Sluff

April 17, 2016 at 6:53 pm (Edit)

How right you are Sluff.

Hacked Off’s campaign against the Press is ongoing.  There is a shedload of shady claims and half truths and outright lies from many proponents of tougher Press regulation and in the wake of Whittingdales’s fall from grace there has been a frantic scurrying to position themselves as the moral champions of those abused by the Press and to then defend themselves from the fallout as the conspiracy theories start to roll and the truth starts to emerge about motivations and agendas of those making the most noise.  Qui Bono.

The BBC knew all along about the Whittingdale story, one of the world’s biggest and best resourced news gatherers had no inkling of a story that was racing around the internet and actually appeared in a book by an infamous ‘friend’ of George Osborne?…and the BBC claims it knew nothing?  Not a chance in hell that the infamous friend of George Osborne didn’t contact both the BBC and the Guardian.

Did the knowledge that the Press knew of his romance effect Whittingdale’s resolve to regulate the Press?  He was always sceptical about imposing heavy regulation but in 2015 made clear his wish to have a tough and independent regulator free of Press and political interference.  Guess the Press ‘conspiracy’ had no effect…unless it was the BBC’s own pressure on him to over-regulate…they knew but didn’t publish, why not?

What follows is a long look at some aspects of this starting with the Moral Crusaders’ defence of themselves.

OK, let’s do that.

Here’s the Hacked Off/Byline sniffer hound let off the leash…chasing wild goose stories, herding cats, getting his ducks in a line….a picture perfect visual representation of Tim Fenton’s methodology…..

Hacked Off and Byline are counter-attacking and have set their terrier sized attack dog, Tim Fenton, onto Whittingdale and the press…..

Written by Byline’s Tim Fenton it goes ‘forensically’ through the Gilligan article dismissing each claim he makes with well aimed and intellectually coherent barbs…not.

Fenton of course has close ties to both organisations though he only hints at the relationship….

Zelo Street has asked both organisations to comment, and has been given feedback from senior and reliable sources at both.

And he obviously has insider knowledge of what is going on inside the bunker…..

[ Gilligan said Byline] later admitted that Ms King’s supposed connections to the underworld were ‘rumours’ which ‘remain as yet unsubstantiated’”. No such admission has been made, and there will be further revelations.

So just how does Fenton know there will be ‘further revelations’?

Let’s just have a quick look at some of Fenton’s quibbles…..and see if they stack up to a hill of mightavbeens…

He starts well with this bit of philosophy…

Articles that have to emblazon “Truth” at their head are often nothing but.

…but immediately falls down when faced with tackling actual facts claiming…

Those campaigners [who revealed the ‘scandal’] cannot be Hacked Off, because they did not reveal the story. That was done by reporters.

Well…actually done by ex-dominatrix Natalie Rowe…but why quibble eh?

Next..

[Story] rejected by four newspapers as an intrusion of privacy”. Wrong. No reason was given. This is conjecture.

Hmmm…but they all say they didn’t publish as it would have been an invasion of privacy.

And there’s more..

Hacked Off did not claim that the Whittingdale story had been held back in order to threaten him.

I’m sorry, what?  That’s the whole point of their ‘issue’ with this…that Whittingdale was open to pressure from the Press who had him over a barrell…as did his mistress…sorry, couldn’t resist…..Hacked Off’s Evan Harris Claims Press Withheld John Whittingdale Sex Worker Story In Order To ‘Influence’ Culture Secretary

And this…

There is no editorial intervention or prior restraint – this includes the first Whittingdale article by Nick Mutch, which was published solely on his initiative.

Mutch is onboard with Byline which says….Byline can reveal a year long relationship between a senior figure in David Cameron’s government and a dominatrix which potentially jeopardized government security and left ministers open to blackmail….Many have known about the scandal for years: we’ve known about this scandal for six months. We hoped the media would clean up its act. But for over a week we were alone breaking this story. It was a scary place to be.

Doesn’t sound like Byline itself had no part in the decision to publish….they clearly must have cast an eye over it and approved it after holding on to it for 6 months.

Here Fenton tries to dash something he has misread..

“Mr Mosley … has given large sums to Impress, the body seeking to become a state-backed regulator of the press”. Wrong. The Alexander Mosley Charitable Trust has given money to another charitable trust. And IMPRESS is not a state-backed regulator.

Gilligan didn’t say Impress was a state backed regulator…he said they were ‘seeking to become’.

Tim continues to argue his case….

“The site shares a number of journalists, including Mr Jukes, with Exaro, the ‘investigative website’”. Wrong. Byline does not employ journalists, and nor, as far as is known, does Exaro, so no sharing takes place.

Gilligan didn’t say Byline employed journalists just that it shares them with Exaro….ie both sites have the same journos on board….for example Byline’s manager...one Peter Jukes….and the Guardian’s/Byline’s David Hencke.

A last one…there’s so many more…

“In fact, Hacked Off issued a press release on 10 April, two days before the Newsnight story, headed ‘Whittingdale and the story no paper will publish,’ referring readers to Byline.com and claiming Mr Whittingdale ‘was potentially exposed to improper pressure from newspaper companies’”. It wasn’t a press release, but a blog post. It merely noted James Cusick’s Byline article, and scrupulously avoided repeating personal details.

Not sure how you can’t call this a press release from Hacked Off…

Whittingdale and the story no paper will publish: Vital questions must be answered

Paradoxically Hacked Off claims…..

Hacked Off do not tell newspapers what to write about. 

Oh, and what about this…….

Hacked Off founder says press had ‘obligation’ to write about John Whittingdale’s private life

Cusick was once a BBC reporter and posted on this site on the 10th of April, 2 days before the Newsnight story..

Any thoughts where his loyalty might lie?  Wonder why he as made the association between the future of the Beeb and this revelation?

Enough of the zealot of Zelo Street.

Let’s look at the meat of Hacked Off’s claims…that Whittingdale changed his tune about Press regulation after he found out they knew about him, that section 2 of Leveson MUST be implemented and is being delayed by a government in hock to the Press, and that section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act must be activated.

First though…Hacked Off always claims that there are double locks on any ‘statutory regulation’…that a 2/3rds majority in Palriament must be found before changes can be made to laws that set up the body that regulates the Press regulator/s…the Press Recognition Panel which is set up as follows….

Under a royal charter, press regulators can apply to an independent body, the Press Recognition Panel, for the status of a recognised regulator. Once one regulator is approved, newspapers that are not members of such a body could be liable to pay both sides’ legal costs in libel, privacy and harassment claims — even where they emerge victorious in court. However, that provision in the Crime and Courts Act has yet to be brought into force.

However what Hacked Off claims is not true…what the legislation actually says is that it is 2/3rds of those who vote not 2/3rds of all members of Parliament…12 people turn up to vote…only 8 needed to change the legisaltion so that politicians can interfere in Press regulation…..

For the purpose of this Article, “approved” means that at least two-thirds of the member s of the House in question or the Scottish Parliament who vote on the motion do so in support of it.

One other point….The campaigners say that it was Whittingdale who stopped further progress on Press regulation, denying that Sajid Javid did the deed…The Financial Times disagrees…

Mr Whittingdale’s in-tray will also feature the potential implementation of the Leveson report on press regulation. His predecessor, Sajid Javid, ruled out a further role for the government, following the creation of a self-regulator, the Independent Press Standards Organisation. But one person involved in past negotiations said Mr Whittingdale would “want something to be done”, if Ipso proved inadequate.

Then again at one time, before the revelations about Whittingdale were published by Byline Hacked Off said they knew where the blame really lay…..

What happened when the report was published?

Although the judge called for an open and transparent process of implementation, the politicians immediately took the whole matter behind closed doors. And David Cameron, who had never previously revealed such a scruple, announced that he was reluctant to legislate in any way in relation to the press, even though the Leveson recommendations carefully protected free speech.

If  Whittingdale was so much under the secret control of the Press and has backed off them, how is it that he said this in October 2015….

Monday 19 October 2015 11.04 BST

John Whittingdale: press must sign up to tough and independent regulator

John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, has urged the press to sign up to a tough and independent regulator, adding that the jury was still out on whether the current system was good enough.

What did Leveson say about Press regulation?.….That it should be ‘self-regulation’……

What is needed therefore is a genuinely independent and effective system of self-regulation of standards, with obligations to the public interest. At the very start of the Inquiry and throughout I have encouraged the industry to work together to find a mechanism for independent self-regulation that would work for them and would work for the public…“regulation that is itself, genuinely, free and independent both of the industry it regulates and of political control”. Any model with editors on the main Board is simply not independent of the industry to anything approaching the degree required to warrant public confidence.

The Chair and the other members of the body must be independent and appointed by a fair and open process. It must comprise a majority of members who are independent of the press. It should not include any serving editor or politician. That can be readily achieved by an appointments panel which could itself include a current editor but with a substantial majority demonstrably independent of the press and of politicians.

So much misleading speculation and misinformation has been spread about the prospect of new legislation that I need to make a few things very clear. I am proposing it only for the narrow purpose of recognising a new independent self-regulatory system. It is important to be clear what this legislation would not do; it would not establish a body to regulate the press; that is for the press itself to do.

Hacked Off and Labour make a lot of noise about Part 2 of Leveson insisting that it is a government plot that is stopping it being implemented…..

Help make sure Leveson Part 2 takes place

Leveson Inquiry: Labour demands part two goes ahead

This is what Whittingdale said recently giving his reasons for maybe not going ahead with part 2...has he been ‘got at’ or is this just a sensible approach to the issue rather than an ideological witch-hunt that Labour and Hacked Off want?……

“It was always said that we needed to get to the end of all the criminal proceedings. They’re not there yet. The end could be in sight, in that the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to investigate some of the cases, but there are still some investigations going on.

“The question about whether there should be a further inquiry is something we will need to examine, particularly in light of the findings of the courts. There have been some convictions but then there have been a lot of people who have been acquitted and have not therefore been involved.

“I am very conscious that there was that undertaking, but we need to look at it in the light of what’s happened since and that is essentially what the courts have told us.”

Leveson himself didn’t really think Part 2 was necessary as it would be too expensive and involved, not only that he believed the police were straight and honest but had made mistakes rather than there being a deep-rooted problem of corruption….

Here is an analysis from 2012 saying that Part 2 would probably never be implemented….Whittingdale was keen for it to go ahead but realised it wouldn’t….

All of this seems to suggest that the second part of the Leveson Inquiry  will not take place. It seems to have escaped the attention of most but when the Prime Minister announced the official inquiry into phone hacking in July 2011 it was to have been in two parts. The report on the first part into the culture, practices and ethics of the press appeared in November 2012 and has, of course, been the subject of much debate and controversy ever since. The second part, if it happens, will consider the extent of unlawful or improper conduct within News International and other media organisations. It will also ‘examine the way in which any relevant police force investigated allegations relating to News International, and whether the police received corrupt payments or were otherwise complicit in misconduct’. However, the key factor hindering the progress of this investigation is the stipulation that, ‘part 2 of the Inquiry cannot commence until the current police investigations and any subsequent criminal proceedings have been completed.’

Indeed, in May 2012  Lord Leveson himself suggested that part 2 may never happen and predicted, accurately as it turns out, that ‘If there are [prosecutions for phone-hacking] it is likely that the process of pre-trial disclosure and trial will be lengthy so that Part 2 of this Inquiry will be delayed for very many months if not longer.’ He continued, ‘that inquiry will involve yet more enormous cost (both to the public purse and the participants); it will trawl over material then more years out of date and is likely to take longer than the present Inquiry which has not over focussed on individual conduct.’

This view disappointed John Whittingdale, the Tory MP who chaired the Commons culture, media and sport select committee inquiry into hacking at the News of the World..but in November 2012 Whittingdale said, ‘my real regret – one of the key things I wanted Lord Justice Leveson to look into – was how it was that the News of the World newsroom appeared to allow this to go on… but also how the police sat around for four years and did nothing. Those are two things which Lord Justice Leveson may never examine. Part two of the inquiry, I hear, may not ever be occurring. Therefore, it seems very strange that actually the most important questions surrounding the hacking scandal may never be properly looked into.’

The BBC reports as to why the Part 2 is slow to be implemented….

In a statement, a Downing Street spokesman said: “The government has been clear that a decision on whether to undertake part two of the Leveson Inquiry will not take place until after all criminal investigations and trials related to part one are concluded. They are still ongoing.”

The Telegraph reports Leveson’s own concerns about Part 2…the cost and time involved….

Lord Justice Leveson: Part 2 of my Inquiry into phone hacking may not be necessary

A second part, specifically looking into phone hacking, is due to follow at some point in the future, but the Inquiry chairman suggested it may never happen, inviting participants to consider “the value to be gained” from it

“That inquiry will involve yet more enormous cost (both to the public purse and the participants); it will trawl over material then more years out of date and is likely to take longer than the present Inquiry which has not over focussed on individual conduct.”

He said it was “undeniably a sensible strategic consideration for those who have participated in this Inquiry”.

The Times in December 2015 also reports on those reasons for delay….

There will be no investigation into police corruption in the wake of the phone hacking scandal after the government quietly decided to shelve the second part of the Leveson inquiry.

Senior government and judicial sources told The Times that the second part of the inquiry into press and police corruption would never see the light of day amid limited political appetite for another lengthy and expensive judicial inquiry into Fleet Street

So the government has legitimate reasons to explain the delay…ongoing court cases, the cost and time involved and the likely lack of any real benefit resulting from the inquiry.

What about Hacked Off’s other demand, that section 40 be implemented?  What does section 40 do?   It is supposed to impose punishing court costs on any publisher who has not signed up to the approved press regulator even if they win any case that is brought against them…..

If a publisher does not subscribe to the new self-regulator and, as a result, does not offer free arbitration to claimants, then the courts could deprive the publisher of its costs in any reasonably arguable legal claim against it, even if the publisher is successful in that litigation.

Hacked Off says:

A key element of those proposals was contained in section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. This was supported by the then chairman of the Commons Media Select Committee, John Whittingdale. So was the decision to proceed with the second part of the Leveson Inquiry once criminal trials had concluded.  Since being made Culture Secretary, Mr Whittingdale has reversed his position on both these issues and intervened in the agreed arrangements.

Whether the possession of this damaging information on the Culture Secretary by the press could potentially have been a factor in his otherwise unexplained choice to intervene on press regulation and to go back on agreed Government policy

Hacked Off might think that was a ‘key element’, most people would think it entirely unjust and unnecessary regime that sets out to punish rather than create a fair system. ..

Maria Miller: My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and I underline the fact that this would be the toughest press regulation that this country had ever seen. There would be a £1 million fine if someone is not a member of the self-regulatory body, as they would be subject to exemplary damages.

If the government wants the Press to sign up then put that requirement in an Act of Parliament and not try to blackmail them into doing so with swingeing fines.

Even the Guardian thinks that is unfair and wrong……

Whittingdale is right to think again about wielding the costs ‘stick’

The stick designed to compel papers to accept charter recognition was a mistake. The drafters did not think through the implications.

Anyway, critics of what amounts to a government U-turn will be ignored because political pragmatism is dictating current events. Whittingdale and other senior cabinet members appear to have grasped that making publishers fund unsuccessful legal claimants is, quite simply, unjust.

All in all the Press is being regulated effectively by an independent regulator, IPSO, Whittingdale is still pressing for tough regulation and it was not he who said the government would have no further role in regulation.

Hacked Off complain about Whittingdale taking his hand off the tiller and letting the Press slip the leash but at the same time state that politicians should never have been involved in Press regulation….

The controversy surrounding Culture Secretary John Whittingdale today underlines how wrong he was, as a minister, to involve himself directly in the business of press regulation – something the Leveson Report explicitly warned against. In a healthy democracy the press must be free from meddling by politicians, and Hacked Off has always been clear on this point.

Sheer hypocrisy from Hacked Off….Leveson was driven by politicians’ and Hacked Off were in bed with the lot of them, lobbying and directly guiding legislation.

The Press is being effectively regulated under IPSO but not with a government imposed Press Recognition Panel regulating them…as mentioned earlier such a regulator is vulnerable to political interference as only 2/3rds of those who vote are needed to change the legislation to suit the politicians…and they could dissolve the PRP with any vote in Parlaiment, 2/3rds or not.

Whittingdale’s comments on strengthening Press regulation last year….

Monday 19 October 2015 11.04 BST

John Whittingdale: press must sign up to tough and independent regulator

John Whittingdale, the culture secretary, has urged the press to sign up
to a tough and independent regulator, adding that the jury was still
out on whether the current system was good enough.

In a speech at the Society of Editors conference in which he praised
newspapers, particularly local ones, for holding the powerful to
account, Whittingdale urged the industry to sign up to a regulator
that complied with the royal charter.

He said Ipso, the year-old self-regulatory body supported by most national newspapers, was “not a million miles away” from complying with the charter agreed in the wake of the Leveson inquiry into the phone-hacking scandal.

it is a matter of concern that there are some publishers who are still outside the self-regulatory system.”

The Guardian, Observer, Financial Times and Independent titles have not joined Ipso.

“Let me be very clear,” he added. “I would like to see the press bring themselves within the royal charter’s scheme of recognition. What is key is that we should have a regulator that is tough, independent, fully subscribed and that commands confidence.”

Whittingdale also said that the imposition of costs on non-compliant
newspaper groups could be delayed.

“I have to say that at the moment, I am not convinced the time is right for the introduction of these costs provisions,” he said. “Given the changes under way within the industry, the introduction of the new exemplary damages provisions, and the pressures on the industry, I question whether this additional step, now, will be positive and will lead to the changes I want to see.”

However, he added that his “mind is not made up” over the introduction of the provision.

The comments were immediately criticised by campaign group Hacked Off.

“We hope that on reflection the prime minister will remember what he pledged on oath at the Leveson inquiry, and what he personally promised victims of the press. The public will never be convinced that our political leaders have ended their servile relationship to powerful press interests like Rupert Murdoch and the returning Rebekah Brooks, until the Leveson reforms are properly implemented.”

 

 

 

 

“be[ing] a Nazi province” was preferable to becoming a British dominion. Philippe Pétain, a leader of the pro-armistice group, called union “fusion with a corpse”.

Craig at Is the BBC Biased? reports on a David Keighley News-Watch piece  on Nick Robinson’s claim that Churchill was the father of the European Union  which give us a lot more detail about what went on in 1940….David Keighley concludes….

[Robinson] doctored some of the original commentary to make it fit with EU’s hagiography about its formation….It is deeply troubling that he should project such bias, at any time – but especially during the EU referendum. It seems that he deliberately chose to amplify the ‘Churchill is father of European unity’ concept.

I thought, well why not just Google it and see just how easy it is to find out about the plan.  Something Nick Robinson could have done with ease……and I came up with a Wikipedia article that gives an indepth look at how the Anglo-French union came about…and you know what, it wasn’t as Robinson said here…

There’s one interview we haven’t got, it’s with the man who in many ways was the father of a united Europe. No, he wasn’t a Frenchman, he wasn’t a German, he wasn’t a Belgian, he was, in fact, the British Bulldog himself, Winston Churchill. In the desperate days of June 1940, Britain’s new wartime leader’s first instinct was to go for full political union, quite unthinkable today. Churchill’s plan, in a last-ditch effort to stop France falling to the Nazis, was that Britain and France would become a single country, an indissoluble union with one war cabinet running defence and the economy on both sides of the Channel. The British Cabinet backed it, but with one prophetic exception, they simply couldn’t stomach the idea of a single currency. Days later France fell, and with it, at that stage, the idea of political union. 

Trouble is, it wasn’t Churchill’s plan, he had little to do with drawing it up…it was Frenchman Jean Monnet’s plan and as for indissoluble…it was only for the duration of the war as the British declaration made clear.

The EU itself is pretty clear who is to blame…

Jean Monnet is seen as the founding father of the Community which has been developing and growing since 1950 from principles and plans he defined and began to put into practice. 

We have inherited Jean Monnet’s idea and it is up to us to press ahead with the historic task of building Europe.

A single Cabinet, a single army, a single nation’

In the spring of 1940, after the defeat of General Weygand’s troops, what counted most for Monnet was to ensure that the allied democracies did not break ranks in the face of the enemy. He arrived in London a few days before General de Gaulle and drafted a plan for an indissoluble Franco-British Union, a true merger of the two nations, for de Gaulle, the British Government and the French authorities in refuge in Bordeaux. The idea was to create a psychological shock and encourage the French army to get out of enemy reach and the French navy to join up with British forces and carry on the fight.

 Robinson doesn’t for some reason tell us that in 1956 the french proposed yet another union…this time by Mollet not Monnet…. ‘French Prime Minister Guy Mollet proposed a union between the United Kingdom and the French Union with Elizabeth II as head of state and a common citizenship. As an alternative, Mollet proposed that France join the Commonwealth.’  British Prime Minister Anthony Eden rejected both proposals. 

Ironically it was the BBC that rediscovered this proposal... The Mollet proposal was first made public in the United Kingdom on 15 January 2007 through an article by Mike Thomson published on the BBC News website…..and the French reaction in 2007?….French journalist Christine Clerc asked former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua (Gaullist) about Mollet’s 1956 proposal. Pasqua answered, “if his demand had been made official, Mollet would have been brought to trial for high treason“

Guess Robinson picked and chose bits of history to suit a particular narrative…that of Churchill being very pro-European Union….Robinson tells us the French rejected the proposal but not just how hostile the French cabinet’s reaction was to the proposal in 1940 ...that “be[ing] a Nazi province” was preferable to becoming a British dominion. Philippe Pétain, a leader of the pro-armistice group, called union “fusion with a corpse”.

So it seems, other than for a couple of renegade Frenchman, a European Union avec Les Rosbifs wasn’t on the books except as a wartime expedient to try and keep the French on board.  Guess no one was really keen on the EU then, least of all Churchill.  Something Nick Robinson could easily have found out if he didn’t know already, and hard to believe he didn’t.  Therefore we must conclude he was trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the BBC audience and con them into following in what Robinson tells us are Churchill’s footsteps and vote for further integration into the EU…as a remain vote would inevitably be.

Here is the Wikipedia entry for the Anglo-French agreement from 1940:

World War II (1940)

In December 1939 Jean Monnet of the French Economic Mission in London became the head of the Anglo-French Coordinating Committee, which coordinated joint planning of the two countries’ wartime economies. The Frenchman hoped for a postwar United States of Europe and saw an Anglo-French political union as a step toward his goal. He discussed the idea with Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill’s assistant Desmond Morton, and other British officials.^[1]

In June 1940, French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud’s government faced imminent defeat in the Battle of France. In March they and the British had agreed that neither country would seek a separate peace with Nazi Germany. The French cabinet on 15 June voted to ask Germany for the terms of an armistice. Reynaud, who wished to continue the war from North Africa, was forced to submit the proposal to Churchill’s War Cabinet. He claimed that he would have to resign if the British were to reject the proposal.^[1]

The British opposed a French surrender, and in particular the possible loss of the French Navy to the Germans, and so sought to keep Reynaud in office. On 14 June British diplomat Robert Vansittart and Morton wrote with Monnet and his deputy René Pleven a draft “Franco-British Union” proposal. They hoped that such a union would help Reynaud persuade his cabinet to continue the war from North Africa, but Churchill was skeptical when on 15 June the British War Cabinet discussed the proposal and a similar one from Secretary of State for India Leo Amery. On the morning of 16 June, the War Cabinet agreed to the French armistice request on the condition that the French fleet sail to British harbors. This disappointed Reynaud, who had hoped to use a British rejection to persuade his cabinet to continue to fight.^[1]

Reynaud supporter Charles de Gaulle had arrived in London earlier that day, however, and Monnet told him about the proposed union.^[1] De Gaulle convinced Churchill that “some dramatic move was essential to give Reynaud the support which he needed to keep his Government in the war”.^[2] The Frenchman then called Reynaud and told him that the British prime minister proposed a union between their countries, an idea which Reynaud immediately supported. De Gaulle, Monnet, Vansittart, and Pleven quickly agreed to a document proclaiming a joint citizenship, foreign trade, currency, war cabinet, and military command. Churchill withdrew the armistice approval, and at 3 p.m. the War Cabinet met again to consider the union document. Despite the radical nature of the proposal, Churchill and the ministers recognized the need for a dramatic act to encourage the French and reinforce Reynaud’s support within his cabinet before it met again at 5pm.^[1]

The final “Declaration of union” approved by the British War Cabinet stated that^[1]

France and Great Britain shall no longer be two nations, but one Franco-British Union. The constitution of the Union will provide for joint organs of defence, foreign, financial and economic policies. Every citizen of France will enjoy immediately citizenship of Great Britain, every British subject will become a citizen of France.

Churchill and De Gaulle called Reynaud to tell him about the document, and they arranged for a joint meeting of the two governments in Concarneau the next day. The declaration immediately succeeded in its goal of encouraging Reynaud, who saw the union as the only alternative to surrender and who could now cite the British rejection of the armistice.^[1]

Other French leaders were less enthusiastic, however. At the 5 p.m. cabinet meeting, many called it a British “last minute plan” to steal its colonies, and said that “be[ing] a Nazi province” was preferable to becoming a British dominion. Philippe Pétain, a leader of the pro-armistice group, called union “fusion with a corpse”. While President Albert Lebrun and some others were supportive, the cabinet’s opposition stunned Reynaud. He resigned that evening without taking a formal vote on the union or an armistice, and later called the failure of the union the “greatest disappointment of my political career”.^[1]

Reynaud had erred, however, by conflating opposition to the union—which a majority of the cabinet almost certainly opposed—with support for an armistice, which it almost certainly did not. If the proposal had been made a few days earlier, instead of the 16th when the French only had hours to decide between armistice and North Africa, Reynaud’s cabinet might have considered it more carefully.^[1]

Pétain formed a new government that evening, which immediately decided to ask Germany for armistice terms. The British canceled their plans to travel to Concarneau.

The Hacked Off gang are up in arms…they don’t like it up ’em as the Telegraph and the Mail expose them.

Byline and its Peter Jukes [very well embedded at the BBC also] are upset…..

Byline ‏@Byline_Media 33m33 minutes ago

.@buchanan17 @SJHemus The Telegraph is completely incorrect about investors and there’s no funding from Hacked off.

 

 

Peter Jukes ‏@peterjukes

Trouble is Gilligan reveals that Byline is funded by multi-millionaire and billionaire patrons who Byline itself has boasted of…..whilst also boasting of their independence from billionaire businessmen and the corrupt media practices of the likes of the Murdoch empire….

Byline tells us they are financed by money which...’ finally came in from investors: Nicolas Berggruen, Jaewoong Lee, Eric X. Li, and Ian Osborne.’

Ian Osborne, as I’ve shown before being closely linked to Cameron and Murdoch!  Berggruen  is a billionaire.

So Gilligan is right about the funding.

Hacked Off’s Evan Harris claims no funding or link to Byline……

• Dr Evan Harris ‏@DrEvanHarris 2h2 hours ago

  .@LouiseMensch Not at all. Usual Gilligan nonsense. Most facts wrong. Eg we never promoted to Newsnight. Never worked w/ byline @peterjukes

Trouble is they funded Byline’s Peter Jukes in the past…..

• Peter Jukes ‏@peterjukes Apr 6

  Absolutely. Answered many times before. HO contributed about 5% of my court reporting. Less than News UK journos @mjrharris@stevenjbarnett

You can see his funding plea here….

As for Hacked Off not working with Byline…maybe not openly but below the radar certainly…they are closely tied to Jukes and a blogger called Tim Fenton who writes in his own blog, also in the Huffington Post [which is in league with Byline’s major backer Berggruen, running a ‘magazine’ for the rich and powerful!] and of course in Byline itself.

This is what Harris said about Fenton…

‘Evan Harris, associate director of the campaign group Hacked Off, says people like Fenton are “a fine resource”.’

Guess Hacked Off finds his work useful.  In public Hacked Off, Byline, Jukes and Fenton are at arms length but in private it is a close embrace….and let’s not forget the BBC which works in parallel with HO to pressurise the government on Press regulations.  Just why is the BBC allowed to use public funds to campaign politically against its commercial and ideological rivals?

It’s a small world….a world held hostage by the rich and powerful who control the media…including the ‘rebel’ media like Byline…funded by billionaires and a close colleague of Cameron and Murdoch…LOL and all that…..one of Byline’s founders, Seung-yoon Lee, also works for World Post…. ‘He is also a contributing editor to The WorldPost, a joint partnership of The Huffington Post and Berggruen Institute on Governance.’

Arianna Huffington announces launch of World Post news website

The 1% are about to get their own publication. The digital media titan Arianna Huffington and the billionaire investor Nicolas Berggruen on Wednesday announced the launch of World Post, a comment and news website that looks set to become a platform for some of the most powerful people on the planet.

Oh yes and of course let’s not forget an earlier post about the Global Editor’s Network and the BBC’s NewsLab….look who else attends…..

Impact Journalism

On April 8-9 2016, the Global Editors Network (GEN), The Huffington Post and Change.org gathered the best media innovators in New York for a two-day Editors Lab focused on developing innovative news prototypes.

Don’t you find it odd that the BBC should ignore the very striking words of one of its once, very senior, executives, Danny Cohen, who says ‘Jews voting for Corbyn’s Labour would be like a Muslim backing Trump’

Cohen told The Times: ‘If you are Jewish how can you vote for them? How could you? For me it would like being a Muslim and voting for Donald Trump, how could you do it? You have to feel absolutely confident that it is totally unacceptable and it won’t be tolerated and I personally haven’t felt comfortable that it is happening yet in the Labour party.’ 

Not often the BBC misses a chance to quote something derogatory about Trump.  Corbyn on the other hand?  Not so bothered with.

The BBC hasn’t been at all bothered about claims of anti-Semitism within the Labour ranks…for sure it has ‘investigated’ them but in a half-hearted, desultory manner that paid lip service to investigative journalism and the need to expose such undertones in any Party…it was a tick-box exercise designed to make it appear the BBC was genuinely doing something, it was a show trial in reverse, set up not as a political demonstration of power that quells and crushes dissent, the defendant having already been deemed guilty of course, but , the BBC’s default position being that Corbyn is innocent, the case against  him is a politically motivated one trumped up by his political rivals within the party and without, it is a show trial designed not to frighten but to reassure the Public that the subject, Corbyn, is a nice guy you can trust….a show trial or a snow job by the BBC here?

Here you have a classic example of that pouring oil over troubled waters by the BBC’s Ross Hawkins.  His report was on the Today programme and on the Website…Labour’s problem with anti-Semitism.

Sounds promising doesn’t it?  Sounds like the BBC will be exposing ‘Labour’s anti-Semitism problem’….but no, that’s not the intent it would seem.

Corbyn, is it his fault?  No, not really.  You see this is being whipped up by a vociferous bunch of anti-Corbyn critics and in reality the problem was one of Ed Miliband’s making, and aaanywaay… ‘No Labour leader could be expected to vet the thousands of new members who have signed up.’   Bet that wouldn’t be the conclusion if it had been a Tory leader.

Then we get onto the real meat and bones, the real reason Corbyn faces such attacks….his political rivals are using it as a weapon to attack him…a conclusion pointedly raised by the Today Programme’s Mishal Husain….suggesting perhaps that it was all a bit of political theatre, an innocent man caught up in a political dogfight.

For some fighting Mr Corbyn’s corner, this issue is serious and real, but is also being used as a stick to beat him by his internal political enemies.

There are those who have long seen allegations of anti-Semitism as attempts to silence legitimate criticism of Israel – on which different wings of the Labour movement take passionately opposing views.

The political debate, then, is not at heart merely a row about rules or party management, but fundamental differences within Labour.

So nowt really to do with Corbyn…he couldn’t possibly know everything that was going on inside Labour, he may sympathise with terrorist groups that want to wipe Israel off the map but that’s legitimate criticism of the Zionist cause no?, and really this is a storm whipped up by a rather bitter bunch of Blairites who want to discredit Corbyn and remove him as leader.  The defence rests.  All charges dropped m’lud.

Trouble is that’s just not true.  Corbyn and his cabal have strong links to people who express violent antipathy towards Jews, not just ‘Zionists’, and Corbyn’s elevation to party leader has brought into the party people who would normally be shown the door pretty rapidly without having to prod Labour into action.

Labour has always had this problem but Corbyn’s regime has allowed it to flourish and he has done little to stop that…therefore claims he couldn’t possibly know everything don’t merit consideration as an excuse…it is his job to ensure the rules block such people entering the Labour Party…he hasn’t bothered to do so, his half-hearted reassurances lack substance and credibility when he shares platforms and his Party with such people.

Still, why bother when he has the BBC to smooth things over for him.  Nick Robinson must be proud.

Why is the BBC not ‘fact checking’ the claims about Whittingdale from the likes of Byline and Hacked Off, and let’s not forget Private Eye of course?  Why are they not checking on the motivations of Byline and Hacked Off and if there are any connections between them? Or indeed asking what the BBC itself knew in 2014.

Judging by some fact checking by others it would seem there is more than a whiff of smoke and mirrors about this whole story…a left wing driven witch-hunt that is little more than a dishonest attempt to mislead people about what really went on in order to attempt to pressurise and influence the government’s decision on Press regualtion.

Here are two articles which look closely at the motives and funding of the people behind the story…needless to say the subjects of these stories and their supporters and fellow travellers aren’t happy…and there will be more in the Sunday Times apparently.

From the Mail:

How orgy-loving Max Mosley is using his millions to seek vengeance on the Press: Behind this week’s plot to smear the Culture Secretary lies a tale of Left-wing zealots, a tinpot ‘watchdog’ (given £3m of YOUR cash) and a tycoon trying to muzzle those who exposed his sordid lifestyle

And from Andrew Gilligan in the Telegraph:

The truth about John Whittingdale, the prostitute and the ‘cover-up’

Have I not got news for you….Did Ian Hislop cover up for the BBC to keep the HIGNFY pay-cheques rolling in…along with all the other work he does for the BBC or what?

Hislop appears as normal on HIGNFY and the first story is the obvious…Whittingdale…which story Ian claims his magazine broke.  Which, it didn’t.  Byline broke the story ‘officially’ [No doubt encouraged to do so by their contributing advisor Peter Jukes….who also gets a great deal of work sent his way by the BBC and who, according to the Telegraph, has been paid by Hacked Off] followed up by Hislop’s Private Eye and the BBC.  Even in the Eye Hislop still claims the credit...

NO sooner had the new issue of Private Eye gone on sale this week, carrying a detailed article questioning the motives of national newspapers in spiking a story about culture secretary John Whittingdale (full text below), than Whittingdale himself took the initiative, issuing a statement that was widely seized on by the BBC’s Newsnight, Fleet Street, opposition MPs and press privacy campaigners.

No mention of Byline then…and on HIGNFY no mention of the real source of the story Natalie Rowe…Hislop muttered coyly something about rumours on the internet.  Why no mention of Rowe and her determined efforts to get the story published?  Why not? Can it be because she first revealed it back in 2014 and there would have to be some explaining from the likes of Hislop as to why he and others, such as the BBC, didn’t break the story themselves so long ago?  He can’t very well stick it to the Redtops (and the Independent) for covering up for Whittingdale in the hope to influence his decision on Press regulation if Hislop himself, the BBC and the Guardian also knew.  Why did they not publish also?  If Hislop can conjecture about a Press conspiracy then he can conjecture about a BBC/Guardian one as well in light of their interests in Press regulation and the charter review.

Hislop the brave, investigative spearer of the Establishment?  Not when it comes to his own paymaster it seems.

What is an amusing aside is that Byline tells us they are financed by money which...’ finally came in from investors: Nicolas Berggruen, Jaewoong Lee, Eric X. Li, and Ian Osborne.’

The billionaire Berggruen and Osborne are linked…Osborne being an advisor to Beggruen.

What is amusing is that the lefty Byline, which tells us that:

News media is broken….Quality is in decline, and essential investigative work is disappearing. Democracy demands an active and independent press, not endless clickbait about Kim Kardashian’s bum, ‘Ten Reasons Why…’ articles, and ‘sponsored content’ masquerading as proper journalism.

The time has come for something different.

We’re taking out the middlemen – the newspaper proprietors and advertisers who have agendas of their own – and giving power back to the reader and the journalist. We hope you will be part of it too.

…is in part funded by that Ian Osborne who is a good pal of Cameron and Murdoch…..

His name is Ian Osborne, a British political fixer who… wouldn’t you know it?… is another of the people credited with rebranding David Cameron, along with his colleagues Rachel Whetstone and Steve Hilton.

Obsorne remains close to both the Cameron government and to Rupert Murdoch’s British lieutenants — but, again like Whetstone, Obsorne no longer spends much time in UK politics, preferring instead to act as a kind of reputation fixer for hire for US tech companies and international billionaires.

Osborne is also a contributing editor at the Spectator.

Small world…and an odd one….guess money trumps politics.  Still funny to see a lefty publication that hates Murdoch and trumpets its virtuousness being funded by an associate of Murdoch and Cameron.  There’s a conspiracy there somewhere.  Damned if I can work it out though.

The Pope’s compassion is plain to see…all the more so as the BBC has made it headline news on its frontpage….

You are not alone, Pope tells migrants

Amusingly though the BBC effectively summed it all up, and  the BBC’s own lack of answers, with this final thought on the Pope’s narrative….

The Pope is coming with a strong moral message – but no solutions.

That’s the trouble….open borders and compassion are not solutions but problems in the making.  Moral grandstanding is fine but of course it is not they who have to make the decisions, and not them who have to live with the consequences.

What would you rather see if you were a refugee…the Pope whispering worthy nothings in your ear or Spike Milligan dropping his pants and whistling Ave Maria?

The BBC slipped in an attack on Trump on the Today show in the news reporting a comment from Jordan’s Prince Zeid Raad al-Hussein who is also laughably the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights….no mention of Cruz on the radio…..

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned the policies of US Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump, equating them to bigotry.

Zeid Raad al-Hussein did not mention Mr Trump by name, but he singled out the businessman’s support of torture and his policies towards Muslims.

“Bigotry is not proof of strong leadership,” Mr Hussein said.

The commissioner also criticised a plan by rival candidate Ted Cruz to conduct surveillance on Muslim neighbourhoods.

“Hate speech, incitement and marginalisation of the ‘other’ are not a tittering form of entertainment, or a respectable vehicle for political profit,” Mr Hussein told an audience in Cleveland, Ohio.

The BBC added for effect..

Mr Cameron called Mr Trump’s plan to ban Muslims from travelling to the US “divisive, stupid and wrong”.

Both Pena Neito and the Pope have taken issue with Mr Trump’s call for a border wall between the US and Mexico.

No quotes from people supporting Trump’s statements.

Why no mention from the BBC that al Hussein is a prince from Jordan?  Could it be because Jordan has itself a rather sordid record on human rights…an ongoing record.

It jails anyone who criticises the King and his government, it refuses entry to Palestinians, so you have to ask why Trump’s block on Muslims until the US resolves how to check identities better is so bad?, and the use of torture is not unknown in Jordan…….why does the BBC not refer to such things in its report?  From Human Rights Watch…..

Torture, Police Violence, and Administrative Detention

Perpetrators of torture or other ill-treatment continued to enjoy near-total impunity due to the authorities’ reliance on special police prosecutors and judges to investigate allegations against, prosecute, and try fellow officers. At the Police Court, where many such cases are heard, two out of three sitting judges are serving police officers appointed by the police. To date, no police or intelligence officer has ever been convicted of torture under article 208 of the penal code.

Oh hang on why might al Hussein criticise Republican candidates?  Is it a grateful thankyou to Obama and the Democrats for their generosity and silence?

In February, the United States announced the renewal of a five-year aid package to Jordan through 2019, which provides a minimum of US$360 million in economic assistance, and $300 million in foreign military financing annually. The US granted an additional $340 million in 2014 for “costs related to instability in the region, including for security requirements along the border with Iraq.” The US did not publicly criticize human rights violations in Jordan in 2014 except in annual reports.

The gloves seem to have come off now the EU campaign is rolling officially.  For sure the BBC reports the Leave campaign’s side of the story but it is all too often with a sneer, a mocking tone and a snide comment slipped in for effect.

Nick Robinson laid into the Brexit side the other day and rounded off with a comment that back in 1975 the voters had turned away from the no campaign because of the sort of people associated with it…suggesting that today the same may be a likely result….just very slightly an insulting and personal attack on the poeple of the Brexit squad made ridiculously laughable when you have the likes of Corbyn, Kinnock, Ashdown, Mandelson, Blair and not forgetting the slippery Cameron on the stay side.  I think most would prefer Farage to that bunch….never mind the respected Gove and the ever popular Boris whom the BBC does its best to constantly undermine.

Speaking of which this morning the Today programme, or is it the Today Show, tried to ridicule Boris….first thing I heard when I switched in was a list of insults sent his way read out with glee and then we had the Obama reference, or is that reverence.  Boris criticised Obama for interfering and stating quite truthfully that the US would not give up one iota of its sovereignty and yet it wants us to hand over the keys to the kingdom to unelected Brussels bureaucrats to pilfer our treasury and ride roughshod over our laws and customs.  The BBC then disdainfully reeled off a list of apparently authoritative organisations that want us to remain in the EU mocking Boris saying he had no answer to that…nothing like the Establishment clubbing together.  What about reeling off the list of actual people who want to leave…you know the little people that will actually vote…or is the BBC saying they are worthless and ignorant and below contempt?  It seems the actual referendum is an after thought and it is up to these organisations to decide for us.

As for Obama he is one of the principle causes of a major crisis in Europe…the flood of Muslim immigrants that is overhelming us now, and that in the future promises very difficult times, is in major part the result of Obama’s policy of splendid isolation, standing back and watching the Middle East burn.  Had he intervened and stopped the war forcing negotiations on Assad years ago this situation would not have arisen……he admits himself now that he abandoned Libya….and as thousands of refugees are landing in Italy almost daily he still stands back and does nothing to stabilise that country.  Can’t help thinking he rather enjoys white Europe being overrun by people from Africa and the Middle East…but then again so does the BBC.

We have also had the BBC’s attack on the Leave sides suggestion that money sent to the EU would be better off directed at the NHS.  Humphrys yesterday had a terrible interview with Gisela Stuart either deliberately misunderstanding or just not understanding which seems to happen all too often these days with his interviews.

Humphrys immediately said she was alarmist and scaremongering that the NHS was in danger if we remained in the EU…Humphrys insisted there is no danger for the NHS just now….which is hardly the usual BBC narrative of an NHS in an ever growing crisis…as Humphrys spoke the BBC was damning the government for the lates A&E figures.

Humphrys kept on insisting that it was the government which decided how to spend its budget not the EU…entirely missing the point that  this was not about the UK budget now but a budget in the future that included money now sent to the EU which is eent back to us with orders to spend it as directed by the EU….and not forgetting to ensure there is some propaganda added to say this was ‘EU money’.  If we had control of the money we could decide how to spend it and direct it towards the NHS.  Humphrys just didn’t get it, nor did Nolan last night pushing exactly the same false line that Humphrys did.  Apparently this is a theme continued across the BBC as Craig at Is the BBC biased? tells us that Mark Mardell kept up the assault on the Leave campaign’s claim about the NHS.

On the pro-side for the BBC on yesterday’s Today programme Nick Robinson did put the awkward questions to Alistair Darling about the stay campaign being alarmist and the future is just as unknown if we stay in the EU as they claim it is if we leave.  I might suggest it is known though….the EU is falling apart and will drag us down with it…..its remedy will be to be ever more undemocratic and force a complete political and economic union through regardless of the Public’s wishes…which won’t be given the chance to be voiced.  Will the likes of Cameron or, heaven forbid, prime minister Corbyn, keep us out of an ever closer union?  No of course not.  Those in the seats of power have scant regard for the masses and will continue to steamroller through the grand EU project regardless.

Once they get a ‘yes’ vote nothing is off the table and the UK will disappear from the map as a separate and sovereign country sold down the river by a very small group of people, including Corbyn, who hold the common man in contempt and want to impose their worldview on us all.

Remember this?…

Teachers reject ‘Army propaganda’

Paul McGarr, a teacher from east London, said only when recruiting materials gave a true picture of war would he welcome them into his school.

‘Shoot and possibly torture’

These would have to say: “Join the Army and we will send you to carry out the imperialist occupation of other people’s countries,” Mr McGarr said.

“Join the Army and we will send you to bomb, shoot and possibly torture fellow human beings in other countries.

“Join the Army and we will send you probably poorly equipped into situations where people will try to shoot or kill you because you are occupying other people’s countries.

“Join the Army, and if you survive and come home, possibly injured or mentally damaged, you and your family will be shabbily treated.”

The real trouble is that the kids reject the teachers…and it is so often the Forces that rescues them from a  life of poverty, crime and disillusion.

Unable to read by age 11… now he’s top of his class at Sandhurst: Cadet who grew up on north London estate awarded prestigious ‘sword of honour’ after beating Oxbridge candidates

How the Left must hate that story of a Black kid, failed by the education system, rocketing to the top in the racist and imperialist army that only wants to use them as cannon fodder.

Colonel Richard Kemp speaks up…

The Army gives a sense of purpose to so many young lives

The history of the British Armed Forces is replete with men and women from the humblest of backgrounds who have defied the odds to achieve the most remarkable success.

Kidane Cousland, from a council estate in Tottenham, who left school at the age of 15 barely able to read, and also originally joined as a Private, is a shining example. Yesterday he won the Sword of Honour, awarded to the top officer cadet at Sandhurst. By any measure this is a remarkable achievement. To win the sword, Cousland not only beat the 200 members of his intake on the world’s most demanding leadership course, but also the many hundreds of other applicants who failed even to reach the formidable front gates of the Royal Military Academy.

For many recruits, some as young as 16, the Army is their first proper family, and their instructors the first people to take any real interest in whether they sink or swim. Contrary to the screaming, shouting image favoured by TV documentary makers , staff at basic training centres care deeply about their recruits. They make enormous efforts – often in their own time  – to encourage them to succeed. This is a matter of personal and professional pride and also because they know that the lives of their young charges may soon depend on the standards they have trained them to.

Virtually every close relative of a soldier in my regiment, the Royal Anglians, had done time in prison. He would have followed the same path had not his attention been caught one day by the display in an Army recruiting office window. Instead he gained the top non-commissioned rank in the Army and devoted himself to fighting for his country and inspiring others to succeed.

The leadership and dedication of men like this paves the way for young soldiers such as Kidane Cousland to realise their extraordinary potential and to contribute so much to the defence of our country.