Copper Comes A Cropper: Poem on today's Leveson Inquiry

Copper Comes A Cropper
5th March 2012

A little bit of sympathy at the back, there.
Puh-leaze. Let's be 'aving yew.
At the Leveson inquiry
The cruellest moment is when
Sir Paul Stephenson,
The poor put-upon former chief bill
Hobbles in on crutches and drops a pill,
Cutting a pathetic sight
Under the assembled legal might.
So small for a tall man,
Bespectacled nerd
Pinched lips, he can barely cope.
Only a thug like a lawyer
Would punch well-honed words
At a man on the ropes.

He says:
I may be public watchdog eyes and ears but
I wasn't there, never heard a thing,
Couldn't see, except for what the reptiles did to Lord Ian Blair
Stripped bare in the glare of The Sun
And that wasn't going to happen to me.

A loose-lipped minority gossiped
In a distracting dialogue of disharmony,
Dysfunctional, too close for my liking.
But I couldn't do a thing, not a thing.

Ever so humbly, you are
Crediting me with a level of analysis I don't have
I didn't give it any particular thought
No conclusions can be wrought.
It was just something that happened.
Like The Sun coming up in the morning
Shedding light on the scum we turned over.
I am not fawning but we don't investigate someone we know socially
and with whom we are friends.
Except when we did the police officers.
A big boy done it and ran away
And stopped us realising there was anything wrong
When he told us there was no new hack sore.
We adopted a defensive mindset instead of a challenging stance
I can see that now.
It was a cursory glance
Not wide, not deep.
We were asleep.
If only we had the wisdom of hindsight
and weren't caught out
it would all be all right.

I'm not throwing my colleague out of the back of the sleigh and
I can't answer for him but
It would have been wiser presentationally
For him to have done it different.
But he is away in Bahrain and you aren't getting him back in Old Blighty
Until the heat is off,
Until you call off the dogs,
Until the trail has chilled like the champagne we quaffed as we doffed.
Defending and not challenging,
That was the error of our ways.
We are brave and did not back off, guv,
Just because it was News International.

We were logical and needed the polaroids
Coz the tapes and diaries in Glenn's black bags were not enough.
It was the Bahrain runaway who did not reopen the enquiry
He failed, it is regrettable. That's tough.
Fear of taking on a powerful enterprise is not the case.
I did not put the frighteners on the Guardian editor,
Or spray him with Mace,
Or rough him up too much.
Politics over substance
I merely turned up to understand.
But there was no meeting of minds,
My pulse did not race.
You could not get off your face with him
Unlike the real press, proper gents we could have a laugh with
Over a drink and a nice dinner.
Call it folly but Mr Wallis was generous with the Bolly
And Yates of the Yard was fond of his jollies.
I just did not get it and wasn't keeping tally,
The Met caught Chlamedia off Wallis by getting too pally
But we gave him Cressida Dick.

A lack of evidence beyond the lone rogue reporter
Meant rationed resources and an underfunded force
Would not be deployed as a matter of course.
Please give us more dosh if you wish us to wield the cosh.
I was overworked with anti-terrorism,
The Olympics,
Not my decision
A junior did it and is sunning himself in sandy climes.
I am an ill man, I need a week in a spa.
Can you recommend one?

And so they adjourn for another time.

But spare a thought for the thin blue line.
Poor Raisa, disappeared, turned to glue,
Currently starring in a pet food can near you
To stop her singing like a canary,
Squealing like a pig at an inquiry.
Take the porkers she carried;
She knew Cameron's arse inside and out,
Blue heart and stout,
Fullsome about Coulson,
He put it about,
Withdrew when the thin blue sphincter tightened,
Purged the toad and found his load lightened.
Raisa rode bravely into the student throngs they harried
Righting a wrong for the Right,
Got the stomach for a fight when protesters say neigh
And you weigh as much as ten of them
With a bobby on your back.
Truncheoned before luncheon
Unfree by tea
Scuppered before supper
A hack for the hacks
The sack for the lax
When they are found out
Her hooves are all over this
but her head is in some mogul's bed.

Anna Chen 5th March 2012

Boris Johnson and his assistant Kit Malthouse in the frame

Rupert Murdoch: ain't our democracy wonderful?

Been away. Such is the nature of deadlines staring you in the face that I didn't get to blog my BBC Radio 4 programme, Found In Translation which went out on 9th July. A novel premise torpedoed by idiot editing which cut out all the jokes and reversed the point of the programme: namely that the Chinese have a rich sense of humour going back thousands of years.

Anyhow. Murdoch. Woo! If rumours are correct and there's actual real life proof that 9/11 victims were hacked by New Corpse on top of everything else, then the Evil Empire is toast. Hacking Jude Law when he was in the US draws News Corpse into the American legal purview where the coals are being heated in an astonishing reversal of fortune, just as the company was about to score its greatest victory to date: buying the whole of BSkyB.

In this continuing fever dream of a movie writer lying comatose somewhere in Hollywood, Rupert will fight to the death in Tuesday's Thunderdome. [See update below: chief griller has links to News International.] We'll all be glued to the telly watching him squirm. Or plead the Fifth, or whatever is the Brit equivalent. (Something like, my lips are sealed while the subject is sub judice, la, la, la, can't hear you.)

Where to begin? First Rebekah Brooks agrees to give evidence, then she 'resigns', and today, she's been arrested. One can only fear for her physical safety if this keeps up, her immortal soul being sold long ago. She loves kids so much that she'll whip up anti-paedophilia mobs while her journalists are not only hacking a murdered girl's mobile, but actually erasing messages and impeding the investigation. Then there are the dead soldiers' families, Jean Charles de Menezes, the Soham girls ...

Our leaders seemed to have lost the long spoon when supping with Rupert and his cosy nostra. Among the unholy trinity of press, police and politicians embroiled in this affair, Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has some nifty explaining to do, following revelations that he enjoyed a stay worth £12K at Champneys health club, whose PR consultant was former News of the World boss Neil Wallis who Sir Paul had already employed as PR to the Met. The same Met that refused to reopen the inquiry into phone-hacking (Yates: "It wasn't a 'review'"), assured everyone it was just the work of a few rogue reporters, and who neglected to inform possible victims of their status. [Update 7.55pm: Stephenson resigns.]

A regiment of politicians are having to live down the embarrassment of photos taken enjoying News International largesse. Such was the power the Wapping Mafiosi held over our democratic institutions that, having been reduced to tears by Rebekah's bullying phone call gloatingly informing him that they knew about his son's cystic fibrosis, Gordon Brown still had to attend her wedding.

When Murdoch whistled, Prime Minister Tony Blair fetched up at some do halfway around the world with his entourage, all on wake-up pills, in order to indulge the king-maker. To receive his wisdom? Or be given orders? How many times did Rupe visit the PM for a chat at Downing Street? ALL the PMs ever since Margaret Thatcher added him to her list of pet gargoyles such as the charming General Pinochet (likes: slitting open the bellies of trade unionists and throwing them from aeroplanes so their innards are ripped out).

Apart from being horse-riding chums with Rebekah, David Cameron took free flights from Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud. And only weeks after Andy Coulson resigned, Diamond Dave was still accommodating him at Chequers.

That one man could acquire over a third of the British media beggars belief in a grown-up democracy. That it could have gone on for so long is nothing short of a scandal.

Only Ed Miliband is having a good war. Hopefully, he'll learn from this success and will extend the fight to the Tories over their vicious class-based cuts. Vince Cable, whose buffoonery and appalling judgement nearly let the BSkyB deal go through, is jumping up and down yelling, "I was first." Actually, I think that accolade goes to the heroic Tom Watson MP, who risked the vengeful wrath of the Murdoch empire to stand up for what's right.

Oh, and Steve Coogan and Hugh Grant. How come our slebs are making all the running in the courage stakes? Who'd have thought that Grant would be more impressive in real life than in the movies? Something wrong, surely?

Then there's the legal establishment. Harbottle and Lewis may have had a conflict of interest when they advised Prince William over his alleged phone hacking, "Move along. Nuthin to see", as they were also gimping for Murdoch.

Last night I watched the 2004 movie, Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War On Journalism, and I thoroughly recommend you obtain a copy. I knew that Fox News were dragged into court to win the right not to tell the truth because, by their own admission, they are not a news channel, but "entertainment", but who knew the degree to which those untruths were spun? Seems their trademark "Fair and Balanced" is only a slogan, not a description or even a pledge.

Take Jeremy Glick, whose father died in 9/11. He went on Fox News to make his point: that in the 1980s it was Bush Sr who financed and empowered the Mujahaddin who were to morph into the school of Islamist fundamentalism who carried out the 2001 attacks. This argument was transformed by the bellicose Bill O'Reilly into the lie that Glick had accused Dubbya Bush of masterminding the attacks. From fair evidence-based criticism to a lunatic conspiracy nut-job. See what they did there? Great if you do, because there's a whole swathe of Americans who get their information from Fox News and who don't see it.

This is the company that pressed for commitment to war in Iraq despite the murderers of 9/11 having no connection with Saddam's regime. Who gave birth to the "birthers": proper nut-jobs who deny Barack Obama's US citizenship despite all the evidence. They used footage from different events to inflate Tea Party gatherings and a Sarah Palin book-signing. They fabricate or crop quotes to change meaning.

In Britain, News International has been a hugely corrupting influence, holding police, politicians and royalty to ransom using the tools of blackmail, character assassination and favours. In broadcasting, Sky News has yet to go down the Fox route but the only way to ensure it doesn't in future is to clip Murdoch's wings now. I feel sorry for all the innocent workers who lost their jobs when the News Of The World was folded, but Rebekah was right in that the brand is now toxic as opposed to merely seriously unpleasant. No-one wants to touch it. I appeared on Sky as a guest last year, but I'd be loathe to repeat the experience in the light of what's emerged.

I'm with Ed Miliband on this one: break up Murdoch's empire.

"I think it's unhealthy because that amount of power in one person's hands has clearly led to abuses of power within his organisation. If you want to minimise the abuses of power then that kind of concentration of power is frankly quite dangerous."

However, don't be too sure that the monster's dead in the last reel. With so many venal wusses in power, there may yet be a sequel. Staked and dusted? Not quite yet, unfortunately.

UPDATE: Sunday 17th July 2011. MP John Whittingdale, who will chair Tuesday's inquiry, has links to New International figures.

He has also said he has dined with Mrs Brooks and met Elisabeth Murdoch, Mr Murdoch's daughter, but denied that they were friends. The Conservative chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport committee is also Facebook friends with Mr Hinton, who he has known for 10 years, and Rebekah Brooks. He is the only MP on either of their friend's lists.

UPDATE 7.55pm: Sir Paul Stephenson resigns. Ha! Sky News gets there first.

UPDATE 3: Thanks to my friend Adi who sent me this link to a Reuters report on the climate of fear at the News Of The World and why it was impossible for the editors not to know a) the genesis of the stories, and b) where the money was going. "That is what we do -- we go out and destroy other people's lives."

UPDATE 4: Monday 18th July. More thanks, to News Corp for adding to the gaiety of the nation and to Charlie Brooker for nailing it.

How The Guardian broke the story here.

How Rupert tried to bury bad news in the US.