Was even Gordon Brown hacked by News Corp?

It is a sign of the times that one of the most serious corruption–and–criminality scandals in the British postwar era may be quietly put to rest by an offer of more money by the very organisation at the heart of the scandal. In this post I would like to quote in some length a piece by Henry Porter which appears today in the Observer. The article may give the reader a sense of the extent of the rot which is now shaking the very foundations of British democracy, all that our society reportedly rests on and stands for. It also forces a re-appraisal of traditional critiques of conspiracy theories. The quote is taken from an article titled ‘It is hard to imagine a more dangerous breach of trust by a public corporation’, and is well worth reading, along with the more general coverage of the issue by the Guardian.

It is a measure of James Murdoch’s failure to understand the gravity of the phone-hacking scandal that in answer to a question from the US broadcaster Charlie Rose, he replied: “You talk about a reputation crisis – actually the business is doing really well. It shows what we were able to do is really put this problem into a box.”

One of the most serious post-second world war scandals to affect British public life cannot be placed in quarantine and forgotten simply by means of a late apology and millions in damages. It is already clear that admissions made by News International raise huge questions about the competence and ethics of the company’s management, including James Murdoch, as well as profound doubts about attempts to quash the police’s inquiry into allegations of widespread criminality.

But much more important is that the News of the World operation has penetrated to the heart of the British government and may even have intercepted Gordon Brown’s messages. We know that Labour’s culture secretary, Tessa Jowell, who was the minister overseeing the media, was hacked, as was her husband David Mills; the former deputy prime minister, Lord Prescott, has been told that the News of the World was listening to his messages; and it seems likely that Tony Blair’s communications director Alastair Campbell was also a victim.

Two weeks ago I wrote formally to the former prime minister Gordon Brown to ask if he had received confirmation from the police that his phone was compromised by the News of the World. He has yet to reply..

The ‘intringulis’ of Britain’s plutonomy

In Part III of Big Society, Big Oil and Muzzled Universities, I noted that the plutonomic order that now dominates the UK should not be regarded as a monolithic, homogeneous conspiracy on the part of the richest 1%. I suggested that significant divisions, and resistance to the plutocrats (or the ‘plutonocrats’) needed to be taken into account by any critical analysis. Today we read news that provide the best illustration of why I included that caveat in my article. But the news also provide evidence that the order in question is very much in place.

The news in question involve Mark Thompson, the BBC’s furore–prone director general. Thompson has reportedly given a speech in New York, in which he warned that the Murdochs’ bid to acquire the totality of BskyB has the potential to produce a significant ‘loss of plurality’ in the British media market, and indeed, may even lead to an ‘abuse of power’.

Thompson was stating the obvious. This week I referred to an article in the New York Times by Paul Krugman, in which Krugman, a relatively conservative economist, penned an article that reads like a real-world version of Tomorrow Never Dies. Krugman warned about the way in which the Murdochs are funding Tea Party activists: ‘every major contender for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination who isn’t currently holding office and isn’t named Mitt Romney is now a paid contributor to [Rupert Murdoch’s] Fox News.’

You might have thought that a culture of corruption is only found in the United States. But Krugman also pointed out that ‘in Britain, a reporter at one of Mr. Murdoch’s papers, News of the World, was caught hacking into the voice mail of prominent citizens, including members of the royal family. But Scotland Yard showed little interest in getting to the bottom of the story. Now the editor who ran the paper when the hacking was taking place is chief of communications for the Conservative government — and that government is talking about slashing the budget of the BBC, which competes with the News Corporation.’

Which brings us back to Thompson. Thompson might be thought of as the ‘good guy’ who is battling for public services—well, at least for the BBC. In some respects he may well be. But this is the man who tolerates Shaun Ley-style reporting, and indeed this is the same man that was caught by the press going to 10 Downing Street in an alleged effort to placate Cameron, whom many now believe  to be in Murdoch’s pocket to have done a deal with Murdoch.

Thompson is also the man who was alleged to have engaged in analogous manoeuvres with the most reactionary of Israeli politicians, almost certainly compromising the BBC’s much vaunted objectivity with respect to the coverage of events in the highly volatile Middle East. Remember the furore surrounding the Gaza Appeal? Those reactionary politicians were, of course, both supported by, and a key pillar of, the Bush administration, which was itself in bed, so to speak, with the Fox.

That someone politically in bed with other people who are themselves in bed with the people that the first person seems to be having a go at reveals what the Spanish might describe as the ‘intríngulis’ of British politics—and indeed the intríngulis of what I have referred to as the plutonomic order. Anyone who forgets the vicissitudes of such an ‘intríngulis’—read puzzle, mystery, secret, ulterior motives—is bound to distort the workings of plutonomy.

For more on that intríngulis, you may wish to read John Pilger’s piece in the New Statesman, The BBC is on Murdoch’s Side.

You’ve gotta worry when even the liberals turn ‘commies’

I’m fully aware that many readers of this blog (and probably a friend or two) regard my writing an example of the kind of conspiratorial, loony-lefty, Tory-bashing, doom-saying discourse that long ago left the corporate media’s airwaves.

So it’s food for thought when a liberal (read, quite conservative, but open to new ideas) economist writes an article in the New York Times—the New York Times!—that essentially warns about the same forces that I’ve been ‘ranting’ about for the last three years.

Don’t get me wrong, Krugman is infinitely brighter than I am, and his writing is far better than my own, not least because it respects the genres he employs (you have to be quite foolish to write posts as long as I do in this blog).

But you’ve also gotta be very, very worried when someone who is so reasonably middle–of–the–road (by most rational standards) decries what has become a James Bond–like conspiracy involving a handful of people at the very top of the plutocratic order. Here’s just a taster of what you’ll find if you go to the original article:

“As the Republican political analyst David Frum put it, “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us, and now we are discovering we work for Fox” — literally, in the case of all those non-Mitt-Romney presidential hopefuls. It was days later, by the way, that Mr. Frum was fired by the American Enterprise Institute. Conservatives criticize Fox at their peril.

So the Ministry of Propaganda has, in effect, seized control of the Politburo. What are the implications?

Perhaps the most important thing to realize is that when billionaires put their might behind “grass roots” right-wing action, it’s not just about ideology: it’s also about business. What the Koch brothers have bought with their huge political outlays is, above all, freedom to pollute. What Mr. Murdoch is acquiring with his expanded political role is the kind of influence that lets his media empire make its own rules.

Thus in Britain, a reporter at one of Mr. Murdoch’s papers, News of the World, was caught hacking into the voice mail of prominent citizens, including members of the royal family. But Scotland Yard showed little interest in getting to the bottom of the story. Now the editor who ran the paper when the hacking was taking place is chief of communications for the Conservative government — and that government is talking about slashing the budget of the BBC, which competes with the News Corporation.

So think of those paychecks to Sarah Palin and others as smart investments. After all, if you’re a media mogul, it’s always good to have friends in high places. And the most reliable friends are the ones who know they owe it all to you.”

So here’s the question: if you’re at all concerned about this, do you

1) shrug your shoulders and say you can’t do anything about it

2) resent the negativity of the bloggers/friends/relations that warn you about it

3) berate them for not doing anything about the ‘state of the world’ if they’re so bloomin’ worried about it

4) nod vigorously and return to your lunch

5) write a blog

6) mind your own business

All of the above are quintessentially liberal responses. Having long indulged in them myself, I can quite understand their appeal. Heck, I’m still writing this blog. After all, if other people are willing to do the work, why should I engage?

Thing is, it seems that with the step–change we’re witnessing, before long the Kochs and Murdochs of the world may be coming for you too. By then the things you cherish (as a liberal) will be gone, and it will be too late to think about stopping the plutonocrats (no relation to Pluto, in Disney). So the time may have come to do something like join a political party, or hit the streets.

Oh dear, how illiberal is that?

p.s. Do you read the (London) Times? (I’m assuming you don’t do the Sun, the News of the World, the Wall Street Journal or any of these other Murdoch titles). Or do you subscribe to Sky, or use any of these other media? Maybe you should begin any activism by taking ‘one small step’ for man and womankind by refusing to fork over the money that’s fueling the corruption.

The stories about Andy Coulson and Mark Thompson may shine a light on Britain’s ‘culture of corruption’

It’s not often that the corporate media’s role in developing and maintaining the UK’s political culture of corruption comes into the limelight. The corporate media are, after all, the people that aim the spotlight. So it is highly unlikely that they will shine the light on their own practices. Alas, this week we were treated to two stories that may involve such ‘shinings’.

The first involved Andy Coulson. For those of you not intimately familiar with British politics, this is the man who David ‘Janus’ Cameron chose to employ as his spinmeister. Cameron did so despite the fact that Coulson was forced to resign from his post as editor of one of the yellowest of Murdoch’s tabloids, The News of the World. The reason for the resignation was that the paper was caught hacking into the royal family’s mobile phones. And just about everybody else’s phones, for that matter.

Coulson always denied that he knew anything about this practice. But he agreed to ‘fall on his sword’, and hey presto, he’s now the press rottweiler–in–chief for Cameron. The Westminster commentariat seems to have sort of accepted this ‘reality’ (no pun intended) until the New York Times came out this week and said what we all pretty much knew. Now the Guardian is running with the story, and maybe, must maybe, Cameron will be shamed into resigning Coulson. (This tells you something about the power of U.S. institutions over their British counterparts.)

Some more thoughts on this scandal: Coulson used to be one of Rupert Murdoch’s men. And Cameron is said to have done a deal with Murdoch ahead of the elections. Oh and Murdoch and his progeny were very unhappy with the BBC. And now the Cameron government is threatening to drastically reduce the budget of the BBC. Which sedges nicely into the next story.

Mark Thompson, the Director-General of the BBC, was caught paying a visit to Downing Street, apparently to discuss how the BBC could help the Conservatives to better ‘contextualise’ the plutonomic cuts that they are planning to impose on the UK. You get a sense of the scandal when even the increasingly docile BBC journalists are making a bit of a fuss about what looks, to this blogger at least, like evidence of a corporate media stitch–up–in–the–making.

This is, by the way, the same Mark Thompson that was caught up in a furore a couple of years ago about BBC bias in favour of Israel.

Perhaps the most sobering aspect of this is that London’s Metropolitan Police (known as ‘the Met’) allegedly knew all about the News of the World’s hacking, but apparently declined to investigate all but the most egregious of the crimes. A group of politicians is now pressing for a judicial review of the Met’s role in all this. Could it possibly be that even Britain’s police have done a deal with Rupert Murdoch? Perish the thought.

The end result of Tony Blair’s policies: plutonomy

If you’ve never heard of the concept of plutonomy, then hold your nose and go to Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal to read this:

Plutonomics

Blair is so rich now that he can afford to give away the revenues of his memoirs (if you don’t believe me, have a look at this piece on Blair property no. 9, for his young daughter). In my opinion, all of the debate about whether Blair was being sincere or not about donating the revenues to the British Legion missed the real point: Blair wanted to get as many people as possible to read his memoirs. Doing so was crucial to his long term strategy to attempt to rehabilitate his ‘image’. People might not buy a book whose revenues would go into Blair’s bulging pockets. More importantly, the timing of the announcement that the profits were going to the British Legion would have been calculated to generate massive publicity for the launch—which of course it did. (By way of an aside: I often wonder if Blair, like the terrorists he’s ostensibly been so keen to combat, desperately needs the oxygen of publicity in his efforts to ‘acquit’ himself.)

So what does this have to do with plutonomics? Blair’s ideology, and his policies arguably fit like a glove with plutonomy. While many people may believe what Blair writes, and while even intelligent people will write adulatory reviews of his memoirs, Blair’s ultimate audience is surely his fellow plutonocrats. They will be enthralled by Blair’s capacity to continue to hog the limelight, and put forward his view of the world. It’s a bit like Blair saying to the big boys and girls, “look, this is how it’s done. This is how you maintain, and further the aims of plutonomy.”

One, no two more thoughts:

–Have a look at this blog, which comments on some names that are not in the index of Tony Blair’s book

–if you thought David Cameron, and Dem Tories are opposed to plutonomy, think again.