Blair at Leveson - "hitherto uncharted realms of madness"!

Stephen Glover in the Daily Mail covers the inadequacies of the questioning of the unspeakable Tony Blair at Leveson yesterday, linked from here. It concludes as follows:

Put Dr David Kelly’s terrible death to one side. The spinning, the media manipulation and occasionally the downright mendacity of his administration eventually inflicted unprecedented damage to the trust between the media and the political class and in the process corrupted public discourse.

So it was with some disbelief, and a very heavy heart, that I heard Lord Justice Leveson at the end of the proceedings invite an eager Tony Blair to come back with his best ideas for the proper regulation of the Press.

How he must have blessed the innocent judge! The thought of Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell determining how newspapers should behave takes us into hitherto uncharted realms of madness.

Beyond that the day was otherwise memorable for the interruption by a protester, who was at least able to express some of the angst many in the country must feel at the horrendous damage Blair and his immediate successor inflicted upon Britain. At least the results are now clearly written upon the former man's features I noted!

Only hope is now the Liberal Democrats!

This post was first published on "Orphans of Liberty" yesterday, under the title "A telling moment of truth for Lord Paddy Ashdown," it is repeated here today, because of what its author considers is its relative importance for the restoration of some standards in public life in Britain!

   In the fraught days of two years ago, when the general election delivered a hung parliament to Britain, the crucial role played by former Liberal Democrat Party Leader, Lord Paddy Ashdown, became evident through his frquent media appearences and statements. An even more critical turning point now presents itself to this senior party grandée, and self-appointed representative of decency within Britain's system of governance.

   To understand why this blogger believes that such is the case it would be helpful to reflect on a cermony that took place at Pointe de Grave in France just over one year ago on 31st March 2011, when a memorial was unveiled in honour of a WWII commando raid, at which Lord Ashdown undertook to represent our country, read here. Only two of the commandoes survived, many of their comrades were shot, upon the direct orders of Hitler, but with the connivance, processing, transportation and full reponsibility of the supposedly once honourable German armed forces. Ordinary combatants they were, shot in cold blood for pursuing the very hostilities that the German Army had itself instigated and was in the process of perpetrating while occupying the sovereign soil of France by armed brute force. Paddy Ashdown has thus accepted a leading role in representing the moral beliefs of our nation, beliefs that have rarely been so comprehensively challenged as they were in the five hours of evidence provided by Rebekah Brooks at the Leveson Inquiry yesterday.

   Every Prime Minister since Thatcher, and it would appear almost the entire cabinet members of all administrations since Tony Blair, seem to be potentially implicated in this seeming subversion. The Liberal Democrats have so far emerged largely unscathed from the sordid details of political power plays and manipulations of our main party politicians by the tawdry journals that are/were The Sun and the News of the World and those who controlled them. We have yet to even arrive at the part played by Trevor Kavanagh - clearly Coulson and Brooks were but cockily conceited mere pawns in this dark game. Nick Clegg, as was warned on my blog Ironies Too several times, made himself a party to this scandal by accepting Coulson as the Coalition's press spokesman.

   There are of course others in the Liberal Democrat hierarchy to be looked to, along with Ashdown, to now do the right thing, namely withdraw their support from the coalition with the Conservative Party and possibly in the process of the probable resulting general election, regain an opportunity of re-establishing some credentials for decency, as extolled by Lord Ashdown and exemplified by all the marine commandos involved in Operation Frankton, not least the fortitude in the escape as shown by Hessler and Sparks, which seems hardly comprehensible to those of us so pampered to live in 2012, not seventy years earlier!

   Other Liberal Democrats whom might also be scrupulousy examing their consciences this weekend among senior Lib/Dem figures are (in no particular order) Simon Hughes, Charles Kennedy, David Laws, Menzies Campbell, David Owen and David Steel

Leveson nails the pure evil that Rebekah Brooks represents.

Lord Justice Leveson, as his inquiry into the role of the media in Britain steadily unfolds, is coming across to me as being the kind of upstanding public servant our nation once typified whom I believed had almost entirely disappeared, thus contributing to the descent of our society into almost complete decadence.

Rebekah Brooks, after several hours of grilling, all of which I watched, elusively epitomised the evil she so clearly represents and the total inability of her type to even begin to comprehend that anything she does or believes could possibly be wrong. Yesterday was an important landmark for the future course of our country, on which I will be blogging on the Orphans of Liberty blog, later to be repeated on this blog, sometime over the course of this weekend.

The section of the session that best reflected this mutual miscomprehension is best illustrated in my mind towards the end of the day , over a phrase used by The Sun over the illness of the son of ex-PM Brown, (when Brooks was not Sun editor but CEO) towards the end of the session regarding the statement that "The Sun" had been "smeared" by Brown (rather than being simply inaccurate in his assumptions) was indicative of the bullying philosophy behind the newspaper, whereby politicians, being dependent upon public opinion, were kept in line. (Interestingly the rolling Guardian blog on the proceedings does not include these exchanges between Leveson and Brooks, so I am unable to presently provide a link, but will do so when I can find one.)

The Liberal Democrats seemed mainly exempt from yesterday's revelations which IMO now must make their party particularly responsible for the future course of the country.

George Osborne discussed BSkyB bid with Brooks

Well Cameron was holed before lunch, as I blogged earlier, but this afternoon it appears both George Osborne and Jeremy Hunt have many, many questions now to answer, watch the news reports!! Not least Osborne's reaction to an Ofcom matter over a dinner party for just three couples including Brooks, and for Hunt his Department's position on asking advice from the Murdoch empire on the phone tapping inquiry matter.

It appears senior members of the Conservative Party are now completely adrift in a minefield with perhaps only Dominic Grieve emerging unscathed. One other fascinating query was raised, how much under Brooks's  thumb was the Shadow Chancellor Ed Balls over the Baby P, Haringey sacking matter, or was that merely thrown up for mid-afternoon political balance by the inquiries accomplished questioner??

Cameron's undisclosed meetings with Murdoch

The following is from Hansard in the Commons this afternoon, linked here.

Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab):

On a point of order, Mr Speaker. Last July the Prime Minister—I tried to warn him that I would raise this point of order; obviously he has now left the Chamber—published a list of all the meetings he had had with proprietors, editors and senior media executives between May 2010 and July 2011. It details only one meeting with Rupert Murdoch between May and July 2011. However, this afternoon Rupert Murdoch—this has been published by the Leveson inquiry—made it clear that there were meetings with the Prime Minister on 18 May, 25 May, 21 July, another on 21 July, and 22 July. My point of order is to ask you whether something that is laid in the Library of the House is just as much a matter of privilege as something that is said. In other words, if someone has tabled something in the Library that has misled the House, is that just as serious a matter as something said in the Chamber?

Mr Speaker:

All Members, including the Prime Minister, are responsible for the accuracy of what they say to the House, and my implicit assumption is that that includes material lodged with the House. I am happy to take further advice on that, but there is an encouraging nod from the Clerk of the House from a sedentary position, and that provides me with succour. Beyond that, I simply say that Members should be careful what they say if—I emphasise if—they are not asking a question, but making an accusation. I say that simply for the general knowledge and enrichment of the House. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his point of order.

How Britain has been bought!

Today when Rupert Murdoch appears unde oath at the Leveson Inquiry the country shouls learn many facts as to how the absolute dregs of humanity that have been running our politics and civil service during recent decades have been bought and controlled.

At the end of the day we must hope that reform will at last begin to be seen to be possible, not least because it is essential. The necessary start will come from the electorate, whom beginning with the local elections on 3rd May, must boycott the three main poltical parties who have instituted or facilitated and certainly profited from the widespread corruption which has eaten away the fabric ot our society!.