Private Eye: A Nice Photo Of Some Kittens

Trying to calm down now after Grayson Perry...
But THIS is your actual political art.
Genius.

A free press means the press should be free, despite all their epic cuntery.
Is that so hard to understand?

PS Fagburn is currently enjoying reading The Prime Minister's Ironing Board And Other State Secrets by Adam Macqueen, the queen at Private Eye.
Review and EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT! to follow...

Press Regulation: Le Petit Déjeuner Du Chien

The Royal Charter on press regulation is a mess, and an assault on the freedom of the press, cooked up in a hurry by politicians and the increasingly dodgy looking Hacked Off campaign.
It's all ever-so confusing though.
Perhaps it's meant to be? 
Fagburn has got nothing original to say on this cavalcade of nonsense, but the best explanation of why it is was this article by Private Eye's Francis Wheen in The Independent.
If The US Constitution And Karl Marx Can Agree On A Free Press, Why Can't We? 

Update: See also Mick Hume in Press Gazette on how the charter is a victory for state control and a defeat for press freedom. 

Michael Barrymore: V For Vendetta

From false allegations of sexual assault to the lurid coverage of the death of Stuart Lubbock in his swimming pool, the comedian has been the subject of an extraordinary volume of negative headlines. Looking back, he believes he was the victim of a press vendetta partly motivated by his aloofness towards the redtops (he rarely gave interviews) – and partly orchestrated by his former wife and manager, Cheryl, whom he acrimoniously divorced in 1998.He also suspects that newspapers owned by Rupert Murdoch's News International, whose parent company News Corp controls the rival Sky TV network, had a commercial motive in targeting him. "It smacks me that there was a definite conspiracy to destroy ITV's main brand at the time: 'We want to get rid of anything that works for them'.
"I never shy away from the fact that I'm an alcoholic and that I have had my problems, but I've never murdered anybody. I've never got up in the morning and thought I'll harm someone. I've just had an extraordinary sequence of events that have been on public display, that I've had no control over."
He adds: "[The press] killed Michael Barrymore. My [real] name is Michael Parker, but Michael Barrymore is dead. Although I have been a couple of times to the jumping-off point, I didn't kill myself. If I had, it would have completed the story."

Michael Barrymore profiled in the Independent - his first national newspaper interview in a decade, they claim.

There is much that is interesting/frightening in this article about what sounds like collusion between the Met and the News of the World after Stuart Lubbock's death - which post-Hackgate shouldn't surprise anyone.

I've always suspected they were just out to get Michael Barrymore whatever - though I think homophobia was the main spur, not TV rivalry.
It wasn't just the Murdoch titles that were hoping Barrymore's sorry story would have a really unhappy ending, and went in for the kill.
Michael's downfall, in a scandal that involved celebrity, gay sex, drugs and death, was too good for any of the tabloids to let go of.
Note: "On 22 September 2002, the Sunday Mirror pictured Barrymore on the front page next to the headline: You Are a Killer, without even the customary quotation marks."
Might I suggest a title for a TV documentary about all this - You've Been Framed.
The poor sod.

The Sun: Vile

Post Hackgate and post Leveson, it's now public knowledge the depths to which The Sun and News Of The World would sink to "dig up dirt" on public figures.
I put "dig up dirt" in inverted commas, because this often involved just outing gay men, by using all kinds of subterfuge, spying and blackmail. 
So why did they remain silent about this sleazeball?
And why the press hysteria now when it's too late to do anything?
Answers on a Radio 1 Roadshow signed postcard.

Leveson Inquiry: It's All Fun And Games Til...

"I had bought some toys for my then, at that time, young nieces in a toy shop which was called Fun and Games, and the person who informed me told me that this caused great anticipation and hope in the Observer investigation unit because they believed that perhaps Fun and Games was more than a conventional toy shop."

Alex Salmond on why he thinks The Observer hacked his bank account.

Journalism: Defining The Public Interest

"I'm wary about attempts to define it or to pin it down, partly because I think this could end up being restrictive, but mainly because our view of what the public interest entails changes quite dramatically over time and I think, as journalists, we should be willing to fight the public-interest battle on a case-by-case basis. For example, 50 years ago it was assumed that there was a public interest in knowing that an MP was gay, but little or no public interest in whether he drove home drunk, hit his wife or furnished his house using wood from non-sustainable sources. Now, obviously, it's the other way round. Society does – and should – constantly redefine what the public interest entails and journalism should be part of that."

Andrew Sparrow, quoted in The Guardian's Readers' Editor column. 

The Times: And On That Bombshell...

Who knew?!!

David Cameron: Buggered?

'Most of the public may not be following every seedy twist and sleazy turn of the Conservatives' relationship with the Murdoch empire with the same fascination as politicians and journalists – the government is rather relying on the hope that they aren't. But if all the public takes away from it is that ministers bent over double to lubricate the commercial ambitions of a hugely rich man – hoping, in the process, to serve their own electoral interests too – that is quite damaging enough.'

Andrew Rawnsley, The Observer.
Eh?
Have I just got a dirty mind or is this alluding to what I think it does?
If so it's not the first time the "buggered" metaphor has been used against David Cameron recently.
Maybe it's a public school thing?
The mind positively boggles. 

PS And here's a Steve Bell cartoon from 2010 of Cameron about to do some buggering. The good old days?

News Of The World: Keep On Digging

"Unbeknown to members of the Culture Committee, the NOTW established a team to investigate their private lives. For several days, as chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck would later tell Tom Watson, reporters searched for any secret lovers or extra-marital affairs that could be used as leverage against the MPs.
"Thurlbeck said: "All I know is that, when the DCMS [Department of Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee] was formed or rather when it got onto all the hacking stuff, there was an edict came down from the editor and it was find out every single thing you can about every single member: who was gay, who had affairs, anything we can use.
"Each reporter was given two members and there were six reporters that went on for around 10 days. I don't know who looked at you. It fell by the wayside; I think even Ian Edmondson [the news editor] realised there was something quite horrible about doing this..."

"Although the committee wanted Brooks to give evidence, its members, whose private lives News International had pored over, capitulated and decided not to summon her. On the day the committee met to discuss the issue, two Labour MPs close to Tony Blair, Janet Anderson and Rosemary McKenna, were absent. The gay Plaid Cymru MP Adam Price – who in September unexpectedly announced that he would leave Parliament at the next general election to take up a Fulbright scholarship in the US – claimed that the committee's members had been warned that if they had called Brooks, their private lives would be raked over.
"Mr Price said later: "I was told by a senior Conservative member of the committee, who I knew was in direct contact with executives at News International, that if we went for her, they would go for us – effectively they would delve into our personal lives in order to punish [us]."
 
From The Independent who are serialising Tom Watson's book Dial M For Murder.
Nice work lads.

Simon Hughes: What's The Story?

Much of the initial online coverage of Simon Hughes' appearance before the Leveson Inquiry has got the story arse-over-tit, using variations on the headline:
'Simon Hughes: The Sun used phone records to force me to come out'
Though obviously highly relevant to Leveson, this is hardly news.
It was known from the start that Simon Hughes had only "come out" because The Sun told him - blackmailed him, really - that they had phone records which showed that he'd phoned a gay chatline.
The Sun's front page story is missing from their online archive, but here's the interview with Trevor Kavanagh:
Hughes: I've had gay sex' "As Mr Hughes opened his heart during the interview he also admitted phoning a gay chat service Man Talk."
The Independent commented the following day; "It was the revelation that The Sun had learnt he had phoned a gay chat service - Man Talk - that finally persuaded Mr Hughes..."
Okay?
The real story today was something completely different.
It is that the Met were clearly aware at the time of Simon Hughes' outing that News International journalists were regularly illegally tapping into peoples' phones.
And that, rather than prosecute, they covered this up for five years.

Here is the Simon Hughes' Leveson transcript.

Gary Speed: Reading Between The Lines

An interesting and oblique leader column in The Times today about Gary Speed, Untold Story.*
And I think it's interesting precisely because it is so oblique.
It's basically wondering aloud if we wouldn't know what caused Speed's death if he hadn't died in the year of Hackgate and at the time of the Leveson Inquiry?
"In the past, tabloids would have hunted this story down. Doing this now, however, might not seem wise. The press is, after all, under investigation. And, because some newspapers have failed to make the public interest case for their stories, they have lost confidence in their ability to do so. Many newsrooms are also, rightly, questioning their methods. As a result, this story is being left alone.
"But the question has to be asked: is this reticence a good thing? Precisely because the case is such a hard one, Mr Speed’s death provides a good test of the arguments being made in the debate now taking place on press privacy."
And thus the questioning and speculation has taken place in the virtual world, on chatrooms, forums and blogs - Gary Speed was the most searched for name on Fagburn this year, by a very long margin.
The header to the leader asks; "Gary Speed’s death raises matters of public interest that need to be reported".
"Public interest" in the causes of the death of a sportsman - no matter how popular and succesful - seems a ridiculous claim.
But then The Times' sister papers The Sun and The News Of The World would often cry "public interest" to defend their most indefensible actions.
They add: "It is complicated because the extent of public interest in Mr Speed’s death is impossible to calculate until after reporting work has begun."
The Times also claim that they "know very little", but they would say that, wouldn't they?
The conflation of these lines makes Fagburn wonder what they've heard.
As does an earlier line; "Although the inquest into his death has not been concluded, it appears that Mr Speed committed suicide."
An inquest unconcluded after a month is unusual.
Note also the sense of doubt now over his "apparent suicide" (A phrase used by Private Eye two weeks ago).
The Times' leader concludes by applauding the Leveson Inquiry; "But it is critical, too, that we do not live in a society in which rumour takes the place of reporting, and misinformation triumphs over truth."
Much old media seem unaware - or aware and angry/jealous - that the internet is that you can not regulate the internet.
How interesting that The Times runs this leader at a time when many have concluded that the old media needs more regulating?
And if anyone is wondering what I know I must stress; I'm sorry, I haven't a clue.

PS If you want to see the current state of play of the many Gary Speed rumours just Google "Gary Speed rumours".
It doesn't quite seem to back up the Times' argument that at the time I type the two most popular search results are stories from The Daily Mail.

* It's behind the Times' paywall, of course - many local libraries will give people a code for this as part of their membership.

Update Saturday 24th December: Can anyone think of another time one newspaper has re-printed another's leader column verbatim, as The Daily Mail does here? Hmmm...

Hackgate: Pleased, Glad, Grateful

"I am pleased that News International have expressed their regret for the distress caused to me over phone hacking and have agreed substantial compensation.
"I'm glad, after a long period, this issue is finally resolved and I'm able to understand better the actions taken against me by the media.
"I'm grateful to the current team at News International for trying to put wrongs right and settle this honourably.
"Thanks also to Charlotte Harris, my lawyer, for bringing this to my attention in the first place. I will, of course, continue to assist the police and Leveson inquiry with their investigations."

Statement by "disgraced" former Liberal Democrat MP Mark Oaten.
No coverage of this says when he was hacked - in 2006, the time Oaten was outed by The News Of The World for having sex with rent boys - and engaging in acts "too disgusting to be described in a family newspaper" - or after?
News International also settled claims brought by Calum Best, Paul Dage, James Hewitt, Ulrika Jonsson, Michelle Milburn and Abi Titmuss.
Mr Oaten is currently chief executive of the International Fur Trade Association and is available for public speaking engagements.

Leveson Inquiry: Consenting Adults

“The problem is that if you could breach privacy merely because you disapproved of what someone was doing or it was not to your taste, you would be all over the place.
“Because sexual behaviour covers a huge variety of things, and when you start analysing it, what I might like someone else might hate, and vice-versa, so where would it stop?
“The rational thing is to say that provided it’s adults and provided it’s in private and provided everybody consents, genuinely consents, then it’s nobody else’s business.
“The idea that it’s in some way the function of tabloid journalists to pillory people whose taste may be unusual is completely outdated.
“If that had not disappeared, we would still be persecuting homosexuals, the gay community would be at risk, or anybody else.”

Max Mosley talking to the Leveson Inquiry this afternoon.
Well said.
It doesn't matter what you think about Mr Mosley, he - like anyone - should be free to pursue and perform whatever sexual acts he wants to without having them "exposed" in the press.
One would have hoped this was recognised as such a fundamental human right - the right to privacy - it didn't need saying.
Mosley also put up £3million for anyone who wanted to sue the News of The World over phone hacking, which I presume is how Chris Bryant could pursue his case against News International...

Stuart Walker Murder: No News

"One thing that is quickly obvious about Cumnock is its tolerance...
"According a range of gay people living in Cumnock, there is no sense of a dark, homophobic underbelly in the once prosperous mining town.
"Although reluctant to be named, not one gay person interviewed for this piece could remember having been bullied or targeted because of their sexuality..."

After the murder, anger of the town where gay barman died
Amelia Hill reports from Cumnock for The Guardian (Emphasis added), a story they trailed on the front page.
Most papers' websites today splashed the news; 'Gay barman Stuart Walker was quizzed over child sex crime claim' (Daily Mirror).
A story The Scottish Sun claims was their exclusive; "FIREBALL murder victim Stuart Walker was quizzed by cops over alleged indecency involving a 12-year-old boy after being accused by the lad's family."
Though the Scottish Sun added this qualifier from the police; "There is nothing to suggest at this time that the murder was connected to these allegations."
One wonders what they do know.
And how the press came to know this.
Well, after Hackgate we can have a pretty good guess who tipped the press off.
A report was filed, but police say the case had been recently closed.
There has been no new information about Stuart Walker or his murder in the London-based press - perhaps they've been too busy correcting their original version of events?
But the tabloids abhor this kind of news vacuum - what will they come up with over the weekend?
Scotland's Daily Record has been looking at this story from every possible angle.
According to the Record police have questioned one man about Stuart Walker's murder and taken a DNA sample from him.
They even published a photo of the man.
Insinuation after insinuation after speculation...
In the same paper; Friends tell how murdered barman Stuart Walker had 'time of his life' at party just hours before he was killed
At the time of writing Stuart's killer or killers are still unknown - to us.

Update Friday 6.30pm: Police have now arrested the 18 year-old man they were questioning about Stuart Walker's murder.
The Scottish Sun alleged earlier today; 'DETECTIVES were last night investigating if the savage killer of gay barman Stuart Walker was a secret lover gripped by a fit of rage' - Anonymous "source".
But please remember how much that has been written about this terrible case has turned out to be untrue or mere speculation...

Christopher Jefferies: Last Christmas

To an oblique question referring to the speculation about his sexuality he offers a brisk and emphatic response: “All I can say is that there was and there is absolutely no evidence for anybody to speculate in any direction on my sexuality.” Of the many references to him as a “bachelor” he remarks: “This is one of those examples of journalistic lazy thinking and the way in which people are encouraged to think in clichés.”

We may not have heard the last of Christopher Jefferies. He has been approached for comments on his experiences by the inquiry under Lord Justice Leveson which is examining the state of the press after the phone-hacking scandal, and he may yet be called as a witness.

He gives an indication of what he might say, and it is not surprising. He is no fan of the Press Complaints Commission, which he condemns as “woefully inadequate”, and he is not convinced that the press itself has learned much from what happened over New Year in Bristol.

He says he heard one editor, interviewed on radio after the libel case, refer to a “mistake”. “Yes,” he says, “it was a mistake. But that word seemed to me to be so inadequate to sum up the enormity of what happened – the crassness, the irresponsibility, the lack of judgment. Really if all that could be said was, ‘Oh yes we made a mistake,’ certainly standards need to be rather different.”

The conclusion of a brilliant - and chilling - interview with Christopher Jefferies in FT Weekend, talking about his crucifixion by the tabloids last Christmas.
Fuck.

The Independent: Everybody Loves Chris (Cont'd)

"On the whole, Parliament doesn't do sex very well.
"But next week when we return, we shall debate the proposals tabled by the Tory MP Nadine Dorries to make it more difficult for women to get abortions. Dorries is the woman who earlier this year proposed that, in order to cut teenage pregnancies, we should introduce abstinence education for girls only.
"Now, as a gay man, I'm no expert on getting pregnant. Indeed on one occasion when an ITV journalist asked me the hilariously inept question "what causes teenage pregnancy?", I looked perplexed before suggesting I thought it was something to do with sexual intercourse. "Nonetheless, I'm pretty certain that it takes two to make a baby, so if you want to tackle teenage pregnancy, you've got to deal with the boys as well..."

Chris Bryant, the Honourable Member for Hackgate-Under-Gaydar, debuts his new Political Life column for Saturday's Independent.
Does one bit about house prices, which some may find a bit too close to home from the double house flipper.
Good to see him there, Fagburn say.
But why didn't he sign up to a News International paper?
Surely they pay much better?

Will Young: Well Thick

"My sexuality wouldn't have stayed as quiet as it did if I was auditioning now.
"There's far more of an appetite to know about contestants' private lives.
"It was still madness around Pop Idol because it was growing so quickly, but much less than now."

Will Young, The Sun.

Will Young was outed by The Sun's sister paper The News Of The World
Why the fuck is he talking to these cunts?

Louis Walsh: Partners In Crime

'He cites Elton John as someone who commands respect. “He’s my hero in music. Absolutely. He called me recently when I had a big problem, and he didn’t have to do that. But he lifted up the phone and helped.”
'The “problem” is the allegation made in June by a 24-year-old man that Walsh groped him in a Dublin nightclub toilet. The man is said to have later admitted that he was lying, and it was soon evident that Walsh had no case to answer. Nevertheless, he says the fact that what he considers a libel was even published — and on the front page of The Sun — has damaged him psychologically. “It was the biggest nightmare in my life and I will never get over it. I’m still emotional, even talking about it now,” he says. You can tell that he is genuinely upset, so it is unfortunate that his expression — drawn, pained — is instantly familiar as the one that you’ll see when he has to decide whether to vote off some plucky kid on The X Factor. “I’m stressed out. I’m taking sleeping tablets and I’m really wary ... wary of everybody that approaches me now. I am scared. I am suing The Sun. I will never recover from what has happened to me. Never. But I’m trying to block it out and just get on with The X Factor,” he says. “That’s me being absolutely honest, and you can quote me on that.”

Louis Walsh is given a glowing profile in The Times.
The Sun's original story on the "gay sex assault allegations" appears to have disappeared into the ether.
Fagburn really hopes Louis does sue.
But why is he talking to The Sun's big sister paper, The Times?

The current Private Eye claims Queen drummer Roger Taylor recently ordered the cancellation of a Sunday Times serialisation of the book 40 Years Of Queen.
He still hasn't forgiven Rupert Murdoch's News International for The Sun publishing long-lens photos of Freddie Mercury when he was dying 20 years ago.
Fuck the lot of 'em.

Fagburn: No Homo News Day

Still hunting for something worth commenting on in today's papers and/or new media.
If there's nothing I'll see you tomorrow.
In the meantime here's an interview with Dan Savage on Salon.com, an interview with MediaLens on NLP about putting Hackgate in perspective, and Naomi Klein putting the riots in perspective in The Nation.
Enjoy!

• Image from Fashion Cats published by Vice Books. Out now!!!

Brian Paddick: No Joke

"If the purging of his old enemies from the Met over the phone hacking scandal gives him satisfaction, Paddick is not revealing it. He does not know for sure his phone was hacked, but lawyers have told him that News of the World private investigator Glenn Mulcaire had his name, address, mobile number and details of his ex-partner. Then there was a mysterious story in the Mirror about Paddick "boasting" to colleagues about a £3,000 watch. Paddick says he told no workmates about it, but had received voice messages from his bank about the transaction. And so he has joined a supergroup of complainants, including John Prescott and Labour MP Chris Bryant, behind a judicial review against the Met. Later this year the courts will rule on whether the Met failed to properly investigate phone hacking..."

Brian Paddick is profiled in The Guardian.
Lots on what Paddick would have done about the riots if he was still "Britain's top gay copper" - and, yes, he hopes to be the Lib Dems candidate for Mayor Of London again next year.
In 2008 he got 9.6% of first preference votes.
The interviewer appears to have found him a bit humourless and stuffy.
Funny that...

Update: The People claim Paddick has split up with his Norwegian "husband", Petter Belsvik.
Let's hope they haven't been hacking his phone.