Dacre and Desmond cock-a-hoop?

Today the Prime Minister, David Cameron, announced that a strict a new opt-in to Internet porn system is to be installed on every new computer.

Naturally the Daily Mail and Mail Online, long-time campaigners against family-unfriendly porn, wanted to show their appreciation that at last 'Something is to be Done About IT'!

The irony, nay hypocrisy, of Paul Dacre''s triumphant whoops of joy was not lost on most of those who saw the Daily Mail's headline this morning:

 What was it which drew so many loud guffaws? This:-

Is Paul Dacre really welcoming a move to block his daily 'Sidebar of Shame'?

We await a comment from Express' and Star's owner, Richard Desmond, with baited breath..... and a foul-language filter!

Update:

• Would the Daily Mail Website Fall Foul of the Online Porn Filters it has Championed? - New Statesman
• Cameron Refuses to Back Ban on Sun's Page 3 Topless Images - Guardian 
• Can we Trust the State to Censor Porn? - Spectator Blogs 

Sun whistleblower reveals Rupert Murdoch not so humble!

On the 19th of July, 2011, Rupert Murdoch told the Culture Media and Sport Parliamentary Select Committee that that day was 'the most humble day of my life'. Not an altogether convincing performance, but unforgettable all the same:

(Video from ITN)

Tonight, Channel 4 News' Andy Davies, in conjunction with the investigative team at Exaro

revealed:

Earlier this year, in a meeting with a group of Sun journalists (most of whom had been arrested by police for allegedly paying public officials, some of them police officers, for information), Rupert Murdoch had been secretly recorded by one of those present.

The full story can be read on the Channel 4 News website, including a video clip of MP Tom Watson and media commenter Steve Hewlett discussing the revelations with Jon Snow.

What we hear gives the lie to the 'humble' description Rupert Murdoch gave of himself and shows his true attitude towards the police and the misdemeanours of which his journalists have been accused.

Further coverage of tonight's events can be found by clicking the links below:

Guardian
Channel 4 News
Mirror
Financial Times (£)
Telegraph
Evening Standard
ITV News
The Times (£)

As Tom Watson told Jon Snow, it is to be hoped that the audio recording and transcript are immediately passed to the police!

Updated links to media coverage, July 4th:

• Labour MPs Urge Police to Consider Charging Murdoch After Secret Tape is Released - New Statesman
• Rupert Murdoch Caught on Tape Branding Phone-hacking Police 'Totally Incompetent' - Mail Online  
• UK Broadcaster Says Murdoch Criticised Hacking Investigators - New York Times
• BBC News - Rupert Murdoch Secret Tapes: News Corp Defends Head
• Rupert Murdoch Revealed - Tape Exposes the Media Mogul's Real Opinions - Guardian

Roy Greenslade writes:

• Law firm Linklaters bites back! : Linklaters Criticised  by Sun Journalists in Secret Murdoch Recording - The Lawyer
• Murdoch Tape: News Corp Boss Vows to Hit Back Over Rebekah Brooks Raid - Guardian
• The Rupert Murdoch Tapes - What We Have Learned - Guardian 

Extract:

The investigation of News Corp is not, as Murdoch claims, about "paying cops for news tips": it is about systemic corruption. The deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan police at the time, Sue Akers, explained early last year: "The cases we are investigating are not ones involving the odd drink, or meal, to police officers or other public officials. Instead, these are cases in which arrests have been made involving the delivery of regular, frequent and sometimes significant sums of money to small numbers of public officials by journalists."

One of the decisive moments consolidating Murdoch's relationship to the Metropolitan police was the use of police as armed strikebreakers in the 86-87 Wapping dispute. Margaret Thatcher herself had assured Murdoch that the police would be at his disposal, and their collusion in breaking the strike required an operation costing £14m.
As the Guardian journalist Nick Davies pointed out, this was never simply a matter of criminality. It was always about power. The networks of collusion, bribery and complicity that began to be established in the Thatcher era are beginning to be unravelled.

• Murdoch Aware of Police Payments From Day 1 - The Age, Business Day. (Australia)
• Rupert Murdoch Caught Saying Tabloid Wrongdoing 'Next to Nothing' - Hamilton Spectator

Look behind you, Mr. Kavanagh!

Isn't that the @GuidoFawkes blog?

This morning's edition of The Sun carries the latest volley in its unremitting personal onslaught against Lord Justice Leveson as well as the ongoing process of negotiation towards a workable system of press regulation.

Trevor Kavanagh's piece follows hot on the heels of one written in a similar vein in the Mail on Sunday this weekend.

Mr. Kavanagh, in a typically hyperbolic and disingenuous tone, begins:

Do these 'close pals' actually exist? Would they really confide in the editor of a paper owned by Rupert Murdoch, the man partly responsible (allegedly) for the need for the Leveson Inquiry in the first place?

The article goes on to repeat several instances (thrice denied by Lord Justice Leveson himself) of perceived impropriety and incompetence which have been used by various newspapers recently to disparage Lord Justice Leveson, his report and the credibility of the Inquiry as a whole. 

But I have a warning for Mr. Kavanagh and the other editors and owners of the press who are trying to manipulate politicians, as well as their readers, into accepting the status quo of press regulation:-

A cartoon by Gerald Scarfe

To continue your panto theme: it was owners, editors and journalists who rubbed the lamp and allowed the genie to escape.

No amount of fruitless, Widow Twankey-like huffing and puffing will stuff it back from whence it came! It's out for good.....