Like A Circle in A Circle, Like A Wheel Within A Wheel 88

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Hat-tip to Mary for pointing me in the right direction.

For those of us who experienced a surge of naive hope that News International have been referred to Ofcom for a ruling on the “Fit and Proper Persons” test, here is a bucket of cold water. Rather than being disinterested public servants, the Board of Ofcom represent the political and financial establishments which are so irreversibly penetrated by the spores of News International. Many of them hold directorships of companies – like banks and insurance companies – which have a direct interest in seeing no further plunge in News Corp/News International share price. They are also beneficiaries of the policies Murdoch has championed – private equity firms and privatised utilities, for example.

Bluntly, there is no chance that a body of which the Chairman, Colette Bowe, is a Director of Morgan Stanley and of Electra Private Equity is going to pull the rug on News Corp.

Here is but a selection of some of the Directorships held by Ofcom board members:

Morgan Stanley
Electra Private Equity
Thames Water
Axa
Betfair Group
JJB Sports
Pace Plc – supplier of set top boxes to Murdoch’s Sky
Nujira Ltd – defence contractors to US military
Standard Life

That is just a selection. In addition, the Chairman is a director of the Wincott Foundation, a “charity” whose purpose is to spread the far right economic doctrines of Milton Friedman in Eastern Europe – to the benefit, ultimate if incidental, of Morgan Stanley and Electra Private Equity, in which she also holds directorships.

She is most unlikely to find the Murdoch influence pernicious, wouldn’t you say?

How on earth did we come to have a regulatory body for the communications industry composed of these kind of parasites? Why is it so overpacked with businessmen and so devoid of intellectuals? Again, to put that simply, why the Chairman of JJB Sports and no Eric Hobsbawm?

Our entire fabric of government is a sick fucking joke.

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88 thoughts on “Like A Circle in A Circle, Like A Wheel Within A Wheel”

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  • Azra

    Derek, Thanks for the information.
    Now regarding Ofcom, I am as sceptical as anyone else, but there is a glimmer of hope. Ofcom and Murdoch locked horns only couple of years ago (if my memory serves me right), over some rights of showing football or something like that. I remember Murdoch’s paper and their poisons against Ofcom, and subsequent Cameron’s attack on Quangos..and Ofcom being singled out to be axed.

    In one of the threads someone said that ” somebody must have wanted RM out”, maybe it was Ofcom! after all they have few powerful people on the board there and we all have heard the expression “dog eat dog”

  • Jonangus Mackay

    @Clark
    Usually a delay in recordings going up on iPlayer. Should certainly be there by tomorrow.

  • Jonangus Mackay

    Carl Bernstein. writing in Newsweek, articulates the reasonably obvious:
    .
    ‘News of the World was always Murdoch’s “baby” . . . As anyone in the business will tell you, the standards and culture of a journalistic institution are set from the top down, by its owner, publisher, and top editors. Reporters and editors do not routinely break the law, bribe policemen, wiretap, and generally conduct themselves like thugs unless it is a matter of recognized and understood policy. Private detectives and phone hackers do not become the primary sources of a newspaper’s information without the tacit knowledge and approval of the people at the top, all the more so in the case of newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch, according to those who know him best.’
    http://bit.ly/plNDDY
    .
    Were this a narcotics ring, it would not be a matter of controversy; there would be no hesitation. As soon as the Boss, as his underlings call him, sets foot on British tarmac, as he’s expected to any time now, he would be stopped by police. He would be arrested on suspicion of conspiracy. Particularly given the scale & nature of the crimes involved, including prima facie evidence of wholesale destruction of evidence, I have a question:
    .
    Why not?
    .
    Stupid question. Time, might I suggest, for a mob-handed citizens’ arrest.

    —

  • Guest

    Azra, whatever is going to happen has already been decided!. All that is going on and is going to go on is just to make it look all fair and above board for the “gullibility of the British mass public”. It has always been that way.

  • mary

    Some retaliation from NI.
    http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/3685790/Miliband-quizzed-over-aides-drugs-use.html
    .
    Tom Baldwin was a journalist with The Times. He named Dr Kelly and is a friend of Campbell.
    .
    ‘Baldwin was the Times journalist who named the weapons expert as the secret source behind the BBC’s claim that the Blair government had ‘sexed up’ a dossier about Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to justify going to war against Saddam Hussein.’
    .
    dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339702/Meet-champagne-coke-snorting-socialist-Labours-new-Alastair-Campbell.html

  • Tony

    It’s not just News International/Murdoch plc which is imploding and crumbling before our eyes. It’s UK plc. Look at the dirty footprints and grubby fingerprints all around this cesspit. The Murdoch operation, the police, the PCC, both major political parties,the Press Association, the phone companies(?) and who knows who else. This is a deep-rooted cancer in the UK bone marrow and Alex Salmond will be rubbing his hands. Good luck to him and the Scottish and Welsh Nationalists in extricating themselves out of the UK establishment miasma.

  • dreoilin

    “Investors have already been dumping BSkyB shares (of which Murdoch controls 40 per cent), as any hopes of a full bid for the broadcaster from NewsCorp have been dashed. It now looks inconceivable that the Government will permit a Murdoch bid for the broadcaster, which means that almost a year of delicate negotiations have all been for naught.

    “With each new allegation of hacking and bribery of police officers, it’s looking less likely that even Murdoch’s son, James, who runs News International which owns the NOTW, can survive. Another investor added: “The greatest fear for the group now is that US investors will start selling because of the uncertainty that this scandal spreads to the US and that legal action will be taken against top Murdoch management – even James …”

    Lots more here
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/does-james-murdoch-face-a-headache-as-bad-as-the-guinness-affair-2309845.html

  • dreoilin

    The Battle of Wapping, Mk II
    .
    “David Cameron was given a personal guarantee by Rupert Murdoch that Andy Coulson was safe to take on as his Downing Street press chief, The Independent on Sunday learnt yesterday, as the fallout from the News of the World phone-hacking scandal threatened to escalate into all-out war between the UK’s two most powerful men …”
    .
    And again, lots more here
    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/the-battle-of-wapping-mk-ii-2310041.html

  • dreoilin

    Hah!
    More of your circles and wheels, Craig:
    James Murdoch “now sits on the boards of drugs giant GSK and Sotheby’s”.

  • Methuselah Now

    Hi,

    Anyone remember Enron, Tyco, Worldcom? These companies, as always, had an internal anything-goes-to-“win” corporate ethos emanating from their buccaneering founders, News Corp. has been no different, as with those other example of ethical bankruptcy, wiser people warned for many years, but were ignored, dismissed and slandered, while corrupt had access to political power.

    Will we learn and dismantle the colossal machinery of Rupert Murdoch, all will the same continue, a single opportunity wasted?

    While he has the momentum, Ed Milliband and all other MP’s should pursue an emergency bill – so beloved of some ministers pandering to News Corp’s journalism – that introduces residency requirements on media owners of a certain size.

    Also, advertisers should be made to realise that it’s not one newspaper, or one division, but the heart and soul of anything related to NewsCorp. and the Murdoch.

    People should remember that while the Murdoch’s might have been the most ambitious and connected ( however achieved it ), but so were the likes of Leo Kirch and Conrad Black, and how quickly did the rats that were abandon the sinking ship, and their boards sack and sue their former founders and chairmen?

    Kind regards,

    MN

  • mary

    Holocaust ignoring, censorship & Murdoch media
    Posted by Dr Gideon Polya on July 10, 2011, 1:55 am
    .
    On Friday 8 July 2011 The Age (arguably Australia’s most progressive Mainstream newspaper) published an article about the Rupert Murdoch media Empire hacking and bribery scandal by Tim Dick, media editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, and entitled “Wrong red-top goes”.
    .
    The Age partly censored my comment on the article thereby evidently indicating what it does not want its readers to read (link here)
    .
    The part The Age did not want its readers to read was in the second last sentence and read: “(2) hold the News Corporation CEO Murdoch legally responsible for everything from criminal phone hacking and bribing of policemen to genocide ignoring”:
    .
    My complete comment read as follows:
    .
    “Outstanding expatriate Australian journalist John Pilger has described the UK, US and Australia as Murdochracies in which Big Media falsely determine public perception and how people will vote.
    .
    Clearly the Murdoch management including Murdoch should be investigated, arraigned, tried and punished over the phone hacking and police bribery scandals but these sleazy scandals are the least of the crimes of the Murdoch media empire.
    .
    The most monstrous and unforgivable crime of the pro-war Murdoch media (including 70% of Australian city daily newspapers) has been to resolutely ignore the carnage of the ongoing Iraqi Genocide (1990-2011) and Afghan Genocide (2001-2011) involving violent deaths totaling 1.7 million and 1.2 million, respectively, avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation totaling 2.9 million and 3.8 million, respectively, under-5 infant deaths totaling 2.0 million and 2,7 million, respectively, and refugees totaling 5-6 million and 3-4 million, respectively (Google Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide).
    .
    /…..
    http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/msg/1310259302.html

  • mary

    Obviously in retaliation, The Sun have carried a smear against Tom Baldwin, Miliband’s spin doctor, reportedly issued by Ashcroft the Tory donor and tax exile, saying that he is a cocaine addict.
    .
    Tom Baldwin was a journalist with The Times. He named Dr Kelly and is a friend of Campbell.
    .
    ‘Baldwin was the Times journalist who named the weapons expert as the secret source behind the BBC’s claim that the Blair government had ‘sexed up’ a dossier about Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’ to justify going to war against Saddam Hussein.’
    .
    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1339702/Meet-champagne-coke-snorting-socialist-Labours-new-Alastair-Campbell.html

  • Suhayl Saadi

    Good on you, Mary – I think that all of your messages got through, though, in spite of the deletion. In some ways, the deletion was of a sentence that elegantly codified what you’ve said elsewhere just as eloquently but in detail in the letter. So, although your neat coda/riposte relating to the original article’s title has been lost, the stats, etc. are in; your point comes across very clearly; except for the word, ‘genocide’ your points actually are all still in there; so count that one as a success!

  • Azra

    Mary, same here,Never bought it, never picked it up to have a look at even when it was left around at work or on the train.. and never bought any of his other papers or subscribe to SKY. Although I must say every now and again I have read some of the articles from Times online.

  • wendy

    murdochs in town presumably to tell the govt how he is to acquire bskyb .

    the real questions must be about t blairs role in the original investigation , the role of senior met police and the interactions that took place with NI.

    today its been said by tom watson live on lbc973 that NI threatened to pursue him for the rest of his life if he did follow through on the hacking scandal .. he was also warned off by blairs aides.

    http://www.hindustantimes.com/Blair-tried-to-hush-up-hacking-scandal/Article1-719505.aspx

    if anyone expects cameron to deny the bskyb deal or for NI / murdoch to be thrown to the wolves .. then your expectations are in lala land at present.

    its all about the neo cons.

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