That horse and another gate

One of my favourite films is All the President's Men, based on the book by Washington Post journalists Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward. It tells the story of their investigation into the Watergate break-in and the subsequent resignation of President Richard Nixon to avoid impeachment. 

Subsequent political scandals have since acquired the suffix -gate and the phone hacking scandal at News International is no different.  The revelation that David Cameron rode an ex-Metropolitan Police horse belonging to his friend, ex-Eton classmate and now racing trainer Charlie Brooks and his wife,  former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks - both of whom were arrested and released on police bail yesterday - summed up the corrupt connections between the police, politicians and News International and has led to the affair being dubbed Horsegate.

Surely a film will eventually be made about the phone hacking hacking scandal but who could possibly play the main characters?  Richard E Grant as Cameron? Dustin Hoffman as Nick Davies of The Guardian? I'm struggling with Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks to be honest.

The Sun also rises

When Rupert Murdoch flew into Britain last week following the arrest of senior Sun journalists on suspicion of making corrupt payments to police officers, there was some speculation that the daily tabloid was about to meet the fate of News International's former Sunday title The News of the World and be shut down. Instead, Murdoch visited the Sun newsroom and told staff that a new Sunday paper would be launched "very soon". Many thought it would appear in the next couple of months but shortly afterwards it was announced that The Sun on Sunday will launch next weekend. This was predicted when the NotW was shut down and the new title must have been in preparation since then.

Although it's wrong to assume that people who read a newspaper automatically share its attitudes or  politics (a shop steward at Longbridge car factory in the 70's I know says the West Indian guys on the shop floor always read the Times for its cricket coverage), I don't think there's much doubt that people only read the NotW for the gossip about footballers, soap stars and minor celebrities. That is borne out by the fact that while there was much discussion at the time as to which Sunday tabloid ex-NotW readers would now switch to, it seems most of them have stopped buying a Sunday paper. It is also doubtful if they will start buying The Sun on Sunday, especially as the editor has promised more "family content" in place of the salacious tittle tattle.

I know when the NotW shut down, many people pointed to the fact that the workers there were being sacrificed for their bosses' errors and the way to deal with such abuses was for News International to rerecognise the National Union of Journalists so that their staff would be bound by its code of conduct. I have some sympathy for that view but still raised a cheer when the NotW sank below the waves, seeing it as a small move towards to a more decent press. I would have felt the same if the Sun had also been axed. Of course journalists would have lost their jobs, just like the NotW staff, and before them the public hangman and witchfinder general. They would though then be able to write for better newspapers, or do something more socially useful, like roadsweeping.

An A-Z of Murdoch's crimes

Watching the Leveson Inquiry into press standards earlier, I started thinking about how most murky or destructive things can be linked to or traced back to Rupert Murdoch. 

The list of crimes he is directly or indirectly responsible for and their victims is a long one and in many cases the name alone is enough: the anti-union laws (which he exploited to bring out his scab titles at Wapping in 1986 before getting Blair to  promise he would keep at the News International conference on Hayman Island, Queensland in 1995 in return for the support of his British newspapers in the 1997 election),  the Dowlers (whose murdered daughter's voicemails a News of the World employee deleted, leading them to think she was still alive), families of British soldiers killed in Afghanistan and people killed in the London tube bombings (phones hacked by News International employees), Fox TV, Hillsborough, journalists (whose union the NUJ he derecognised after the Wapping dispute, meaning that News International reporters are no longer covered by its Code of Conduct),  the McCann's (News International bought a copy of the diary Kate McCann kept following the abduction of her daughter Madeleine in 2007 from the Portuguese police and published it in the News of the World), the NUM in the 1984-85 strike, printers (sacked en masse with other newspaper workers in the 1986 Wapping dispute), Sky Sports (which charges cricket, football and rugby league fans to watch matches previously shown live on free-to-air TV and dictates changes to kick-off times which mean they have to take time off work or travel at ridiculously early or late times),  The Sun, the Tea Party (promoted by Fox TV), Margaret Thatcher.

I'm sure I've missed lots of his other crimes and victims but the charge sheet above is enough to convict him I think.

Never on Sunday

This time in a fortnight, Manchester City will be playing Liverpool at Anfield in the Premier League. Forty-eight hours later, both teams will be in London to play Arsenal and Chelsea respectively in the quarter-finals of the League Cup. The reason for this quick succession of matches? Sky Sports wants to show the Liverpool v Manchester City match originally scheduled for three o'clock on the Saturday afternoon at four o'clock on Sunday.

Politicians have finally broken free from the grip of the Murdoch empire; it's about time football did.  The clubs could play on the Saturday as planned and let the Premier League do what they want.  The League itself could have refused to move the game, offering Sky another one or just saying "sue us".  Fans could refuse to buy tickets (Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish has already told their fans he'll be putting out a second-string team at Stamford Bridge on the Tuesday night so they might want to reconsider travelling away), and also think about cancelling their Sky subscriptions which give Murdoch the cash to lord it over the Premier League in the first place. I've never subscribed to Sky, both on principle and for cost reasons. If  I want to watch a match, I go to the pub.

Hillsborough twenty-two years on

I signed the e-petition that triggered tonight's House of Commons debate about the release of Government documents relating to events leading up to the loss of 96 lives before a FA Cup semi-final at Sheffield Wednesday's Hillsborough ground in 1989 and hope that the relatives of those who died are successful in their bid to have them published. I think it's unlikely however that the smoking gun they're looking for will be found in them, especially if the Cabinet Office blanks out sections.

The boycott of The Sun in Liverpool after it printed unfounded claims about the behaviour of fans at Hillsborough, based on anonymous "police sources", continues and rightly so: that article was just a small part of the damaging effect the Murdoch empire has had on British society. 

Another blow for Murdoch?

I was pleased that Karen Murphy, the landlady of a pub in Portsmouth who chose to show a Greek broadcaster's coverage of Premier League football rather than Sky's, won her case in the European Court of Justice yesterday.

I've watched live football in pubs broadcast from Greece, Scandinavia and North Africa.  With Sky charging pubs £700 a month and overseas broadcasters around £60 you can see why. And like me, a lot of the people watching live foreign broadcasts of a match at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon - games which Sky itself can't show - are people who have been priced out of actually going to the ground by the Premier League clubs.

The idea that you should be able to buy stuff cheaper from elsewhere in the EU seems pretty fundamental to a free trade organisation and the judge hearing the case was quick to side with Ms Murphy on that point. Whether the Premier League manages to reassert its control by witholding copyright permissions and whether many domestic Sky customers switch to other channels remains to be seen but the mere possibilty of the Murdoch empire losing some more money as a result of her bringing the case should make any decent person raise a glass to her.