The Good Old Days

The Leveson Inquiry has summoned all the Met's retired senior plod as his Lordship (left) ploughs into the relationship between police and media.
Step forward Sir Paul Condon (Commissioner 1993-2000), who came across as an avuncular, if slightly florid, Rotarian from the pre-digital age.
He evoked a slightly more innocent era and his evidence showed an emminently straightforward outlook to media relations. For example, he endeavoured, whenever possible, to hold briefings with the press at NSY or some other police premises always with a press officer present. He only had a handful outside and happily withstood the editors' constant griping about the quality of grub in the police canteen. He referred to accepting hospitality as part of a journalist's "grooming process." For all Sir Paul Stephenson's clamour about his own "integrity" Condon clearly has it, self evidently.
How this approach contrasted with John Yates and Andy Hayman who were cross examined last week about a succession of press dinners, lunches and drinks where the company credit card took a right hammering. Hayman wacked a bottle of champers on it in a wine bar in Chelsea during a meeting with a hack whose identity he couldn't even recall. But at least Hayman, was willing to accept mistakes and found that, by his actions, had risked the reputataion of the force "persuasive".
Not so Yates who was grilled for over three hours without barely accepting any error, however minor, had been made. All the coppers are castng the shadow of the terrorist threat as their let-off for not doing their jobs on phone hacking. But that does still could not permit what appears actual obfuscation with sharing information with known victims including the Deputy Prime Minister of the time.

Judge Thee Not

David cameron doesn't get everything wrong. So he should at least be applauded for doing the right thing which is for once, actually "bold and fair". Allowing gay couples to marry only adjusts citizens' rights to be accessible to all and makes up for long standing historical discrimination.
Surely no-one could begrudge gay couples their happiness and public commitment to each other?
Step forward Cardinal Keith O'Brien pouring out a stream of hateful bile where he made comparisons to "slavery" concluding with the words " if the UK does go for same sex marriage it is indeed shaming our country."
Well, shame on you, your Eminence.
He relied heavily for his thesis on the 2,000 years of prejudice and the "natural" law. There was precious little logic and his suggestion that gay marraige violated others' human rights was perverse indeed. The Catholic church, of which I am a member, has an unhappy history based on its failure to adapt to even old ideas of marraige. Many of the abuses of that church can be traced back to extreme views contrary to "nature" such celibacy in priests.
Another promnent catholic, Rick Santorum, fighting to be Republican candidate, has said his first action as President would be to anull every same sex marriage. What an extra-ordinary message to give to the people. Where there is harmony, let us bring discord.

Horse Immaterial

I was never a big fan of Crimewatch. The reconstruction of violent attacks in regional jewellers was not very compulsive viewing for me. But it served a valuable purpose and was successful in nabbing several serial offenders and even a few murderers. One of its earlier presenters, Jacqui Hames (left), a serving police officer, found herself under surveillance by the NOTW following an appeal in the murder case of PI Daniel Morgan. Two of the suspects were other PIs and the evidence given to Leveson this week indicated some collusion by the suspects and the newspaper to undermine the murder inquiry. The treatment of stars like Sienna Miller and Charlotte Church has been shown to be remorseless and despicable - but this is on another scale entirely. 

Rebekka Brooks was invited to the Yard at the time to explain her editorial practice. She apparently defended her paper's actions, saying she suspected Ms Hames was having an affar with co-presenter DCS Dave Cook. A poor defence, you might say: they were a married couple.

The bizarre revelation of the Met loaning out a retired police horse to Brooks showed, if it still needed showing, a far too cosy relationship at the the top of NOTW and the MPS. It is also prompted one of the most toe-curling statements from the Met about its arrangements for geriatric horses.

Much of the recent damning evidence concerns Brooks's tenure and I look forward to her testimony. Just a few days in and Murdoch Jnr has felt compelled to resign from News International.

Today the senior plod Stephenson, Yeats and Hayman give evidence on their failure to investigate phone-hacking and inform the victims. The toe-curling has yet to begin.

All My Pretty Chickens

The arrests on Saturday morning of a few more senior Sun journalists has really got the whole news room spooked.
With the sister paper (more like detested stepsister) News of the World suddenly being disbanded by the Murdochs, there is understandable fear the same fate awaits the Super Soaraway. It prompted political editor, Trevor Kavanagh (pictured), to write a

snarling attack on News Corp bosses, any other time a sacking offence. But what does Trev have to lose? He may yet regret admitting payments were "standard procedure" and his belief there was "nothing illegal" about it.

This of course is not phone-hacking but allegations of payments to police officers and other officials which threatens to draw in federal investigators in the US. It could be a lot more costly to the organisation than merely shutting the gates on a 150 year-old paper.
Defenders of the Number One are scarce. Newsnight dug up the dismal Nic Ferrari who whined like an adolescent about the manner in which his chums were arrested and how many officers were on the Elveden investigation as if the other guests were of the same intellect as the average Sun reader.
"This is just a smokescreen. The question is 'was there a crime'?" bellowed Murdoch biographer Michael Woolf.
Ferrari, previous defender of the humiliated cop Andy Hayman, moaned on about the dawn raids but it was left to Tom Watson MP to point out the bleedin obvious about the NI journalists and edtitors previous obfuscation and flat denial. " It is News International's behaviour that is to blame for police having to devote immense time and resources to establish the facts. By deliberately lying to the police and trashing evidence they have made the job far more complex and expensive than it should have been...the notion that the police might politely ring up to make an appointment to see a Sun journalist for a civilised chat is far-fetched. It takes some nerve for News International, in the form of Kavanagh, to be accusing the police of wasting time and resources."
Today's front page picture of the late Whitney Houston's bath where she died shows the Currant Bun has lost one of its ghoulish zeal. But its dependance on its pre-eminence status is not just in doubt, these could be the final editions. But in that case the hacks would expect a little more sensitivity about the recent demise.

I Can Put it into Three Words - DIY

The Health and Social Bill has already been amended in over 130 clauses, something of a modern day record. The Government has resisted about 1,000 more.
One fairly important one was to ensure the Secretary of State was still responsible for the NHS. Lansley, for it is he, had wanted to palm off accountability to some Commission Board. So whenever a hospital closed or people started dying in droves on waiting lists, he would have been able to say to any Parliamentary Question "Not me Guv, ask the Board of unelected officials."
The founder of the NHS Aneurin Bevan (above) would have not been surprised by the Conservative plans for opening the door to private sector on health. Bevan's greatest achievement was banishing the unaffordability of healthcare for most people - under the guise of bureaucracy busting, Cameron is letting it in again.
It would be one thing if the department were robustly confident in the provisions but clearly there is huge anxiety in Whitehall. The routine matter of publishing the Bill's risk register has been resisted to the point of legal challenge. A Commons debate on it next week should be a pivotal point for the Grand Architect Lansley.
The fear among senior sources is it will say something like "tens/hundreds of millions of pounds of public money will almost certainly be sucked out by private enterprise."
The Bill also allows for services to be opened out to European law like any knicker factory. It means an ambitious private healthcare provider could takeover a region's provision for say, X-Ray at a loss, ruin the opposition then bump up the prices later.
There are dark murmurings in the corridors of Tory HQ about this being another poll tax and indeed it could be on that scale of unpopularity once its full potential is realised. One difference is the Tories put the poll tax in their manifesto. This colossal upheaval has not even got a mandate.
Overall it is simply asking too much of doctors who predominantly want to care for patients rather than project manage all the area's primary health care. As Dr. Clare Gerada, of Royal College of GPs put it, "Doctors are like the pilots...they just want to fly the plane, not build it as well."

What, really?

At the next European conference on climate change, British Ministers will have explain to their counterparts, the absence of Chris Huhne as Secretary of State.
It would amusing to see their faces when it is revealed he resigned for allegedly declaring his wife was driving so to avoid a speeding ticket ten years ago. In politics this must amount to being the smallest scandal ever.
A Guardian survey showed around 300,000 people have committed this 'easy' offence so it should be stressed a custodial sentence must be very unlikely. The Mail suggested two years in jug was usual for conspiring to pervert the course of justice. So it is, but it is also usually associated with witness intimidation. This is hardly the same.
In fact Keir Starmer, the DPP perhaps should perhaps have not brought this prosecution at all as it barely seems to be in the public interest. Of course it is technically an offence so Huhne can only scowl privately about how a petty media campaign driven by Telegraph and Mail has led to his resignation. But the biggest joker of all is his ex-wife who certainly caused him no end of stress in revealing some collusion but now finds she too will be in the dock.

The Race is Run

The previous England captain to be charged with a criminal offence was Bobby Moore (left) in 1970. It was an obvious stitch up to make old Mooro look like a shoplifter in some jewelry store in Bogota and was meant to disrupt the team's preparation of defending the World Cup.
A more honest leader of England you could not find. Bobby Moore stood as a model of professionalism and integrity.
Not so the current holder of the post, the somewhat less respected John Terry. Putting to one side some of his family's criminal behaviour and his infidelity with a team mate's wife, Terry has defiled the post by his being charged wth racially abusing QPR defender Anton Ferdinand. He has pleaded 'not guilty' to the charges and his trial is now set for July 9 having got dispensation from the court to lead England in the European Championship this summer.
Why has he not been suspended? Is there no moral dimension to the national game any longer? Reading the columnists this morning it is hard to find a supporter for Terry. But nothing has changed in essence since November when he was first charged. He should have been dropped from the team then and if Chelsea had any honour he should be dropped from his club too.
It is hard to see him resigning and Capello (to his discredit) hasn't commented so it is up to the FA to be decisive. Because, as Liverpool FC have found, if you don't condemn racism unequivocally, you just encourage it.