Read my lips -- this isn't cricket

mark

you are absolutely right. Were the eaves droppers working for the BBC or Sky or ITV? Does someone make living at this kind of thing as a freelancer.This is one area where journalists principled protection of their sources should be forgotten.

JS

Somewhere, in all this internecine warring I sense a stitch-up. Relations between the Milibands is of no interest to me -- this is not a family game and the way Ed 9and everyone else) keeps referring to it is changing the agenda. If David is leaving politics it will be only for a short while. Then, with all the fanfare and razzmatazz the now celebrity-enthralled Labour can muster (considerable, mind you) he'll be back. The all-new updated edition of D.Milliband, here to save us all! Gimme a break.....

Peter Jackson

I cannot agree. They are liars trying to lie to us and we have every right to know the truth

Robert Mitchum

I am very surprised to read this comment from you Melanie given your views of Labour and your articles detailing all they have done to this country. Almost ALL is fair when you are dealing with characters who for years have blighted the lives of so many people. If either of them had made an anti-semitic remark for example, should that not have been exposed or should social etiquette have ensured it was kept secret? Given Labour's record of snooping I regard this as a case of the biter bit. It did after all occur in a public place and not, as with Labour, having the population's private emails etc., monitored and CCTV following you from the moment you leave home.

Neil Craig

All it did was show the hypocrisy of Harman in clapping somebody purely because he is the boss & perhaps more surprisingly that David miliband was surprised at such hypocrisy. If the politicians didn't lie to us about such things they need not fear being found out.

I strongly suspect that if the journalists had found him saying something which was truly private (ie personal rather than affecting alleged political opinions) it would not have been made public &that that would have been right. I also suspect that if the joutnalists had found some truth they didn't want made public (eg some politico saying the knew global warming was a lie or that the KLA we appointed as "police" had been genocidal organlegging Nazis all along) it would have been kept quiet.

I understand that this has been common practice in the US for ages & that when Eisenhower talked to Kennedy at his inauguration lip readers have determined ge never mentioned Vietnam as a serious problem.

Dai from Edinburgh

I guess today's reporters having abandoned the principle of investigative reporting have adopted the incredible lip reading skills of football commentators who, from a distance of some five hundred yards, are able to determine what one player is saying to another whether the player is English, French or German. Remarkable.
Be this as it may, Harman, like most of her brand of leftists, lacks conviction and honesty. She simply moves politically with the tide aware that her principle audience is not the public at large but her Chardonnay socialist comrades propping up the Sloane Square bars.

John Edwards

Most gratifying to see the stony faces of the warmongers as they were being disowned.

I also thought Ed Miliband made an unequivocal and welcome statement on the situation in Gaza and the need to end the blockade.

RL54

If that is what she said (and I don't doubt it) then it shows her up for what she is. A shambolic waste of space - untrustworthy and quite without integrity

David Booth

A simple solution would be for politicians in general and Harman in particular to stop being hypocrites and liars.
If M/s Harman was making an anti-semitic or racist comment would you still be uncomfortable with the way the remarks came to light.

Edward McLaughlin

Can't see the problem with this.

Although I would defy any lip-reader to glean anything from Ed Milliband in the same way. Full encryption ensured.

charles soper

Yes, John Edwards, his statement about helping Hamas to arm more vigorously sank my last vestige of hope for Mill jr. If he can't even see that he's finished before he even starts.

Silas marner

I am a bonafide left winger according to the daily mail, yet i agree with you on this point. Melanie.
:-))

maxsceptic

The logical outcome of the CCTV culture.

They reap what they sow.

Dave Bear

If true it's a good story. Anyway,arent they('New Labour') somehow always looking for different ways of spying on us.

Skeptic

>>>>>I also thought Ed Miliband made an unequivocal and welcome statement on the situation in Gaza and the need to end the blockade.

What's the matter, Hamas finding it harder than usual to smuggle rockets to kill Jews with?

logdon

Come on Melanie, they were at a Labour political meeting, we pay their wages, we have a right to know the inner machinations.

For instance had the Telegraph not started poking the nose into the 'private affairs' of MP expenses we'd never have had an inkling into those bastard's greed.

All's fair, these days in politics.

A J Scott

They are at last reaping as they sowed - under the counter off the record briefing, plain lies, smears; and then when we can see what they are actually saying, they ( and their clan) think it's somehow not quite fair? Too bad-sink back into the manure!!

Roger K

Melanie I know you do your level best to be fair and keep high standards but first I have huge doubts this was what actualy said and who authenticated it?

Secondly she probably does hold this view whether she said it or not which is very disturbing because it is just a socialist spitting distance from fascist crowds seig heiling the 'Leader'. With all the power struggles going on within the leadership out of sight of course.

Derek BLADES

Mark asks, "Were the eaves droppers working for the BBC or Sky or ITV?"

NBo Mark. They were working for the Telegraph, Mail and Express - the gutter press in fact. What did you expect?

Trev

They dont have anything to hide... do they??

Mr Sponge

Full marks for decency Melanie but unfortunately Labour politicians are not decent people.

They are at a conference in full show to the media - recording a comment or translating it via lip readers isn't so different.

Remember, these are the people who took a wrecking ball to our economy, encouraged mass immigration for political advantage, destroyed communities, played footsie with the Muslim community whilst we suffered Islamist terrorism... they lied, spun and fiddled their expenses.

Moreover they sent brave British men to war - to die and be maimed - I wonder how many Labour MP's and activists have family in the Armed Forces that they otherwise despise?

None I guess.

just Louise

Sorry, Melanie - don't agree.
These people govern us - they have chosen the spotlight and we have a right to know their views.
On this occasion Miliband was right to be indignant - Harperson voted for the war, so it's a tad hypocritical, and indeed futile, for her to be applauding Ed's denunciation of that decision.

tarmacadamia

Not defeatist but deafist...

Simone

You are being very kind Melanie,
but they don't deserve it.
They were in a public place.
If it had been said in a private place then fair enough.

Although, I have to admit to enjoying hearing Gordon Brown's
private views about that "bigot" Gillian Duffy ;-)

Michael White

"I also thought Ed Miliband made an unequivocal and welcome statement on the situation in Gaza and the need to end the blockade."

It's a shame he made no mention of Egypt whilst he was on the subject of concern for Gaza. I wonder why not.

Frank P

They should all have their houses bugged, never mind their public appearances; don't they still do that in the case of traitors? Particularly when they persist in their plots to destroy the country. Cricket my Left leg!

Palookaville

We need more monitoring and control over these venal hypocrites, not less.

mark

Seems to me to be a real shame that when MP raises a genuine and non-partisan point concerning journalism and ethics that people still have to justify what happened on the basis of political affiliation.

Next time the BBC uses some dodgy source or practice in reporting the conservatives the same people will be dragging out the subversive leftist BBC /let's abolish the licence fee arguments we see here so often.

Maybe Andrew Gilligan is a lip reader

Raymond Douglas

Harriet Harman was the living embodiment of why I personally, stopped voting labour ! PC, anti-marriage, anti-christian, all of the "equality agenda" seemed to find its natural home with her ! She is a truly awful woman , who has done more damage to this nation than just about anyone else ! I am not surprised that Miliband Senior was nauseated by her smarmy hypocrisy ! I AM !

Louis Berk

Actually, no. I'm glad someone exposed Harriet Harman for the hypocrite she is. The more relevant observation is that no one needs to lip read Ed Milliband. He only has to open his mouth to be exposed for the opportunistic, mendacious, feckless child that he is by his condemnation of the decision by members of his own party to wage the war in Iraq.

my name is not important but i feel more like arthur dent than slartibartfast

The rest of us are subjected to far worse treatment day in day out. Parliamentary privelege is quite enough for politicians and this is not parliament.
If anything it made me think the alternatives to milliband1 are indeed much much worse.
also having played with recording devices i discovered that people are far far more aggressive and antisemitic than my ears notice or rather my brain permits. The mind blanks things out. Blanking out all else was one of Sterling Moss's greatest strengths. Absolute Focus. People play all sorts of devious tricks instinctively with the mind. For better or worse.

Aaron

Why on earth zoning issues happening 2000 miles away in a land the size of wales need a mention I am lost. 1bn Africans suffering declining life expectancy apparently forgotten. What a creep we is?

exeunt pursued by cross eyed non resident alien squirrels

Harriets neck looks longer than usual. Is this a photoshop job i see before me?.
Neck and neck!

Mike Homfray

Its rare that I agree with you, but definitely. I do think politicians are entitled to express views to one another without being snooped on

Dave M

"Harriet Harman was the living embodiment of why I personally, stopped voting labour ! PC, anti-marriage, anti-christian, all of the "equality agenda" seemed to find its natural home with her ! She is a truly awful woman , who has done more damage to this nation than just about anyone else !"

I agree. New Labour did massive damage but how many people realise how great that damage was? In fact, I know this will probably be a very unpopular statement and far more to the Right than Melanie has gone but New Labour often makes me think why Putin became so hard line in Russia. Maybe Putin simply feared the massive chaos that could have come to his country had similar, rampant liberalism been allowed to take root. Don't get me wrong. I'm all for live and let live and freedom of speech and expression and gender equality. It's just that New Labour's brand of liberalism destroys families, social coherence, national identity and belonging, freedom from religious intolerance and so on. It's a way of thinking that's negative, self defeating and even smug. Those people were mostly in it all for the money and the opportunity to set their own hidden agenda. Of course, the BBC was very similar.

Martin Paice

He said it in public.
End of story.
It doesn't matter if the source was DM himself: 'What were you saying?'
A neighbour.
Or a lip reader.
You betray you lack of moral judgement.
This was not an invasion of privacy. If many deaf people could tell what was happening, why judge one of them for telling us what they witnessed.
You would help a blind person across the road, I presume?
Perhaps your objection is not about the ethics of the story but something else. That would be one obvious conclusion.

Elizabeth

In the early 2000s I took part in a recording of "The Weakest Link" (don't ask ). The opening sequence shows contestants "preparing for the quiz" and is taped shortly before the recording takes place. Briefly, you're told by a researcher that you can talk about whatever you like as long as you aren't swearing and you're happy to be lip-read because lip-readers watch "The Weakest Link". Whatever the morality, surely it was extremely naive of two supposedly senior, experienced politicians to exchange anything of a private nature on a very public platform?

Neil Saunders

If a politician is making a public appearance (or attending a public event) then he or she is on the record as far as I'm concerned.

Truthtriumphs

NO.

daniel maris

Oh come on Melanie...you're supposed to be a journalist. Journalists have been eavesdropping since the Year Zero.

These are public people in public. Had it been a private conversation at a dinner party you MIGHT have a point.

Leon Vestey

The facts are: she did vote for the war; she was clapping Ed millipede.
There is no room or reason for conjecture.

Noa

Melanie's considerations are over-delicate. The lip readers have the right of it.

We have every right to know in what contempt these duplicious hypocrites really hold us.

Derek

I respectfully disagree with your position on this. Politicians have in recent times largely committed themselves to withholding from the people their actual views when it suits them.

Furthermore, under the government of the Labour Party tens of thousands of CCTV cameras have been installed in a variety of public spaces to watch us, lips and all - for our own good of course.

If it were at likely to be adopted, I would support a measure which would require all conversations of politicians except those involving national security, stricto sensu, to be recorded and reported - at least until the public cameras were dismantled. In that sense, I agree with Frank P. I would have it done openly though - perhaps however bugging them is the only practical answer.

One would also like to see the journalists in the political class a lot more active in keeping track of the beast. There is probably available still on Youtube the educational filming of EU politicians in Brussels checking in as present for the weekend in order to assure themselves of the relative expenses before taking off with their suitcases for anywhere but the Belgian capital. Those politicians were also not best pleased, though no lip-reading was involved if I remember correctly.

If we had men of public trust as our politicians, these measures would not be necessary.