The latest phone hacking revelations

les

As you say nothing has been proved - Peston as we know works for the BBC and should be very careful!

Maggie

Robert "Double Dip Recession" Peston is in such an extreme state of febrile excitement at the moment I think it would be wise to take everything he says with a pinch of salt. Let's wait to see if any of the BBC claims and allegations from last week have any basis in fact before we start listening to any more fantasy predictions from that quarter.

Hugo Chav

I will not vote Conservative until David Cameron is no longer leader.

It is damning that he got so involved with Rebekah Brooks.

Simon Heffer is bang-on, Cameron is a "spiv".

The only guys really calling Cameron are Heffer, Martin and Nelson.

The tragic thing is the Labour lot are probably worse than Team Cameron.

It is a very depressing picture.

=====

Cynicus Economicus - April 2010:

I started this blog with a strong focus on the UK economy, but it was apparent that the problems of the UK economy were part of a wider shift in the world economy. My underlying idea, pre-financial crisis, was that the UK economy only appeared to have been growing, and that analysts had mistaken growth in debt for growth in wealth. As a result of this analysis, I suggested that the UK (as a whole) was poorer than people imagined. It seems that this reality is now official, with the Office of Budget Responsibility predicting a fall in the standard of living. The reason given for this is the rise in inflation, coupled with low wage growth.

The UK inflation genie has long been out of the bag and, as I pointed out a long, long time ago, the underlying driver is the devaluation of the currency. If you are a net importer, then a devaluation of the currency must push up prices. The mythical spare capacity in the economy was never going to hold down inflation, it was only ever going to hold down wages. It is worth reiterating why this spare capacity is mythical. If the UK economy is built around services, with a consumer debt led economy, then there will be large numbers of individuals who are trained and employed in sectors to support debt led consumption. These individuals, in a range of industries, can not suddenly shift into new areas of work. Using a crude example, a shop worker will not suddenly be able to transfer their skills to an engineering company.

Despite talk of 'austerity' and hysteria in the left leaning media, the state is not set to see any real depth of reform or any depth of fiscal consolidation. It would be easy to blame the government, whether Labour, Conservative or Liberal. However, the problem is that the people of the UK have yet to grasp the severity of the problems that they are facing. Even as their living standards slide, the big state trundles forward largely unchanged. In fact, the state is setting out to hobble any hope of the manufacturing renaissance that is necessary to move the UK forwards. As just one example, the UK's energy policy is leading towards ever higher energy costs, and the possibility of energy shortages in the future ( a few lonely voices are raising the alarm). And then there is the legislation and regulation, whether from the UK government, or from the EU. And the ever more complex tax systems.

In other words, despite talk of austerity, and reform, there is no real appetite for change. As long as the government can keep borrowing and spending, nothing will really change. The problem is that this cannot go on forever, and something must eventually change. The question is to ask what might force the change. The decline in living standards might be just such a driver, but it is just as likely that the decline will prompt ever louder voices for ever more state intervention, ever more state borrowing and ever greater debt accumulation. It is the idea that something must be done to halt the decline, and that the state that has been behind the problem might now solve the problem. The other possibility is that the UK goes down the same road as Greece, Portugal and Spain i.e. the county loses the trust of lenders.

Jack Simpson

Damn, it's not been the best week for we Conservatives. But the British are a fair minded bunch and there's very little chance of this affecting voting behaviour.

Jack Simpson

As much as I deplore phone hacking, it really is getting annoying to have to witness the total opportunism of Murdoch's enemies and the likes of John Prescott with a massive chip on their shoulder because they were caught with their trousers down and who are now out to curtail press freedom. I very much hope that those who are guilty are caught and punished, but, for goodness' sake, no one died.

olu ojedokun

Yes nothing has been proven, but i welcome you to place your bet on the allegations being confirmed as facts in due course.....

steveal

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn...

John Wilkes

I had to laugh when I watched All The Presidents Men on TCM a couple of days ago. The first thing Bernstein did when the newsroom heard about the story was to tap a source in the Washington Police Department for a lead. Even after all these years perhaps he should hand himself in immediately and make a full confession.

strapworld

Peston is very close to someone within News International. So you can take this as quite accurate. BUT why has the man chosen to release this information when his friendship with Peston is widely known within News International.

Could it be that the fragrant Rebecca WAS lied to. That would make Milliband look awfully stupid would it not?

Like all Labour plots what goes around comes around. It is going to hit Milliband in his wonky face!

Sacre Bleu

Coulson guilty or not, if as Peston says the 'data has been cleared out', the guy has no possibility of a fair trial should it come to that. There seems to be a concerted effort by BBC, Guardian & Millband et al to continue to convict the guy now and ensure that he takes Cameron with him by association. He may well be the guilty party but he must be entitled to a fair trial. All this presupposes he is going to be charged with anything, perhaps the Guardian could tell us, but the odds are that the BBC,Guardian,NoW,Blair,Brown, Milliband etc. and the Met police will all end up squeaky clean. Not my fault guv. NI look as though they are going to set him up anyway but it is inconceivable that they did not know what was going on. We all speculate or guess as we have no factual information, only biased media garbage. Repeat 'boom and bust','too far too fast', 'Coulson and Cameron' etc often enough then it becomes accepted as fact. Where has objective and factual reporting gone?

cheche

Somebody must de feeding Preston. I think during the finacial crisis he tried to talk LLoyds Bank down so they would be nationalised to fit in with somebody's grand plan. Whats the grand plan here?

Synthetic Yawns

Yaaaawwwnn my arse. This is the end of the beginning for Grofaz Cameron and it cannot be uninvented. I'm looking for the moment when the system decides enough is enough, just like with MPs expenses and you all get told to take your foot off the gas.

Anyone who is professing to yawn is either a moron (if you're bored by politics then why visit The Spectator you cretin) or a communications stooge.

daniel maris

Could there be anything more instructive of the gap between the super-rich elite and ordinary people than Rupert Murdoch's comment that Rebekah Brooks is his "priority" at the moment?

Forget the 200 innocent people who just lost their jobs.

Forget the fact that Mrs. Brooks could retire happily tomorrow on whatever squillions she's squirreled away.

No, Rebekah Brooks is the priority.

REPay

Dear Les
There is absolutely no need for Robert Peston to be careful as he works for the BBC and it is opposed to the Newscorp, business and any economies in the state sector. Watch for the pressure on the PM to apologize for poor judgement on appointing Coulson (no harm to you and me) and listen for the absence of aplology for the poor judgement on public finances under Lsbour which has beggared us all!

J H Holloway

Really?

So the Hon Robert Pesto is still being fed anti-Tory stories via his father, Labour peer Lord Peston.

Ever wondered where he got the HBOS/Lloyds TSB takeover story?

daniel maris

Why is Sky News referring to the possibility of hush money having been paid to the Police by NI or its reps?

David Lindsay

Dear old John "Banana" Yates, bent and yellow, the world's most incurious detective.

Whatever next? That Tony Blair really was selling peerages, which are seats in Parliament, after all? After all that, it is still not Sir John...

That, this, MPs' expenses (such as it was, compared to either that or this): who would be better at investigating them? The New Tricks team, or Gene Hunt? And why?

Fergus Pickering

There are lots of 'innocent' people who have lost their jobs lately. If you work for the NoW at all there is a certain amount of guilt by association, is there not?

Val Smith

Everyone should pay attention to the fact that this 'drama' became a smash hit
after there had appeared rumours that the British government might have some 'special views'
on the eurozone problems...

TrevorsDen

IIRC Coulson and Wade told parliament years ago that there had been payments to police. So? Does Mr Forsyth or indeed idiot Peston have a comment on that? Where were the police then?
I would imagine that every single newspaper in the country has a line to the police, certainly every national one. Some police may give info for money some for political prejudice, but they all do it illegally - so there are going to be some interesting trials - if we are to have justice that is.

It would be nice to know from Mr Chav just how 'involved' Cameron has been with Brooks before his head explodes with excitement - he needs to get a grip.
Brown went to her wedding and Blair took her out for meals and Brooks took him to a lobbyist party.

I have to say this blog does do a service by reminding us just how thick the lowest common denominator is. If a fact slapped Mr Chav in the face he would not recognise it.

HampsteadOwl

The substance of Robert Peston's report does not support the headline that News International found these "smoking gun" e-mails back in 2007.

What it says is that said e-mails were retrieved from these outside solicitors Harbottle & Lewis only recently by Will Lewis (no relation) who is now leading News International's investigation, and passed to the police last month. So the key question is why, if these e-mails are incriminating in the way that is reported, did Harbottle & Lewis give what must then have been a false "all clear" account of them back to News International? Were they set up to do so, or was it incompetence on their behalf? The only other explanation is that Harbottle & Lewis were right, and Peston's report is wrong.

The other questions will be for Colin Myler who managed to make himself the hero of the hour in the NotW closure. What, if anything, does he know about the apparent disappearance of the bulk of the 2,500 e-mails that he reviewed? And, again, even if the 300 surviving are sufficient to show evidence of illegal payments, widespread hacking etc, he must then face accusations of lying to Parliament.

Thucydides

Strapworld: 'Could it be that the fragrant Rebecca WAS lied to. That would make Milliband look awfully stupid would it not?'

No, it would not. Neither is all this some 'Labour plot'. This is despicable, illegal activity by NI, with Cameron getting some shit by association. Of course Miliband is after political capital, as any politican would be.

strapworld

I have 'hurt' the left! Goodness me. They can throw whatever, at anyone, and now complain when little me suggests that the ghastly Red Ed may be found wrong about the fragrant Rebecca, and would be forced to apologise. If he didn't he could well find himself in the High Court for defamation!

Of course it is a plot, it is a political plot. For goodness sake, Thucydides, grow up!

These labour bunker boys are back at their old game are they not!

Maggie

The BBC's latest ploy in their campaign to manipulate public opinion on this story is to inject bogus emotion into the story. Robert Peston has been a prime example of this morning. This morning he tells us that Rupert Murdoch is "embarrassed" and that David Cameron is "worried". Adjectives suggesting happiness and joy are being ascribed to Ed Miliband and anyone else who doesn't like the Tories and/or Murdoch & News International.
This isn't news. Its blatant propaganda.

Perry (the Hard of Heart)

Robert Peston ... who he?

Taylor

Frankly, I wish NOTW had hacked Peston's phone. Then we might know who it was who 'tipped him the wink' about Gordon Brown fostering the Lloyds/HBOS disaster. Then we might have the criminal trial which all Lloyds shareholders would welcome.

Andy

Actually Thucydides Cameron is a bit part player in all of this. He appointed Andy Coulson as his Communications Director in 2007 after Coulson had resigned because of the hacking affair. Coulson stated he did not know this was going on. In 2007 could you (or Cameron) prove that that denial was a lie ? No you couldn't and in point of fact I have read nothing to date which contradicts that denial. Remember Coulson is entitled just as you are to his innocence and the Law requires more than BBC & Guardian bigotry: it requires a fact.

The real story here is why the Police did not do their duty. These allegations emerged in November 2005 involving Prince William and the Royal Household. Sir Ian Blair was appointed Commissioner in January 2005. This matter was, I believe discussed at cabinet, so what political pressure was applied ? Miliband might be making the running but all of this happened under a Labour Government of which he was a member. And lets also remember he employes Tom Baldwin who is alleged to have used a private detective to 'blag' into a bank account connected to the Conservative Party and Lord Ashcroft. Labour are in full cry over all of this, but this is the same Labour Party that brought us a doggy dossier and Damian McBride. I marvel at their morality.

Hard Hearted Perry

@ Taylor - Then we might have the criminal trial which all Lloyds shareholders would welcome.

A lot more of us than Just Lloyds . . I'm sure we could squeeze the whole LieBore cabal in somewhere too (+ Bliar)

Simon Stephenson.

Andy : 9.29am

I hope you'll excuse from summing up your argument as "My side can't be held to be guilty because all there is against them is a bunch of unproven assertions, but there are some other unproven assertions that show quite clearly that the other side is as guilty as hell"

I appreciate that you are doing no more than following the Twenty-First Century Guide to Successful Argumentation, but I think you'll find that this also advises the need to camouflage the double-standard a bit more effectively than you have done.

LibertarianLou

"I very much hope that those who are guilty are caught and punished, but, for goodness' sake, no one died."

Except Daniel Morgan.

And how do you know that Milly Dowler's killer - for example - couldn't have been caught sooner, thus not reoffending, with crucial evidence deleted from Milly's phone?

LibertarianLou

Strapworld,

No-one has shown any signs of being "on the left" and no-one has mentioned being "hurt" so what are you on about?

Is there any evidence that it's a "Labour plot" or are you just wildly paranoid?

Are you suggesting that

- Labour made this whole thing up?
- Labour infiltrated NOTW and hacked the phones themselves?
- Labour are making a fuss about nothing and you don't actually thing that NI breaking the law and spying on crime victims, potentially damaging criminal investigations, is an issue of any importance?

Whichever of the three you believe with respect I don't see how you're in a position to tell ANYONE else to grow up!

History Lover

Excellent comments. Ofcourse Labour are up to their necks in this. If, as is being hinted at by Liebour and Lib Dems, the information about Andy Coulson was known when he was taken on by David Cameron why didn't Liebour look into it then? Why didn't they have an enquiry? Why didn't they ensure that the police did a thorough investigation?

Robert Peston's drip drip drip of information is disgusting. Whatever Andy Coulson has or has not done he deserves a fair trial. Innocent until PROVEN guilty. Remember that? We have had that in this country since July 1483 and King Richard 111 must be turning in his grave (where ever that might be)to hear Peston presuming people are guilty before they have had a fair trial.

Thucydides

Andy,

I agree that Cameron is a bit part player - he's only copping a bit of guilt by association. All this stuff about how Labour are really the guilty party - Strapworld and his political plot - is pathetic.

2trueblue

So, One man did or did not do it all? Busy little chap. Liebore, the police and everyone else, save the chaps that are already locked up, were not responsible for the appalling handling of it all?

So let us all now focus on the one man that the BBC can spin about, Coulson. That way they can hang it all on Cameron. It is a shame that we do not have an unbiased national television station that would/could report things. Lets not mention that Liebore were in power all the time this was going on. Like the expenses fiasco the focus was where they wanted it and some were sacrificed whilst others got away with lining their pockets, some made apologies, some were suspended for a period, and that was that. The chapter was closed and everyone moved on. Peston was not very vocal on the matter.