRIDE reflects a genuine labour view, then his/her post is just the cherry on the cake

Paul

agree with you Jeremy

Gave it more thought, and this story is mystifying me, seeing as it already played out years ago, and journalists served jail time, and Coulson lost his job.

I am ever appalled by what Labour will organise. It's sense of entitlement is so great, it seems. And meanwhile, knife crime goes up year in year, and SKY news interviews "I never dun nuffink" yoofs, speaking in that alien accent that schools even promote as a culture.

Hopefully, the BBC will really get what is coming to it when the Tories get in.

JR

Erm. What weird, weird double standards by the readers here. I hold no political flag on this but jesus, are any of you self aware to think what your reaction would be if a current bbc or god forbid labour spinner was in the same position? idiots.

It stinks - i was told about this racket by inronically one of prince charles press people many years ago when they got stupid, about the same time popbitch mentioned it actually.

If you want to be party politcal about it was the source of the osbourne and johnson stories....must be good to think the chief spinner's old team are turning over his own party one by one. Let's hope none of the pig **** dossier they've got on leading Tories in event of an election vicotry ever sees the light of day hey.

And it still works by the way.

Flemingcrag

In a week when it becomes crystal clear that bank bonuses despite the Government being a majority stakeholder in most of them are back with a vengeance and 125% mortgages are to be relaunched, both things signalling that the Government is again failing in its duty to regulate the financial sector, we find these things reduced to trivial status as Labour launch a smear programme against a Tory spin doctor.
When the financial future of the Country is ignored in favour of pursuing a political rather than legal case then we can only conclude that not only is the Governmnt failing us but, much of the Mainstream Media as well.

What this story is about is whether it is better the public are misinformed through MSM journalists getting their "scoops" as they share the comforts of the many Westminster bars with politicians who insist the article of faith and absolute truth is not attributed to them but, to that most venerable of political sources the unnamed minister or official OR the source is a much more reliable "listen-in" to unguarded comments on some politician's voicemail.

Now I would rather the "listen-ins" did not take place but, lying and deceitful politicians have only themselves to blame for investigators having to go to these lengths to out the truth.

mac

Ed S, Torin D and Reeta C evidently were under orders this morning on Today to keep the story running as a Guardian coup. But the emphasis on "hacking", and the impact on Coulson and Cameron in a three-way, chatterati session without any consideration of why now, who fed the Guardian, and who is conducting the orchestra was another transparent demonstration of editorial motivation and political sympathies.