The BBC seems determined to use the Coulson conviction to damage Cameron through association. I watched the BBC news last night and it was interesting to see how often they used images of Coulson and Cameron together as if to imply that Cameron was in some way guilty too. Now of course one could say that Cameron used poor judgement in using Coulson – and he himself has said that – but then again I am sure we all remember Gordon Brown’s nefarious spin doctor Damien McBride. I don’t recall the BBC lighting on the revelations concerning McBride with quite the same GLEE it has on Coulson. The BBC must be gutted Rebekkah Wade was also judged to be INNOCENT. Throughout the court case it has also used her to try and also damage Cameron. Miliband has joined in the attack on Cameron and the BBC is doing what it can to damage the PM.
OPERATION TAR CAMERON
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Come on David, reading this piece anyone would wonder why Cameron apologised if he did nothing wrong.
Obviously he did or he wouldn’t have apologised, not something any politician does lightly, even when they are obviously in the wrong.
The difference between the McBride case, is that he was never even charged with any criminal offences and Brown was unaware of what he had been getting up to. Brown also apologised.
Cameron was fully aware of the serious allegations about Coulson, and when he was challenged about them he made a conscious choice to disregard them and thus started the tragedy.
Here’s the Mails take at the time:
In July 2011 the Mail on Sunday alleged that Cameron had been about to appoint the BBC’s Guto Harri, but was persuaded by Rebekah Wade to appoint Coulson. The paper quoted “an individual intimately involved in Mr Coulson’s recruitment” as saying “Rebekah indicated the job should go to Andy. Cameron was told it should be someone acceptable to News International. The company was also desperate to find something for Andy after he took the rap when the phone hacking first became an issue. The approach was along the lines of, ‘If you find something for Andy we will return the favour’.
So Cameron risked it all simply for political gain. Because he thought that Newscorp would owe him one.
How can you claim Brown knew nothing about what McBride was up to ? Brown was/is the ultimate control freak and bully. He orchestrated every aspect of government and the Labour Party and was almost certainly approving of McBride and his dirty tactics. As for Cameron seeking to ingratiating himself with Murdoc, of course he needed to get the proprietor of the largest and most influential news outlet organization in the country just as Blair and Brown did. Labour and the BBC will jump on anything however lacking in substance to try to discredit Cameron. The public in general are not bothered about this over hyped issue.
We shall see how bothered the general public are when the polls are published on Sunday.
Whether or not you suspect Brown knew about McBride it’s accepted that he did not, unless of course you have actual evidence to the contrary ?
Just because Cameron is a Tory doesn’t make wrong doing an impossibility you know!
“Just because Cameron is a Tory doesn’t make wrong doing an impossibility you know!” …… What a pathetic response !
OK then here’s one of the most die hard Tory supporting newspapers headline today:
Humiliation of Cameron: Questions over PM’s judgement as spin doctor he took to No.10 faces jail for phone hacking while Rebekah Brooks is freed
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2668413/Humiliation-Cameron-Questions-PMs-judgement-spin-doctor-took-No-10-faces-jail-phone-hacking-Rebekah-Brooks-freed.html
The BBC has to report this ! It’s a major story and every single media outlet is covering it. The fact that the BBC is covering it is not evidence of bias!
Cameron screwed up royally on this, and he needs to do more than just apologise.
It’s not the fact that he employed a man with so many questions over his previous actions, it’s that he allowed him into government, with access to any number of government business, and failed to carry out proper security checks !
To screw up by taking someone on and them lying to you is understandable, and excusable, but to do it in the face of so many known accusations is a major issue calling into question the judgement of a man who is in charge of running the country !
Then why has the BBC completely ignored the real story? That ALL the hacking took place in Labour supporting papers, when labour was in power, when the then Met Police chief Blair was blatantly the most political police chief the Met has ever had and was in a very cosy relationship with Blair, Brown, Campbell and Murdoch when all the hacking was actually taking place? Howo come the police kept refusing to investigate the hacking at that time and how come it was Cameron who finally lifted the lid on it all, got the police investigations going, got the Leveson inquiry going and put a stop to the corruption?
strange how the BBC are trying to blame the mess on Cameron.
I can understand the press now going against Cameron, as payback for the outcome of Leveson.
How come the labour party are getting off scott free when all the hacking happened in labour supporting papers when labour was in power?
Ken, you have completely misunderstood the issues in this story!
It is not a story about hacking, although it is a side issue.
If it is as simple as you’re trying to paint it then ask yourself why Cameron apologised.
I’m extremely sorry that I employed him. It was the wrong decision and I am very clear about that,’
‘Knowing what I now know, it was obviously wrong to employ him. I gave someone a second chance and it turned out to be a bad decision.’
That apology cannot be made to fit your view of what has happened.
‘Whether or not you suspect Brown knew about McBride it’s accepted that he did not, unless of course you have actual evidence to the contrary ?’
Errr….accepted by whom, and how are you going to prove a negative?
Cameron apologized because he realized the media would bang on about this even more if he didn’t. Coulson was apparently good at his job and not convicted or even charged with these offences when appointed. (Innocent until proven guilty should apply to Tories too). If Dave sacked everybody who Labour/BBC smeared he would soon run out of eligible people.
Now that Dave has apologized (rightly or wrongly) will Miliband/Twatson do the same for the hurtful stuff they said about the innocent Brookes?
“Whether or not you suspect Brown knew about McBride it’s accepted that he did not……”
Actually it’s accepted that he did.
Cameron is just a sap and apologizes all the time. A true Thatcherite would simply ignore the critics or say they had nothing to apologize for.
If Cameron had any balls, he would have dumped all the corrupt stinking Hacking scandal mess where it belongs. In labour’s lap. It all happened in labour supporting papers when labour was in power.
I don’t agree: Cameron didn’t risk anything because he believed Coulson was not involved.
There were four possible scenarios:
1. Coulson not guilty: Cameron doesn’t apologise.
2. Coulson not guilty: Cameron apologises.
3. Coulson guilty: Cameron doesn’t apologise.
4. Coulson guilty: Cameron apologises.
When you consider that in the UK people are meant to be innocent until proven/found guilty then only number 3 is a story worthy of any coverage.
Cameron is one of the most spineless politicians ever to set foot in Downing Street. His useless advisers probably told him it would look good to the voters if he pre-emptively threw Coulson under the bus before the jury’s verdicts on the outstanding offences were delivered. It’s obvious he’s never hard of the old advice “Never apologise, never explain.” The daft twat has nothing to apologise for. He employed Coulson before any arrests in the “Hacking Saga” were made, even before Murdoch stopped supporting Labour, which of course resurrected the whole hacking bore-athon in revenge.
That Cameron’s advisers and spin doctors, which includes hopeless ex-Beeboid Craig Oliver, seem incapable of reminding the media that the alleged hacking offences were committed under a Labour government, not only tolerated by them but were seemingly involved with their Met puppets in sweeping the whole thing under the carpet. They should also remind the media that Ed Miliband employs an ex-Murdoch hack Tom Baldwin, a good friend of Alistair Campbell, who between them conspired to out David Kelly which led to his mysterious death (note I don’t say suicide). It has also been publicly alleged that Baldwin regularly consumed Class A drugs – an allegation he has never publicly denied.
Instead Cameron supinely “apologises” for employing Coulson, almost committing contempt of court while a trial is still in progress. Ed Miliband, however, DID commit contempt of court by publicly calling Coulson a criminal.
Cameron is neither a fighter nor a winner in my eyes, probably because he has no ideological convictions or values, and he deserves all the crap that is thrown at him.
BBC, Helen Boaden.
(2013.)
“BBC News boss who presided over Jimmy Savile Newsnight scandal to head up corporation’s radio network”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2278530/BBC-News-boss-presided-Jimmy-Savile-Newsnight-scandal-head-corporations-radio-network–Labour-minister-lands-295-000-year-strategy-role.html#ixzz35dMJG3KF
Miliband was stopped from continuing his attack on Cameron until Coulson had been convicted. Of course, the bBC then is piling in as a headline story.
I was taking a relook at what McBride has been upto. I was curious that no criminal charge had been leveled at him. I understand he was a civil servant at the tiome and what he was conspiring to do was quite serious. But then I have had doubts about the neutrality of the CPS, and of course the bBC can always be counted on to take up a cause fighting for fairness and justice.
I thought that the Miliband attack on Cameron was very ill judged. “Cameron brought a criminal into the heart of government”
How many labour MPs were sent to prison?
Blair was best buddies with Murdoch et al, and no doubt Campbell was using information sourced from hacking in his ruthless media spin operation at the time.
The fact is, labour is much closer to the corruption of these hacking crimes than Cameron ever was, as it was labour in power, with the colusion of the new labour supporting met commissioner and Murdoch in labour’s pocket throughout the whole time that this hacking was happening. Though the BBC are doing all they can to present the opposite impression.
Agree, Labour brought the two biggest criminals ever in the the heart of No10, Blair and Brown. The crime being the destruction of the U.K. No apology will ever suffice that compensates for their actions.
Agree also but I would add that at the time that Coulson was formally employed he was not a criminal.
It may be semantics, as it could be argued I suppose that by that point he had committed the acts that were ultimately to lead to him being convicted, but at the time no-one knew that and he was not actually a convict.
Hindsight and all that, but to say that he had brought a convict into the heart of government is not actually true.
Well Cameron must have been the most powerful, back-bench opposition MP in history, considering that is all he was when all the hacking took place in labour supporting papers, under a labour government when Murdock, Campbell and Blair were all best buddies.
Shows how biased the BBC is that it is Cameron who took the action to clean up all that labour corruption, where the labour leadership, the press and the met police were all in collusion to actively cover up such criminal behaviour, yet if you take your news from the BBC, you could be forgiven for believing that the whole hacking scandal was Cameron’s fault.
It’s amazing isn’t it, that Piers Morgan has never had his collar felt?
Is that I wonder, anything to do with the Mirror’s political allegiances? Also, wasn’t it a little strange that the Met investigated, got a single scalp, and then left the thing alone until the Sun came out for Cameron in the 2010 election, and then suddenly it’s the biggest and most expensive case they ever pursued.
Just a thought….I wonder if the BBC will have noticed any of these small coincidences?
I remain hopeful that it is only a matter of time till the police feel Morgan’s collar.
Ask Piers how many Viglen shares he has left.
I cannot believe that Alastair Campbell is cleaner than clean, but I cannot expect the BBC to investigate.
Campbell might yet have to account for his actions in the preparation of the ‘dodgy dossier’ and the death of Dr David Kelly, which he later resigned over.
He went to war with the BBC over the Iraq war and BBC journo Andrew Gilligan & Susan Watts.
Gilligan would appear to be that rare beast, a Tory sympathiser working for the BBC, no wonder they forced him to resign !
I think Gilligan is simply a diligent investigative journalist, which is of course why there was no place for him at the BBC.
To be fair to the BBC Cameron has no one to blame but himself – he was warned by his own advisors to steer well clear of Coulson.
What the BBC don’t seem to be talking too much about is the fact that the one thing that really angered the public was the Milly Dowler deleted messages story which has turned out to be a fabrication of its beloved sister organisation The Guardian.
A fabrication brought into conversation between Nick Robinson and Jeremy Vine on live Radio yesterday as they discussed how really really bad this was for Cameron, unbelievable.
It is unbelievable that Robinson would not know that the Guardian had admiytted it had embellished the story.
It is unbelievable that Brookes didn’t know what was going on when she was editor – but there you go!
That has been fully reviewed by a jury of her peers. It is called “justice’ . It all cost us many millions of pounds – but it is settled. Not even the BBC dare challenge the jury’s verdict.
But the likes of Robinson can continue to lie about the Dowler matter. And through all this, the phone-hacking by non-Murdoch media goes largely unreported.
This always was about the BBC versus Murdoch. Unfortunately, Cameron’s bone-headed decision to employ Coulson led in the end to his backing of Leveson and gross interference with our press freedom.
Oh they know all right. After all that story was broken on the day Milly’s murderer was convicted. Not as a , ‘look it gets worse’ story but as a political tactic to end the chance of NI owning more of BSkyB. That’s all. They didn’t give a fuck about whether or not the story was true and were quite prepared to use a dead teenage girl to further their own ends. Utterly despicable.
That the BBC keeps repeating this lie is yet again evidence of their corruption and culpability in this story. They want people to associate hacking with NI and the Tories, despite it been at its worst under Labour. They want people to believe that the Police were Tory shock troops doing their bidding whilst NI bribed them for stories. This, despite the fact that the man in charge of the Met was a Labour plant, Labour were in Government and could have stopped this in a instance and all whilst Blair was fucking Murdoch’s wife.
Labour are in this mire up to their noses and yet the BBC attacks Cameron. And what did Dopey Dave do? He hired someone under pressure for a political ally against the will of his advisors. He took and ‘believed’ personal assurances from Coulson that he was not implicated in a tawdry affair that anyone with half a brain could protect themselves from – NB the phones were not ‘hacked’ the PIs simply rang up the voice mail and input the default code – to protect yourself all you need do is entire a four-digit code – simple and difficult to break without alerting the phone company.
No, Cameron took a gamble and lost but Labour smeared themselves in shit. All you need is a nose to smell it.
An apology from Cameron means he must have had solid evidence that Coulson had done wrong before recruiting him at No.10.
Not apologising would have been the correct thing in an ideal world. “Suspicions” can never trump “Due Process.”
But we live in an idiotic world where apologising is good PR and minimises the ammo the opposition can have.
If he had suspicions that should have been enough to keep Coulson away with a very long and shitty stick. Cameron did this out of real politics – a deal with the devil – but one he needed to make.
He was caught out and had to apologise for a ‘lapse in judgement’.
Cameron is not a fool, despite appearances to the contrary. If he had a killer instinct he’d turn this around on Labour but he still needs NI in his corner as the second largest media group in the UK, given the largest is dead set against him.
It would be a little difficult for Cameron not to apologise after he promised that he would do so if the allegations against Coulson were proven.
He should never have got himself into this situation and it’s his own fault that he is.
Now they’re trying to blame him for having apologised!
“The judge in the phone hacking trial considered halting proceedings following David Cameron’s comments on the conviction of Andy Coulson.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28014035
Yes, it was all Cameron’s fault, I mean nobody else mentioned it did they….
Far be it from me to criticise a learned judge, but A Lawyer is going to have to come on and explain to me how the Prime Minister responding to a verdict, given in open court, is any different to the BBC reporting it in the first place.
The difference is that the media reporting it (not just the BBC) are reporting the facts. What the Prime Minister is being criticised for is making a statement when the verdict on other charges are not returned.
This had the possibility of influencing the jury and the outcome of the case, and the defence brought this very thing up in the case.
You should note that Ken Clarke a practicing barrister agrees with the judge.
But the statement was based on the verdict, was it not? I’m not aware the other charges were mentioned, so I don’t see how the jury would be influenced any more than they would be by the fact they already consider him guilty of one charge.
That’s not to deny what practising lawyers, who are not as thick as I am, have said, just to note that sometimes they can get so twisted with their own logic that their heads wind up their own backsides.
I think if you’re going to blame anyone it’s the capricious Judge as he complains that the comments were ill judged, but then dismisses an application that they did affect the fairness of the trial.
Saying that they might have been is (IMHO) not good enough.
The jury failed to reach a verdict on the other charges.
It may help, and save time, to recall that Thoughtful is not a D. Cameron fan (disclosure: neither am I, but all things are sadly relative in the politics of the least awful), to the extent that the BBC-focus can often be relegated to a footnote, if at all. You’ll be in a last word slugfest to match any with An Agent S.
As with Wikipedia, and the BBC, when it comes to practising lawyers, lessons of history have often shown what they practice need not always be perfect.
Especially if more than conflict-interested and under the gun of the person being ‘commented’ upon.
Which may or may not have guided the BBC’s invitation to him more.
YOu telling me that the BBC and Labour have NOT been prejudging the character and guilt of Coulson or Brooks are you?
Listen to Harman last night-Prescott and Montague this morning…then work backwards to 2011…THEN give me the nuances and forked tongue!
The BBC and Labour need a “!rebuke” from the judge far more than Cameron-pillock though he is he has at least been silent on the case since 2011…as opposed to the BBC and Labour.
Ken Clarke is the BBCs idea of a lawyer, only when his opinions tally with theirs
FWIW the risible Classic FM ‘news’ was the same, notable for what was very much left out (tx, to #88, below, for a raft of context and fact our dear MSM quietly ‘forgot’).
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/5045/hackgate_deluded_msm_loves_a_story_about_itself
I had to chuckle at this comment from the one on station there ready to pounce the minute its posted (not the only familiar aspect):
Sparky
If the MSM is so toothless and irrelevant, why do Commentator writers obsess about the Guardian and the BBC?
Of course, these two bastions of dignity (one publicly-funded) do not obsess about other publications at all, Daily Mail & NI readers will be relieved to learn.
Nor do their passionate defenders trawl sites swerving round the irony of each attempted dismissive word they write like a Labour peer in a Jag.
I think Journalists should be allowed to hack the phones of politicians, but the law should only allow them to put the findings in a newspaper if they find wrongdoing or lies by the politicians.
Its morally much better than the BBC journalism of censorship by left-wing journalists and green activists pretending to be the best scientific experts, to try and manipulate politicians and the public by fobbing off and misrepresenting the scientists.
Good point Richard. It may be illegal to hack a mobile but it is still incredibly easy to do if you know that number/handset and location (all conveniently built into modern handsets). Thanks to Snowden ‘expose’ of a UK and USA secret surveillance operations – we do now know that the ‘State’ does snoop on its own citizens and emails. The UK Leveson enquiry did NOT investigate the Police, Mi5 security services at all (that’s still legal)- just the free PRESS or what is left of the free press who are brave enough to expose a corrupt politician(s) in sourcing a story. Facebook and Twitter (along with Mobiles or emails) are of similar security risk that the BBC often uses to plug a story found on ‘facebook’ or Twitter’.
Just catching up with things on the BBC News Chanel at 2:00pm. and watched the most appalling one-sided report from Carol Walker. One of the most partial that I can ever remember.
Seemingly desperate to make up for Miliband’s failure in the House today (one that left the opposition benches in despair), Walker opened up a new front regarding the comments made by Cameron yesterday and the Judges criticism. Doing Miliband’s work for him and implying poor judgement Walker was careful to report in detail the Judge’s displeasure and disagreement… she even enlisted the help of Ken Clarke to add weight to the story.
But how Walker could file a report without even mentioning that Cameron had received advice on what to say from the country’s chief law officer, the Attorney General is beyond me.
And how could she file a report without mentioning that the Judge had said he was ‘not singling out the PM but other politicians also’, or that Miliband was even more prejudicial in his comments about Coulson yesterday and again today in the Commons when he breached privilege and the instructions of the Speaker by wildly made further accusations against Coulson.
Did Walker and the BBC seek a statement from Miliband on his contempt of court? Did they challenge HIM on what advice he took?
No.
The BBC, which has a dog in this fight, prove once again that they cannot be trusted to deliver the news impartially, fully, honestly and with balance.
The BBC are a dishonest, corrupt organisation without a shred of integrity.
If that’s what Walker and the BBC considers journalism, she should hang her head in shame
Had Cameron NOT said something yesterday about Coulson, the BBC and Labour would have called him weak or in denial.
So he says things-and the BBC/Labour Axis of Weevils then condemn him for saying them without the clearance of the judge.
Will the BBC and its Labour goons be similarly criticised for “prejudging Coulson”…Cameron has only just opened his mouth about it all, whereas Labour and the BBC have been “prejudging” Coulson and Brooks now for three years.
And the BBC/Labour machine thinks itself able to comment on what the judge says, as if they themselves have stayed schtum.
F8888in hypocrites-but this fart in the jacuzzi of the political class means nothing to anybody but themselves.
Meanwhile five Muslims nearly kill an American tourist for drinking a beer, and Junckers coronation continues-and f*** the plebs who voted for the exact opposite!
Yes folks-Coulson and Cameron keeps the REAL news off the BBC…thank God for the web…time to offer the Beebs neck to Allahs little helpers.
Two sides (not that the BBC really should be taking any) of a coin, or two wrongs not even being discussed, just the one that suits?:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-28014035
Except:
http://order-order.com/2014/06/25/lobby-snorts-at-labour-lawbreaker-line/
‘I know the answer to why Coulson was not given top level security vetting in 2010….if anyone is going to be embarrassed by the failure to vet Coulson, and Labour’s investigation into this, it will be Britain’s top civil servant’
Let’s see how much that one tops the headlines.
Meanwhile, speaking of which…
http://order-order.com/2014/06/25/lobby-snorts-at-labour-lawbreaker-line/
Oh, for an edit function… call it repetition for effect.
BBC have had the ‘judge rebukes Cameron for making ill-judged comments’ as their lead story all day. What I don’t understand is if the case was still sub judice, why were the media allowed to report on it and voice their own opinions? Why was it debated at PMQs today? Miliband talked about it – why was he ‘rebuked’? Seems like someone’s trying to make political capital out of this.
…”lead story all day ” – the BBC will be milking this for another week or more.
In all the stuff since the verdicts yesterday, I have not heard anything on the BBC about Rebekah Brooks who was a prime target for the BBC. A self-made woman – surely commendable to the BBC feminazi crowd ?
Some fascinating comments. Just one question though.
Who the hell is ‘Rebekkah Wade’?
‘Just one question though’
Wild guess…. as with the BBC, this is a one way street to simply more ‘questions’?