Steve Bell on the closure of the News of the World

It's the Guardian wot won it.

What amazes me in all this is the huge difference yet again between the public and private sectors. It s completely unacceptable that the private sector is accountable and responsible to nobody.

Here's what I mean.........

When Greg Dyke was head of the BBC and accused the government of sexing up the Iraq War dossier. They got a couple of words wrong in the accusation and he had to leave because of reporting standards

And yet Murdoch and Brooks keep their jobs as if nothing has happened, and they've done a million times worse than Dyke did.

Surely now after this, Tory voters and right wing thinkers really have to wake up and realise they have to be very wary for what they wish for.

They really have to think hard about their ideaology, and ask themselves do they really really want a country that would be run by big business that is accountable to nobody.

How can they not see what a dangerous situation this would be in the future is frightening. It's not just about making numbers work and GDP and balance sheets. Surely the basic foundation should be built on acountability and responsability above all else.

To quote the old crone....

REJOICE!!

At the closing down of the Sun
And in the morning
We won't remember them.

Well done I now have a new respect for your paper and have switched from my old favorite the telegraph as your coverage has been brilliant, where do I subscribe?

Forgotton but not gone.

Steve: One of your best!!

TimMiddleton and oldbluey beat me to it. Sad for the current staff. I hope this doesn't save Rebekah Brooks. And watch out for the Sunday Sun.

I hope politicans from all sides take this opportunity to grind the influence of these low-lifes, repulsive, skin crawling, cretins, scum-whom-i-would-not-have-pint-with- into the ground?!!

Now is a once in a generation chance, for fucks sake, take it!

They allowed hacking into a dead child's phone and gave false hope to her parents. After these revelations (and more to come) I trust the readers and his other customers have reached a point where they will no longer buy into Murdoch.

Beware,
<http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2F81.21.76.62%2Fthesunonsunday.com%2Findex.html&h=fAQCzKdGN>

Camaroooon should follow but I worry for Millie

First time I've disagreed with Mr Bell as I think he's made the Red Devil too attractive. How Brooks could run articles mourning the deaths of dead soldiers whilst ruthlessly authorising the hacking into their bereaved families 'phones I can't comprehend. Today it's Coulson being arrested, when will it be Brooks, and what is keeping that woman in her job? Anyone know?

Murdoch's face.

Headline: GOTCHA!

The workers of NOTW are taking the flak to protect Brooks, how the hell can she sleep at night?

I think Murdoch's luck is running out!! We have to start taking charge and for those who rule us to be held to account.

dolf1n
8 July 2011 12:08AM
Well done I now have a new respect for your paper and have switched from my old favorite the telegraph as your coverage has been brilliant, where do I subscribe?

What a very nice comment to make, nice to meet you dolf1n.

letsskiptotheleft

Rebekah will sleep soundly! She is one of Murdoch's family. The family with no conscience. Money and Power is their aim in life. It must be controlled he has far too much influence over life in Britain. People complain about TV and Newspapers, Murdoh is likely to have influenced our media to a greater extent more than we care to know.

I'm unavailable to answer my phone at the moment, please leave a message and the News of the World will get back to you...

"The paper that hacks our boys"
That just about sums it all up

Nice one Steve ;o)

What the latest revelations highlight is that any and every member of the public, who has a friend or relative in harm's way, is potential tabloid fodder for David Cameron's sleaze-bag mates. Is this what is really meant by the Big Society?

Since he wants us all to "do our bit", perhaps he'd appreciate it if we just pop our mobile phones into a jiffy bag and post them to Downing Street. Then he can give Rebekah a really super present when he sits down to Christmas dinner with her this December.

Aye Daffers, of course you are right, she will sleep like a babe in her mothers loving arms... all the more depressing...

Down with the Murdocracy!

In Flanders Fields

by John McCrae, May 1915

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

The final verse reminds us not just of what they had to face but that its up to us to carry on that fight for justice - which in this day and age means that the likes of Murdoch and all he represents should not be allowed to destroy everything they and many after them thought they were fighting for - a fair, decent and honourable world to live in - something we are seeing gradually disappearing before our very eyes.

All of this was foreseen:

Mr. Praline: Now that's what I call a dead parrot.

Owner: No, no.....No, 'e's stunned!

@ bonds

What amazes me in all this is the huge difference yet again between the public and private sectors. It s completely unacceptable that the private sector is accountable and responsible to nobody.

Here's what I mean.........

When Greg Dyke was head of the BBC and accused the government of sexing up the Iraq War dossier. They got a couple of words wrong in the accusation and he had to leave because of reporting standards

And yet Murdoch and Brooks keep their jobs as if nothing has happened, and they've done a million times worse than Dyke did.

Surely now after this, Tory voters and right wing thinkers really have to wake up and realise they have to be very wary for what they wish for.

They really have to think hard about their ideaology, and ask themselves do they really really want a country that would be run by big business that is accountable to nobody.

How can they not see what a dangerous situation this would be in the future is frightening. It's not just about making numbers work and GDP and balance sheets. Surely the basic foundation should be built on acountability and responsability above all else.

exactly, but more Huttonesque enquiries? Let's see where they go with the BSkyB takeover. Good god I hope they are buried.

Bell - more eloquent than anything I've heard or read.

Coulson - take Dave with you.

ps Greg, we won't Miskiw.

Brilliant Steve.

These people have been guilty of polluting our country, and our values, for too long. They have peddled their own particular version of the moral high ground whilst behaving in the most despicable underhanded manner.

The position of power that they have grabbed, and kept, over the years has demonised the poor and lower levels of society. Meanwhile telling their working class readers how wonderful they all are, simply because they buy their rags.

Put them in the dock and let them be exposed for the vile people they really are.

So we've got Coulson being arrested for his role in this mess. One liar down, two to go - make the authorities bring them what the law dictates instead of playing this hideous charade of status and pleasantries.

Very sorry for the honest people at the paper who have lost their jobs though. It must suck being made unemployed because your boss allowed some extremely distasteful crimes to take place, and all while some of them escape without punishment. They need to bear the consequences of their actions too, no matter how many dinner parties they've had with Mr Cameron.

Good stuff.

Murdoch has no country, of course, nor do the neo-liberals he has championed and been supported by.

He has waved the flag to "support our boys" in every crusade to liberate their oil for our tax-cheating non-doms.

He's found his spiritual home in the USA, where it plays well to sell war on ragheads to flag-waving idiots, and nobody asks why Halliburton can get Fox to screen Thanksgiving Dinner feasts on US bases while Halliburton moves its corporate tax base from the US to Dubai.

How the fuck did it happen that Halliburton switched its corporate base from the US to Dubai just at the same time as Cheney and Rumsfeld were dictating US foreign policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, and dictating the outsourcing of essential support services to Halliburton?

How the fuck did we all get to support the concept of redistributing the wealth upwards, by taxpayer money to support the privatisation of wars none of us voted for?

How the fuck did we all get to support the concept of redistributing the wealth upwards, by taxpayer money to support the bailing out of banks who then shifted most of the new capital us taxpayers injected into their offshore subsidiaries in Dubai and Jersey?

The answer of course is Murdoch. He has lied to us all. He has poisoned the debate for so many years, demonised those of us on the left who understand the realities of power as well as he did.

Murdoch is scum. His neo-liberal contempt for society has helped to destroy so much of what so many of us used to cherish.

He should be hanged alongside Thatcher, while the rest of us wave flag plastic Union Jacks made in China.

The Guardian has had its Washington Post moment.

Congratulations for having the balls and tenacity to see this through - in the face of smear and innuendo from Ms Brooks herself, as well as Assistant Commissioner John Yates and the PCC who suggested in 2009 that:

the Guardian's stories did not quite live up to the dramatic billing.

You rock. All of you. And this cartoon rocks as well.

Well done, and keep up the good work.

Oops. Meant to link to the source of my allegations there...

MostUncivilised

Very sorry for the honest people at the paper who have lost their jobs though. It must suck being made unemployed because your boss allowed some extremely distasteful crimes to take place, and all while some of them escape without punishment.

@TimMiddleton

It's the Guardian wot won it.

Best opening comment I've seen for a time.

I've many criticism's of the Gruiniad, but they've followed this one with dogged determinism (as they did with Mr Tominson). None of this would have happened without the G. Fair play to them all. I wonder if this is the return of investigative journalism? We can but hope.

I was sent this today, which made me chuckle. Will the Met police follow NOTW?

Argh - so much for the preview button - I meant to say "Absolutely!"

Really time for bed now...

Fainche

Today it's Coulson being arrested, when will it be Brooks, and what is keeping that woman in her job? Anyone know?

Read this and also check out Marunchak, and the investigation into the murder of Daniel Morgan.

That depiction of Brooks is going to give me nightmares.
Truly macabre, I like it.

@BB - is there any truth in this article from a legal pov?

http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2011/07/07/is-murdoch-free-to-destroy-tabloids-records/

Shazzbot and I were asking this question earlier?

Great one Mr Bell. Rounds off a very entertaining and hopefull day.

BeautifulBurnout

Congratulations for having the balls and tenacity to see this through {...} You rock. All of you. And this cartoon rocks as well.
Well done, and keep up the good work.

Couldn't agree more and well done Guardian!! Drinks all round and hats off to you.

They say the biggest story of the day is the end of the NotW, but for me the biggest story of the day is that The Guardian has proved with this story that the British press is still capable of magnificent investigative journalism in the public interest.

goto
8 July 2011 12:51AM
Fainche

Today it's Coulson being arrested, when will it be Brooks, and what is keeping that woman in her job? Anyone know?

Read this and also check out Marunchak, and the investigation into the murder of Daniel Morgan.

The case of '87, Jonathan Rees and his £150k bung? Stinks to high heaven, ffs she got cautioned over that in '02 so they knew full well what she was up to. What happened to DS Cook?

@Fainche

Operation Weeting should get in their now and remove the servers.

James Murdoch reminds me of something out of Hellraiser. Mind you, so does Rupert. But is the portrayal of Wade/Brooks supposed to be a depiction of someone else? Looks like Myra Hindley. Maybe its just me.

Sorry Goto, keep on pressing send not preview and didn't thank you for the link.

*there ... I am not quite used to having the option of a Preview button yet

It makes you think as well ( well makes me think anyways, as I always look for the conspiarecy theory)

I was a astounded when they gave the go ahead to Murdoch for the full take over of SKY.

Here's why, i always believed it would never happen because it would be such a threat to the monarchy of this country. I'm a great believer the the monarchy and the establishment still have real power in this country. It always struck me as odd that the BBC and it's pro monarchy stance would be allowed to be hung ou to dry by Murdoch. His power as we all know and seen would of had the monarchy cowering in the corner, like the politicians and judges and even the police force.

I always thought call me Dave would have taken Murdochs money but never allow him this much power with the sky takeover, especially as he is a royal himself and related to the Queen.

Then the following happens..................

1)Vince Cable lets it slip or was set up and says that we are at war with Murdoch

2) Call me Dave has always distanced himself from the decision and played up to the Murdoch empire after taking all the cash from them.

3) Hunt delays the decision many times wenhe could of easily pushed it through.

4) Hunt then announces this week ( Mon) that it will go through as long as there is no new evidence.

5) Then right on cue all this evidence appears all at once right after that announcement.

6) Call me Dave still lays it cool and could never be accused of spoiling the deal, he walks away with all Murdochs money and still in his good books.

I'm a great believer in timing when it comes to politics,especially leaks to test the water and how the public will feel about the announcement. Policys are always timed with a programme on the same subject on the BBC on the same night or at least the same week.

If you look at how all this unfolded over the last 6 months if it was planned this was pure genius by call me Dave and the Tories, and that's something i'd thought i'd never say in my lifetime.

One thing is for certain the Monarchy will be dancing with joy in the palace tonight and i would imagine call me dave will get a call from his realtives tonight.

thea1mighty
8 July 2011 12:56AM
@Fainche

Operation Weeting should get in their now and remove the servers.

Surely the Police can seize any information relating to an ongoing enquiry? Not sure what the legal issues would be if anything was deliberately destroyed.

Fainche

Cook and his wife are believed to be preparing a legal action against the News of the World, Marunchak, Miskiw and Mulcaire. Operation Weeting is also understood to be investigating.

He must be around somewhere

5) Then right on cue all this evidence appears all at once right after that announcement.

If you think what this new evience was it was from a long time ago, they've been sitting on this until the time was right.

How can we rid the world of Murdoch and his cronies - for too long this alliance between politicians, business and the media has opened doors for the corrupt.

Steve rightly highlights the crime that has awakened more people to both the dangers and the vicious nastiness abroad in this country. How much more will be uncovered ?

An apology is not enough.

workers , yet again, thrown to the wolves to protect the bosses. despicable.

Wonder what the FP headline will be on the last edition of the NotW and the first SoS ?

Leni