Posts by Matthew Littlewood
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
Legal Beagle: Asking the next question, in reply to Susannah Shepherd,
And the Littlewood Treaty – it must be a contender for the highest average level of lunacy per item of correspondence to Ministers…
Can I just say that my family has nothing to do with this particular "Littlewood Treaty". In fact I didn't even know about it until this evening. Some of the things I've uncovered in reaction to its "discovery" on google are particularly....odd....and disturbing,
-
The latest reports are that LibDem leader Paddy Ashdown- who had been a frequent target of the Murdoch tabloids himself- warned David Cameron about Coulson' s appointment. Cameron is becoming increasingly compromised here. As an aside, given that the LibDems are the only one of the big three parties who could justifiably claim innocence in this whole sordid affair, I'm amazed Nick Clegg hasn't used this to his advantage.
-
Field Theory: 65 bottles of beer on the wall..., in reply to Hadyn Green,
Um, just quietly, no it wouldn't. I'd really rather we win. I mean if we have a choice.
Quite. And I think the side has done pretty much everything right in the way they've played over the last year or so, while, first-five aside, most of the positions look like they're pretty well covered this time- it would be nice to go into a RWC knockout match with an actual centre, rather than a makeshift one, though. While I'm consigned to the fact that every four years, the ABs deign to disappoint (actually in the case of RWC 95, I'm starting to think that it was remarkable how that young side played as well as it did right up until the final, but that's another story), I'm optimistic this time, even if it could be seen as misplaced.
Like others have said, it's understanding for people to express concerns over the "political" (central and local government) aspects, as well as the pre-tournament hype, but I'm still looking forward to the actual matches.
-
Hugh Grant's performance was equally good, although he had already got one over McMullen in the New Statesman where he gave the guy a taste of his own medicine. What startles me is the guy's complete frankness about who they bugged and how unscrupulous they were about it.
But how luck are we that journalists of the calibre of Nick Davies exist. He has been nothing short of heroic.
Meanwhile the central thesis behind this Adam Curtis blog on Murdoch's relationship with the establishment is a lot, shall we say, linear and convincing, than some of his work.
-
This interview with Nick Davies lays out exactly how important this story is. I've been following the updates all evening, and as I type this, another NOTW reporter has been arrested. But as Davies says, this story is much, much bigger than journalists behaving badly- it's about the colusion at the most elite levels at the establishment, and the contempt they hold everyone else in to let this slide for so long. It's all pretty sickening, really.
-
Hard News: Book review: 'Wikileaks:…, in reply to Rich of Observationz,
Highly likely. Which would make it rather cheaper to operate, given economies of scale from a 7-day newsroom, common back office, etc. So Murdoch wins out financially.
He will win even more financially if this is enough penance to get the final tick for the BSKYB deal.
Also, I see Coulson has been arrested. This is going to run and run.
-
Hard News: Book review: 'Wikileaks:…, in reply to Keir Leslie,
Cameron is almost certainly freaking the fuck out, to put it mildly, because he employed Andy Coulson (one of the major Screws figures) as a PR man & is seen as close to Murdoch and especially Brooks. This is turning into a disaster for Murdoch, and Cameron must be v. worried that he’ll get hit at the same time. The Telegraph carried an article ripping him to hell. Dave from PR is not a good thing to be at the moment.
Oh absolutely, the more revelations that have come out about Coulson's behaviour (and we can now take it on read that if he didn't exactly lie at the original inquiry, he certainly didn't tell them the whole truth), and the more comes out about Brooks's sheer duplicity (as well as a lack of a moral compass), the worse it gets for him by assocation. That is absolutely undeniable, and like you say, if the Telegraph is firing shots at Cameron over this, you know it's bad:
But what this shows is how tortured the relationship between Rupert Murdoch and the establishment has been for nearly three decades. And I think he would much rather have NOTW close if it somehow satisfies him still getting the BSKYB deal. That's where the real game-changer is going to be.
-
Hard News: Book review: 'Wikileaks:…, in reply to Craig Ranapia,
Frankly, I don’t know if Miliband won’t come to regret calling for a public inquiry into the dealings of the evil media. May well turn up some toads a little too close to home for his comfort…
Quite possibly, but a full Public Inquiry still needs to be held- and to be fair, I don’t think either side of the house is arguing against that point, as far as I can tell, Cameron is more being challenged on the whys, whens and wherefores- not least because the further the Guardian (and Scotland Yard) has delved into this scandal, the messier and more depressing it’s become.
As I said before, whatever happens as a result could well be game-changing, for good and ill, and you’ve also got Murdoch’s planned BSKYB takeover (which appears to have got the nominal tick from the Culture Minister against staunch opposition) hovering in the background, too- something which in itself could possibly change the shape of broadcasting media in Britain if it goes ahead,
-
Hard News: Book review: 'Wikileaks:…, in reply to Russell Brown,
I actually understand where he’s coming from. But the “hundred stories” he’s talking about represent the real work of investigative journalism – the persistence and hacking away over time. Nick Davies didn’t know when he started what extraordinary things the story held.
Wikileaks doubtless played an important role in Peruvian public affairs by facilitating the release of the tapes. But that’s all it did. For Assange to present it as not only more significant but morally better than what Davies and The Guardian did is just delusional.
As you say , he is right in saying there are "other agendas" at play- as the Guardian, is of course, attacking a rival competitor- but to offhandedly dismiss it on those grounds reveals him to be more than a little myopic. This story has implications that go well beyond rival news organisations and right to the heart of the very existence of the modern (for want of a better term) "surveilance society".
I've got no idea how Davies lucked onto this story at the start, but I'm pretty much in awe in how and he and his colleagues have managed to find more and more material, and managed to use it in a way that has been remarkably noble, really. There's a great book to be written about this once all the fire clears- which I assume could actually be months, if not years, away.
Obviously, I would never deny Wikileaks influence, particularly in regards to the Petrogate story he refers to, but Assange does seem to have a blindspot when it comes to the work of others. And there's something I find troubling about it.
-
Um, for some reason, I broke the link in my last post. Here’s the piece I was referring to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/06/news-world-investigator-families-dead-soldiers
But pretty much everything from this section makes for grim and at times sickening reading:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/phone-hacking
Either way, it’s a phenomenal effort from the Guardian team- they deserve all the praise they can get. It’s just deathly ironic that it’s come as a result of covering the very practices of others who share their vocation. And you do worry how the inquiry will turn out, and what recommendations it will make- and whether perhaps the news organisations who were less to blame (and maybe even responsible for uncovering it) might be more affected by it in the long run (cf Private Eye's constant battles with libel laws). But that’s for the future, which is going to be messy, on many levels.