Another One Bites The Slime
The CBC is carrying the latest from Slime Wars: The Fall of the Empire
Andy Coulson, who resigned as an aide to British Prime Minister David Cameron in January under pressure over allegations of hacking during his tenure as editor of the News of the World, will be arrested on Friday, according to a report.
The Guardian said that Coulson, who had been Cameron’s communications director, has been informed by police that he will be arrested over suspicions that he knew about, or had direct involvement in, the hacking of mobile phones during his editorship.
Coulson was contacted on Thursday by detectives and asked to present himself at a police station in central London on Friday, where he will be told that he will be formally questioned under suspicion of involvement in hacking, The Guardian reported
The BBC also reported that Coulson had been told he would be arrested. Police declined to comment on the reports.
Coulson, who was editor of The News of the World between 2003 and 2007, has always denied any knowledge of the hacking.
One wonders how they managed to publish a newspaper with so many senior people who didn’t know what was happening in the news room.
Follow the money – who authorized payments to the people doing the hacking?
6 comments
I can only hope that the trail leads right to Rupert Murdock, not that I would expect any *justice* even if it does. *shrug* Still…
As with the BP disaster, a few will take the fall, the rest will be left. Andy Coulson is the first casualty, and Rebekah Brooks (Murdock’s UK CEO at the time) may be next. I doubt it will go much farther than that. Still… public pressure is growing, and not just in the UK.
Guardian: Missing Milly Dowler’s voicemail was hacked by News of the World
News of the World phone hacking: Police review all child abduction cases
NewsCorp should be charged if the charges against News of the World are upheld. Especially since Murdoch has been instrumental in having Corporations have the rights of people. Though of course the adage *you can’t have it both ways* only applies to the poor and stupid, as does *the Law*. *shrug*
Huh. He coulda used the Ronald Reagan defense — “I don’t recall” — or the Bill Clinton defense — “it all depends on what your definition of the word ‘is’, is”. Instead he chooses to use the Sgt. Shultz defense — “I know no-think!”. Makes him look like an utter buffoon. Somehow I doubt an utter buffoon could have managed to run a newspaper for four years or be the PM’s communications director if he was an utter buffoon, so he’s decidedly straining credulity here…
– Badtux the Evasions Penguin
The Sergeant Shultz defense is about to cause major problems for News Corpse. I’ll be writing about it in a new post.
Some people think that Rebekah Brooks is being used as a fuse to protect the charge from hitting the Murdochs. The theory will go that it was her job to run things, and they trusted her to do her job. James and Rupert will express great shock and sadness when she is led away in handcuffs.
The whole thing is going to get a lot, lot worse. The Met has finally gotten its finger out of its arse and has arrested the vile little spiv Andy Coulson (Brooks’s deputy and then her successor at NOTW) mainly in respect of corruption payments to police officers.
Coulson has been offered as the sacrificial lamb but he must know where some of the proverbial bodies are buried and if he is going to go down he will be slinging as much shit around as he can. Some of that wil stick on Brooks and the Murdochs
Worse still is the revelation that a News International exec deleted millions of emails when the hacing scandal restated in January. Perverting the course of justice is what that is called here
But perhaps even worse still is news that Renault has pulled all advertising from the Sun the Times and the Sunday Times. I would be very surprised if Renault is alone. Now this could be a solo act but if there is a huge flight of revenue from these titles…..
Brooks is going to fall soon I hope, Even if she doesn’t then it is a good bet that Newscorp’s plan to take full control of BSkyB may be fucked
I just wrote about the Sky deal falling apart, but the loss of advertising from the other papers is a real blow. News Corp may have to withdraw from the British market altogether to stop the losses and this is a terrible time to try to sell shares.
There is an asset carried on the books of corporations called “good will”. It is essentially a value placed on the reputation of the corporation, and anything associated with Murdoch is losing value in that account.
Yeah, I assume that Coulson was ‘compensated’ for his resignation to protect the higher ups, but I doubt he expected to be arrested. Being arrested as part of a police corruption probe is, in many ways, almost as bad as hacking victims’ families, because the police tend to react badly when their own are guilty of wrong-doing. They take it personally, and want to put the majority of the blame on outsiders. It also brings in another agency to investigate.
Right now, Ofcom is saying it doesn’t want to interfere with other investigations, so its consideration of approval is probably months, if not years down the road. Essentially, the announcement puts the BSkyB deal on hold, and News Corp could fade away in the mean time.
Brooks will be sacrificed to save the Murdochs, but I doubt it will work, or convince the regulators. She is entirely too close to them to make any claims of their innocence plausible.