The Sun: We Never Forget

'Ex-CPS head Sir Keir Starmer (right) in London on Saturday'.

Great to see The Sun (On Sunday) covering yesterday's Save The Black Cap protest.

Strange they only mentioned it in a piece about their current whipping boy, the former Director Of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, now standing as a Labour Party PCC.

A FORMER chief prosecutor piled pressure on his successors last night as he blasted their £20 million witchhunt against journalists.

Sir Keir Starmer and CPS chief Alison Saunders were accused of making an “error” by hauling reporters into court.

Their predecessor Lord Macdonald spoke out after three more Sun newsmen were cleared of paying public officials.

It means 48 charges against Sun journalists probed by Operation Elveden as part of would-be Labour MP Sir Keir and Ms Saunders’ crusade have resulted in ZERO convictions...

The comments risk overshadowing Sir Keir’s bid to become Labour MP for the London seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

Yesterday he joined locals protesting at the closure of the Black Cap gay pub in Camden.

Poor show by The Sun for not managing to shoehorn in another mention of Greville Janner this time, though.

Only connect...

Or am I reading too much into this?

Paul Flowers: Unpleasant Activities

Now we have a Methodist minister, the Reverend Paul Flowers, who wolfs down hard drugs such as cocaine and crystal meth. He also looks (or has done so) at gay porn on his laptop. Oh, and he has reportedly paid for rent boys in a Manchester hotel, allegedly charging the cost of his room to his bank...

But I have been struck by how much the BBC and other of his critics have concentrated on his financial unsuitability, and how relatively little emphasis has been placed on what John Wesley — and, I would have thought, many practising Methodists and others — would have called his moral turpitude...

Taking hard drugs is illegal. Taking advantage of young rent boys is exploitative and possibly also illegal. Watching porn, which we may infer was hard-core, may not be illegal, but it is not what is expected of a minister in the Methodist or any other Church...

Behaviour that would be shocking in a layman is ten times so in a supposed man of God who advertises his credentials by wearing a clerical collar and regularly climbs into a pulpit to address the faithful. Yet many commentators have tip-toed around his unpleasant activities...

It’s time that Labour and all the other apologists for Paul Flowers accepted that his vices should not be disregarded and swept under the carpet. His moral shortcomings do not end where his private life begins, which was why the Mail on Sunday was justified in exposing them...

Daily Mail.

The Mail's editorial asked readers, "how the cocaine snorting, pornography-obsessed Methodist minister Paul Flowers was allowed to take charge of – and almost destroy – the Co-operative Bank"?
Answer: Co-op and the culture of the Labour Party.

Lucy Meadows: Shame On All Of You

A coroner told the press "shame on all of you" as he ruled that a primary school teacher had killed herself after her gender reassignment became national news.
Michael Singleton, coroner for Blackburn, Hyndburn and Rossendale, singled out the Daily Mail as he accused the paper of "ridicule and humiliation" and a "character assassination" of Lucy Meadows, 32, who took her own life in March.
He urged the government to implement the recommendations of the Leveson report on press intrusion as he criticised the "sensational and salacious" press coverage. Delivering a verdict of suicide, he told the inquest into her death he was appalled at media reports about Meadows.
As he closed the inquest, he turned to the reporters present and said: "And to you the press, I say shame, shame on all of you."

The Guardian. 

Screengrab via The Media Blog

Although; "In a note she left, she made no mention of press intrusion, citing instead her debts, a number of bereavements including the death of her parents, and her stressful job as a primary school teacher" (ibid), Lucy Meadows had complained to the PCC in January.
Whatever, Richard Littlejohn and the Mail's coverage was disgusting - though tragically it seems to be pretty much the standard in reporting trans issues these days. 

Leveson Report: Fail

"There is disturbing and intrusive reporting of transgender and intersex issues by parts of the press' and that some newspapers treat trans people as though they are 'deserving of parody'. “it is clear that there is a marked tendency in a section of the press to fail to treat members of the transgender and intersex communities with sufficient dignity and respect… parts of the tabloid press continue to seek to ‘out’ transgender people notwithstanding its prohibition in the Editors’ Code...
 
"There has been a significant tendency within the press which leads to the publication of prejudicial or pejorative references to race, religion, gender, sexual orientation or physical or mental illness or disability... That failure has, in the main, been limited to a section of the press and may well stem from an undue focus on seeking to reflect the views (even if unsuccessfully) of a particular readership."

From the Leveson Report. 
Hear hear.