Phone hacking: These resignation statements are meaningless

The ever-growing cast of the responsible but unaccountable is emblematic of the systemic corruption that has been laid bare


Gary Younge
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 19 July 2011 14.10 BST
Article history

"Action," argued philosopher Hannah Arendt, "without a name attached to it is meaningless." It leaves you with objects without subjects and consequences without causes.

So it is with the resignations that have emerged from the phone-hacking scandal so far. Time and again people with huge salaries and immense power acknowledge they had responsibility, but are careful not to concede accountability, for fear that it will suggest culpability. Nobody claims they were just following orders because apparently there were no orders and no one to give them. It appears what we assumed were extremely hierarchical organisations such as News International and the Metropolitan police apparently operated like anarchist collectives.

So with each new revelation – and not before – those who resign concede that "apparently" something terrible was done on their watch but insist that they knew nothing about it nor did anything related to it. They left not because of any wrongdoing but because the wrongs were being done to them – wait for it – by a hostile media. Then they make a break for it to spend more time with their lawyers.

Rebekah Brooks, former News of the World editor and chief executive of News International, said she left because she was feared her presence was "detracting attention from all [her] honest endeavours to fix the problems of the past".

Andy Coulson, former News of the World editor and prime-ministerial spokesman, said "when the spokesman needs a spokesman, it's time to move on".

John Yates, the senior police officer who took just a few hours to dismiss Guardian allegations that the original hacking investigation had been bungled, framed his resignation not as a matter of public disgrace but public service: "This has the potential to be a significant distraction in my current role as the national lead for counter-terrorism. I was unable to give total commitment to the task of protecting London and the country during this period."

So we have a narrative with no protagonists. Ignorance is claimed lest malfeasance be inferred; a verdict of incompetence is invited in preference to incrimination.

Former Met police commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, who, like Yates, came to the Guardian offices to try to persuade the editor that the the focus on phone hacking was misplaced, said: "I had no reason to believe this was anything other than a successful investigation. I was unaware there were other documents in our possession … With hindsight, I wish we had judged some matters involved in this affair differently. I didn't and that's it."

The ever-growing cast of the responsible but unaccountable is to some extent emblematic of the broader and deeper issues involved. The phone-hacking scandal has not just exposed systematic illegality but, arguably more worryingly, it has laid bare systemic corruption.

Who did what, when and who knew what and when is, of course, extremely important and it is in the dogged pursuit of those facts that this scandal has unfolded as it has. But take a step back and there is a bigger and far more corrosive threat to the popular understanding of how power in Britain works.

The ruthless disdain with which News International treats its enemies is well known. Its attacks on trade unionists, socialists, anti-war activists, Muslims, asylum seekers and so on is there for all to see. If recent allegations are correct, they reveal the utter contempt with which they treated those they claimed to be supporting. While running the campaign for Sarah's law, named after a girl who was killed by a paedophile, they hacked the phone of Sarah's mum. While bellowing their support for British troops in battle, they were hacking their families' phones when they died. While professing outrage at the 7/7 terrorist attacks, they were hacking the victims' families phones.

The collusion between politicians, police and News International took place on such a scale and with such a degree of blatancy that one can only assume that, on the level, those involved seriously believed they were doing nothing untoward. Their gravitation towards power was, of course, conscious. But the sense of entitlement and impunity that went with it was likely unwitting. They keep insisting they haven't done anything wrong because their moral compass is set to a place where what they did was OK.

Take just one, tiny, corner of this vast rancid network – the upper echelons of the police and News International. Assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, who led the initial inquiry into the hacking investigations in 2006, used to dine with News International executives before giving their company a clean bill of health and doing work for them after he left the force.

The Met then employed a former employee of the News of the World, Neil Wallis, the very paper it had been investigating for phone hacking, as a media consultant. Stephenson then took £12,000 worth of free hospitality from a luxury spa where Wallis worked.

When Sir John Stevens stepped down as commissioner in 2005 he was given a job as a columnist at the News of the World.

Two weeks ago all of this would have been the stuff of conspiracy theorists; today only a naif would disregard it.

The Christmas lunches, garden parties and wedding invitations where they mingled blurred the personal, professional and political, not to mention the individual and the institutional, to reveal a network of associations so deeply interwoven that now one part has frayed the whole thing is beginning to unravel.

These people behaved not just as individuals but as a class. And when that class came under attack it bandied together to protect itself.

These resignations and arrests feel like a dam breaking because the evidence has been both known and suppressed for so long. The new-found bravery of the British political class in the face of a media mogul is gratifying but hardly impressive. Having licked Rupert Murdoch's boots for the best part of three decades their sudden discovery that it leaves a nasty taste in their mouth is unconvincing.

It should not be forgotten that it took the hacked phone of a murdered girl to get us to this point. Apparently nothing less would stir sufficient public outrage or political retribution.

And if the police and News International had their way we would still be none the wiser.

Logically this cannot hold. Although given how long it's taken us to get to this point, it can drag on. Like all major scandals the cover-up may yet prove more devastating than the crime itself. And that is saying something.

Phone hacking: These resignation statements are meaningless | Gary Younge | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

+1

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Righteousness will always be the trap at the gates of hell

I kind of agree but, otoh, I think this kind of collusion is natural for human beings. Hence the need for strong regulatory barriers.

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The Murdoch story is not a Berlin Wall moment ? just daft hysteria | Simon Jenkins | Comment is free | The Guardian

Quote:

Britain has gone mad, or at least the tiny patch of Britain round Westminster. The Pentagon would call it a clusterfuck, an all-embracing, uncontrollable chain reaction that appears unable to cease. The new ecstasy theorists call it "whooshing", when reason loses out to passion, and thought to imagination. As after the death of Princess Diana, every politician and commentator cries: "The world will never be the same again." The world usually is. Today Rupert Murdoch and his son were summoned before parliament, and gave an eerie performance as an ageing father who had vaguely heard his son had done something regrettable in the family woodshed. Meanwhile the British prime minister, David Cameron, was forced to return from a foreign trip, like a tottering dictator called home by the politburo. The country's top policeman and top counter-terrorism cop were forced into resignation. Two government judicial inquiries have been set up. Two commons committees are in continuous session. The police are everywhere. Journalists and MPs are lying on the floor, kicking their legs in the air with glee. Has anyone been murdered? Has anyone been ruined? Is the nation gripped by financial crash or pandemic, earthquake or famine? Are thousands homeless or millions impoverished? A squalid surveillance of the sort long conducted by the tabloid press went beyond what in this business is laughably called good taste and constituted a crime. That everyone knew journalists and the police were engaged in petty barter does not make it acceptable, let alone legal. Nor is it edifying to know how far politicians and editors are in and out of each other's houses. But it is not the fall of the Berlin Wall or the Nuremberg trials. The downtrodden are not marching against their great satan, Rupert Murdoch, "the most evil man in the world" as reported by the BBC Today programme. They are more likely mad at losing their favourite paper. There is a limit to how much significance any event can carry without imploding into daft hysteria. Parliament has known for years of the antics of the tabloids. The much-cited Information Commissioner's Office report of 2006 examined the use by the press (and others) of private investigators, listing names and papers. In the case of the News of the World's subcontractors, when a criminal offence was disclosed and surrounded by lies and evasions, the Guardian's investigation by Nick Davies was wholly appropriate, even before the Milly Dowler intrusion incurred such public outrage. It was right for the editors responsible for the hacking to resign. It was wrong for Cameron to hire Andy Coulson, allegedly at the suggestion of George Osborne. He should have known that all editors of the NoW have a past. Something should also doubtless be done about policemen who sell tips, a longstanding practice. These things are wrong, but in the scheme of national evil not horrendously so. There are some silver linings to these eruptions. The death of Diana maelstrom pulled the royal family out of its introversion. The Iraq war revealed the alarming corruption of intelligence by politics. The NoW affair has dragged those who own newspapers to answer for their custodianship before a parliamentary committee. There is no harm in those who dominate the media being called to account. Nor is the commercial rivalry that has driven this story inherently bad, if acknowledged. It is unsurprising that Murdoch's fiercest critics should also be his fiercest competitors, notably the Guardian and the BBC. The Murdoch-owned Sky is the one rival to get under the skin of the BBC's dominance of the radio, television and online market. The BBC led on the story every day for two weeks, despite the state of Europe's finances, famine spreading across Africa and Cameron's challenge to the welfare state. The BBC had its share of hard knocks from the Murdoch press and clearly could not resist hitting back. The skin of the body politic may need peeling back occasionally and the microbes seen swarming beneath. The revolving door between the media, politics and the police is unedifying if legal. But it surely stands much to the credit of the British media that its activities have been called to account, not by any outside regulator or government but by its own competitive forces. If ever Murdoch was "the all-powerful monopolist who runs Britain", he hardly looked so . The great danger in the present hyping of the phone-hacking scandal lies in what may follow. Rarely has the law of unintended consequences hovered so ominously as over the commons committee room today . Fleet Street should beware of what it now appears to wish – lest it be granted. Already the cock-a-hoop Labour and Liberal Democrat parties, licensed by Murdoch's rivals to bring about his downfall, are calling for statutory curbs on media ownership. The Labour leader, Ed Miliband, wants to break up Murdoch's News International, presumably to stop it owning two daily papers. He might also have to tackle the Lebedev family, which has two titles, and the Daily Mail, which on one definition is now Britain's biggest newspaper group. It is hard to see what real purpose is served in, for instance, taking the Times from Murdoch. Its losses are reputedly so large it might close or be butchered by a new owner. Others have suggested a ban on papers being run for vanity rather than profit, being cross-subsidised or foreign-owned. Any such proposal would more likely see titles close than open. Miliband's forebear, Neil Kinnock, today demanded regulation to enforce "balance" on the press. It is not clear what on earth he has in mind. Newspaper ownership has always been crazy and eccentric, dominated by ego and a yearning for glory. It seldom has to do with profit. If it had, the recent history of British newspapers would have been a miserable one. Murdoch's influence on tabloid journalism has been dire, though he is hardly alone in this. His influence on the media industry in general has been that of a serial innovator – confronting unions, lowering production costs, pay-for-view TV and now paywalls. All newspapers have benefited from this, loathe though they may be to admit it. None of this excuses misleading parliament or hacking phones. These are serious errors. But today's stormcloud of hysteria is a poor prelude to what could emerge from this, not a sensible attempt to redefine journalistic ethics but a cack-handed attempt to restructure an industry. Perhaps instead the vast political and media resources currently on display might be redirected at the dire state of the nation, Europe and the world. They need it.

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Shaving foam on a plate? Rupert Murdoch deserves a better pie – Telegraph Blogs

Quote:

Thank you, Jonnie Marbles. When you tried to splat Rupert Murdoch while he was being questioned by MPs, with one fell (pie-laden) swoop, you provided us food writers with a way in from the wilderness. At last, a culinary angle on the phone hacking saga. Not that I’m glad that Mr Murdoch got pied. Attempting to attack an apparently fragile man in his eighties is indefensible. Even if Old Table Thumper does have a wife whose left hook makes Lucy Liu’s character in Charlie’s Angels look like a nursery nurse. But Mr Marbles, I can’t say I’m not also a little disappointed. Shaving foam on a paper plate? Where was your finesse? Where was your style? Dick and Dom, of Da Bungalow fame, would have no truck with it. The acknowledged pie-meisters of our times, whose creations adorned the faces of teen pop stars like Rachel Stevens, were a) entirely edible and b) proper pies. My favourite victims even licked their lips. That’s what I call entering into the spirit of the stunt. So, listen up Mr. Marbles. A proper face-slapping custard pie, like the kind you eat, needs a contrast of textures. On top there’s the cream, which splurts all over the place in that satisfying way – think Bugsy Malone splatter guns. Squirty cream from a can is the stuff although it is a bugger to clear up afterwards. Maybe Jonnie did spare a thought for the Saville Row suit. But while shaving foam is far less mucky, and won’t pong after a couple of days ingrained in the House of Commons upholstery, is horrid if it gets in your victim’s mouth. And, let’s face it, it’s cheating. After the froth, comes the real substance of the pie. Real pie professionals won’t forget the custard and the pastry. This is what slides so satisfyingly down the face after the cream explosion. It is the adagio following the fanfare, as deliciously slow as the recognition of attack sinks in. So here’s my recipe for pie-splat success. But please – pick on someone your own age. Custard Pie Serves 1 1 8inch/20cm ready made sponge flan base 1 tin of custard 2-3sheets of gelatine soaked in water until rubbery 1 can of squirty cream Heat the custard in a small pan. Drain the gelatine sheets and stir them into the hot custard until dissolved. Pour into the sponge base leave to cool, then put it in the fridge to set. Just before “serving” (think tennis player not chef – an overarm action is best) put the pie on a paper plate and cover with liberal amounts of squirty cream.

"2-3sheets of gelatine soaked in water until rubbery"

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Does British custard really come in tins? No wonder the Empire collapsed.

Australian custard is made this way:

Ingredients (serves 4)
1 cup milk
1 cup thickened cream
1 vanilla bean
4 egg yolks
1 tablespoon cornflour
1/3 cup caster sugar

Method
Combine milk and cream in a small saucepan. Using a sharp knife, split vanilla bean in half lengthways and scrape out seeds. Add bean and seeds to milk mixture. Place over medium heat. Cook, stirring constantly, for 5 minutes or until hot (do not allow to boil). Remove saucepan from heat.

Whisk egg yolks, cornflour and sugar in a heatproof bowl until well combined. Remove vanilla beans from milk mixture. Pour hot milk mixture over egg yolk mixture, whisking constantly.

Return mixture to saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring constantly, for 15 to 20 minutes or until custard thickens and coats the back of a metal spoon (do not allow custard to boil, as it might curdle).

Egg whites may be used to make a crisp merangue, to be placed on top of the custard before adding whipped cream. As such a pie hits the face, the merangue emits a crunch reminiscent of the nasal bone being shattered, without doing physical damage.

Murdoch is Australian by ancestry. It is important to respect his heritage when shoving a pie in his face.