politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The Hacking trial: Coulson guilty – Brooks cleared. What if

SimonStClare said:

Piers Morgan ✔ @piersmorgan

So happy for my friends Rebekah and Charlie, so sad for my friend Andy. A good man, who I will always support. #hackingverdicts

I wonder if Morgan is thinking 'There but for the grace of God go I.'

Coulson's mistake, which I'm sure he's aware of now, is that he went into politics and eventually into government.

If he'd just stayed an "ex-editor" like Piers Morgan he may well have got away with it...

Socrates said:

@RochdalePioneers

A good post. When Cameron employed Coulson, he must have known he was either (a) guilty in being involved or (b) hapless in not knowing what his immediate staff were doing.

It was obviously a huge negative in recruiting him, and Coulson's talents don't seem to be so much larger than any other spin doctor in making up for it. The obvious conclusion is that there were other advantages in recruiting Coulson, namely the good favour of Rupert Murdoch.

A quite bizarre post .... featuring that either

1. Cameron knew of Coulson's criminal activities and employed him regardless.

or

2. Cameron didn't know something that he didn't know and is therefore guilty of not knowing.

I tip my titfer to you Sir.

Chortle ....

BobaFett said:

@Socrates

The only fair way to judge this is subsidy as a proportion of passenger revenue. Read, and learn...

https://fullfact.org/factchecks/taxpayer_subsidy_train_network_nationalisation-3391

Yes, it shows that subsidy as a proportion of total revenue is now similar to the last years of British Rail.. and is falling.

Not again, Hodges off yet again... oh wait

The question is what to do about the poisonous shadow cabinet. There is an expectation that the Labour leader will carry out a reshuffle after David Cameron has done his, but this fish seems to be rotting from the very top of its head. Removing very senior Shadow Cabinet members could cause more trouble for Miliband than he thinks it is worth. Which may mean he has to work out how to put up with the poison, rather than removing it.


http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/coffeehouse/2014/06/theres-poison-in-the-shadow-cabinet-and-it-could-cost-ed-miliband-the-election/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=theres-poison-in-the-shadow-cabinet-and-it-could-cost-ed-miliband-the-election&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

One for Mr Eagles

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-06-24/karen-gillan-poses-naked-and-youve-stopped-reading-this-sentence

Richard_Nabavi said:

OK, a candidate who he doesn't want (and nor do Miliband and Clegg) might get appointed, but so what?

That would have been a viable way to play it, but by threatening exit Cameron has:
1) Turned it into a dry run for the renegotiation, which was supposed to be based on other leaders being prepared to make all kinds of concessions to prevent brexit.
2) Set himself up to look a twonk if they pick Juncker and he doesn't do anything.

The political danger is that backbenchers expect some kind of response, and get upset that it isn't forthcoming.

As far as the Coulson thing goes it probably won't particularly bother Tory MPs specifically, but the problem is if the media start talking like his first name is "Beleagered", which sets the stage for a revolt.

ToryJim said:

One for Mr Eagles

http://www.radiotimes.com/news/2014-06-24/karen-gillan-poses-naked-and-youve-stopped-reading-this-sentence

I've already seen her naked.

(She's great in the film "Not Another Happy Ending")

Morton's Fork is a time-honoured tool of government, and I see no reason why David Cameron shouldn't be impaled on it.

BobaFett said:

@Casino - similar as in much higher? The railway was privatised in 1994, when it was the most efficient system in Europe. As the chart shows.

Subsidy as a % of total revenue was between 40% and 50% during 1991-1994. In 2011 it looks to be below 40%.

AveryLP said:

The results in so far:

Count 1: conspiring to hack phones between 3 October 2000 and 9 August 2006

• Andy Coulson was found guilty on Count 1

• Rebekah Brooks was found not guilty on Count 1

• Stuart Kuttner was found not guilty on Count 1

Count 2: conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office

• The jury are yet to return verdicts on this charge faced by Coulson and Clive Goodman

Count 3: conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office

• The jury are yet to return verdicts on this charge faced by Coulson and Clive Goodman

Count 4: conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office

• Rebekah Brooks was found not guilty on Count 4.

Count 5: conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office

• Rebekah Brooks was found not guilty on Count 5.

Count 6: conspiracy to pervert the course of justice

• Rebekah Brooks and Cheryl Carter were found not guilty on Count 6.

Count 7: perverting the course of justice

• Rebekah Brooks, Charlie Brook and Mark Hanna were found not guilty on Count 7.

I bet Rebekah will throw a tremendous party in celebration of her not guilty verdicts.

I don't suppose those of us in her mini PB fan club will get an invite.

JackW said:

dyedwoolie said:

RochdalePioneers said:

MarkHopkins said:

vs Iraq.

Is Iraq more serious than Coulson? Absolutely. But politically the difficulty was always that the Tories gave Blair and the war their full support. Hard to turn it party political when both sides thought it was a good idea. And Blair hasn't committed a crime.

And the bad judgement of Blair (negated by the bad judgement of the Tories supporting him) negates the bad judgement of Cameron how?

Coulson was vetted. Cameron either knew enough to know that at best believing Coulson's assurance was high political risk. Or he chose to ignore all the warnings so that he could say "how was I supposed to know". Either way his judgement is appalling.

many would argue Blair has committed heinous crimes and should stand trial for it.
Lying to secure the support of IDS is a minor matter compared to hundreds of thousands of deaths.

That's somewhat wide of the mark.

With notable exceptions Conservatives were critical of Blair for not acting earlier, even before the "dodgy dossier" appeared.

To be fair, the Tory Party had lost it mind around the period of 2001, 2002 and 2003...

Socrates said:

JackW said:

Socrates said:

@RochdalePioneers

A good post. When Cameron employed Coulson, he must have known he was either (a) guilty in being involved or (b) hapless in not knowing what his immediate staff were doing.

It was obviously a huge negative in recruiting him, and Coulson's talents don't seem to be so much larger than any other spin doctor in making up for it. The obvious conclusion is that there were other advantages in recruiting Coulson, namely the good favour of Rupert Murdoch.

A quite bizarre post .... featuring that either

1. Cameron knew of Coulson's criminal activities and employed him regardless.

or

2. Cameron didn't know something that he didn't know and is therefore guilty of not knowing.

I tip my titfer to you Sir.

Chortle ....

I think you misread my sentence. I wasn't claiming that Cameron knew one of (a) or (b), he just knew that either (a) or (b) must be true.

Gibberish.

How might Cameron know that option (b) might be true when he didn't know of it in the first place ?

Cameron has already come out and issued an apology, just as he pledged he would do a few years ago if it proved that Coulson had not been truthful with him.

Its when you get Gordon Brown trying to avoid issuing an apology over the McBride scandal for nearly a week that a PM will tend to run into trouble. And this was a scandal which happened within Downing Street and under Brown's Premiership.

edmundintokyo said:

MikeSmithson said:

Socrates said:

It's fairly amusing Tories on this thread repeatedly remark that no-one cares, when they went on and on and on about Rennard, Huhne etc.

Good point and my guess is that in the medium term the impact will be the same. Almost none.

Agree, provided Cameron:
1) Survives the week.
2) Doesn't feel the need to say or do something impactful in order to survive the week.

Be very interesting to be able to revisit some of the quotes on Rebekah Brooks made by Tom Watson and Ed.M when all this blew up in 2011. She was certainly defamed and portrayed as the most awful wicked witch and David Cameron was stridently abused for refusing to denounce her I the Show Trial that went on in Parliament at that time. I would like to think that the Watson's of this world might apologise as well but I shan't be holding my breath.

"Tom Watson has far more to apologise for"

I tend to assume the worst of Mr Watson. I think it's because he reminds me of Gerald Campion (aka Billy Bunter), but I suppose that's being fattist.

My final contribution for the afternoon.

Cash out on Sri Lanka now.

Yorkshire's Joe Root is saving England.

I've backed Costa Rica to win today, I've also backed Uruguay and Italy to win their match, I don't foresee a draw.

''That would be ditching his own policy, which would have failed, and instead adopting the policy of an opposition party. ''

If Juncker is appointed and reform dead in the water, I don;t see what choice Cameron has. He wouldn't make a terribly convincing skeptic, perhaps, but skeptic he would have to become.

BobaFett said:

@Casino - similar as in much higher? The railway was privatised in 1994, when it was the most efficient system in Europe. As the chart shows.

You must be looking at a different chart to me. There are only two I can see in that fact-check article, to which both you and I have posted a link. They both show that subsidy levels as a % of total revenue is down compared to 1994.

In case you missed it, quoting directly from the article: "The latest figures (October 2012) from the Office for Rail Regulation show that government subsidies to the rail industry totalled £3.901 billion in 2011/12, or 35% of total industry revenue."

From the caption beneath the chart: "This picture shows that, in the last few years of British Rail’s existence, the proportion of government subsidy to passenger revenue was between 40 and 50 per cent."

So, sorry, but that's a decrease.

TheScreamingEagles said:

My final contribution for the afternoon.

Cash out on Sri Lanka now.

Yorkshire's Joe Root is saving England.

I've backed Costa Rica to win today, I've also backed Uruguay and Italy to win their match, I don't foresee a draw.

I'll stick with SL....

volcanopete said:

There is an apparent lack of self-proclaimed profundity in Cameron's apology over Coulson.It was not "profound" in the sense that it did not show wisdom that is neither recondite or abstruse.Furthermore,there was no intellectual depth; penetrating knowledge or keen insight to justify such a claim of profundity.In fact,quite the opposite is in appearance,one which confirms Ed's view that Cameron lacks his intellectual self-confidence.
All in all an apology of sorts but a "profound" one,no.

Profound has two meanings.

In the context of a "profound apology", which is an expression of an emotional state or quality, it means "very great" or "intense". This is the sense in which Cameron used the term "profound apology".

The secondary meaning of profound, when used to describe a person or statement, is "showing great insight or knowledge" does not apply in the context used by Cameron.

JackW said:

The Prime Minister accepted Coulson's assurances and the vetting process and gave him a second chance.

Cameron was deceived by someone he trusted. An unenviable situation which I'd hope few of us should have the misfortune to suffer.

And this shows that Cameron's political judgement is sound because......?

Root gone.

taffys said:

''That would be ditching his own policy, which would have failed, and instead adopting the policy of an opposition party. ''

If Juncker is appointed and reform dead in the water, I don;t see what choice Cameron has. He wouldn't make a terribly convincing skeptic, perhaps, but skeptic he would have to become.

Hence the short-term fire risk. It probably won't result in the leadership going up in flames at the end of the week, but you never know...

Socrates said:

JackW said:

Gibberish.

How might Cameron know that option (b) might be true when he didn't know of it in the first place ?

Cameron knew that phone hacking had gone on at News of the World when he recruited Coulson. Coulson had already resigned from NotW over it.

I think we are in danger of misremembering what was known at the time – If memory recalls, the NoW Royal correspondent was convicted of hacking the princes’ phones and subsequently jailed. As a result Coulson resigned, however the police investigation at the time found no evidence to suggest Coulson was involved or that ‘hacking’ was widespread within the NoW.

If anything, the police investigation gave Coulson a clean bill of health, as the ‘Motorman inquiry’ had not been published and in fact had been sat on for several years.

peterbuss said:

Be very interesting to be able to revisit some of the quotes on Rebekah Brooks made by Tom Watson and Ed.M when all this blew up in 2011. She was certainly defamed and portrayed as the most awful wicked witch and David Cameron was stridently abused for refusing to denounce her I the Show Trial that went on in Parliament at that time. I would like to think that the Watson's of this world might apologise as well but I shan't be holding my breath.

It's safe to say Mrs Brooks had the "forces from hell" well and truly unleashed upon her by "you know who" and his associates.

But she survived.

What a woman!

Anyone not following Richard M. Nixon on Twitter, it's consistently really good.

.@Number10gov Regarding Coulson, you are not just "sorry." You are betrayed. Here is a nefarious fellow who lied to you.

fitalass said:

Ed Miliband has now spoken on the issue. Unfortunately for him, Ed Balls couldn't resist taking a pot shot at Osborne in the Commons which opened up the door to the Damien McBride scandal, and now he too has waded in.

But he can eat a tomato salad with his toes, so vote Ed

Richard_Nabavi said:

taffys said:

If Juncker is appointed and reform dead in the water, I don;t see what choice Cameron has. He wouldn't make a terribly convincing skeptic, perhaps, but skeptic he would have to become.

We won't be negotiating with Juncker (or whoever gets the post). We will be negotiating with other EU countries, particularly Germany. The appointment of Juncker, if it happens, might be a sign that they are going to play hardball; well, two can play at that game. Assuming we get a Conservative government, our EU friends will have to decide if they want to make an effort to keep us in the EU, or not. Until such time as we actually do that negotiation, we won't know what the deal will be, but we do know that it won't be Juncker whom we have to do a deal with.

Agreed, in practice Juncker has very little to do with it, and if he did he'd actually be exactly the kind of pragmatic conservative fixer you needed in place to cut the necessary deals. The short-term catch (and again, this is only short-term - if everyone keeps their heads for a few weeks the whole thing will be fish and chip wrappers, as will the Coulson story) is that Cameron has been messaging the opposite.

RochdalePioneers said:

JackW said:

The Prime Minister accepted Coulson's assurances and the vetting process and gave him a second chance.

Cameron was deceived by someone he trusted. An unenviable situation which I'd hope few of us should have the misfortune to suffer.

And this shows that Cameron's political judgement is sound because......?

It shows that for the best of reasons that the Prime Minister made a mistake and on this issue his judgement was misplaced.

Cameron will be judged in the round come next May but I'd be willing to venture that matters other than Coulson will weigh on the mind of the voters that day.

BobaFett said:

TheWatcher said:

philiph said:

RochdalePioneers said:

MarkHopkins said:

vs Iraq.

Is Iraq more serious than Coulson? Absolutely. But politically the difficulty was always that the Tories gave Blair and the war their full support. Hard to turn it party political when both sides thought it was a good idea. And Blair hasn't committed a crime.

And the bad judgement of Blair (negated by the bad judgement of the Tories supporting him) negates the bad judgement of Cameron how?

Coulson was vetted. Cameron either knew enough to know that at best believing Coulson's assurance was high political risk. Or he chose to ignore all the warnings so that he could say "how was I supposed to know". Either way his judgement is appalling.

Bad judgement based on information that was less than economical with the truth, it bore no resemblance to the truth.

If a crime was committed, then AC & TB are guilty in spades in relative terms. (where AC = Campbell and TB = Blair).

Cameron believing Coulsons innocence, Coulsons crimes compared to going to war on a false prospectus.

I think I can work out the serious issue there.

Deaths as a result of hacking, versus deaths as a result of the 'dodgy' dossier and subsequent war.

Sorry but that is the ultimate PBTory "yeah but whatabout?" post. I happen to think Coulson gate will make no difference to VI, but bringing in the Iraq War decision into this is sheer desperation. Suck it up.

It's Labours dirty little crime, always worth bringing it up until those responsible have paid the price and Labour an electoral price. Blair, Campbell and chief death funder Brown behind bars would be a start.

philiph said:

edmundintokyo said:

Richard_Nabavi said:

taffys said:

If Juncker is appointed and reform dead in the water, I don;t see what choice Cameron has. He wouldn't make a terribly convincing skeptic, perhaps, but skeptic he would have to become.

We won't be negotiating with Juncker (or whoever gets the post). We will be negotiating with other EU countries, particularly Germany. The appointment of Juncker, if it happens, might be a sign that they are going to play hardball; well, two can play at that game. Assuming we get a Conservative government, our EU friends will have to decide if they want to make an effort to keep us in the EU, or not. Until such time as we actually do that negotiation, we won't know what the deal will be, but we do know that it won't be Juncker whom we have to do a deal with.

Agreed, in practice Juncker has very little to do with it, and if he did he'd actually be exactly the kind of pragmatic conservative fixer you needed in place to cut the necessary deals. The short-term catch (and again, this is only short-term - suck it up for a few weeks and the whole thing will be fish and chip wrappers, as will the Coulson story) is that Cameron has been messaging the opposite.

Which if you are a little Machiavellian may be a good ploy by Cameron to indicate to the other leaders he will continue to battle for his view to be upheld and will not cave in if there is the prospect of defeat.

lol

GIN1138 said:

peterbuss said:

Be very interesting to be able to revisit some of the quotes on Rebekah Brooks made by Tom Watson and Ed.M when all this blew up in 2011. She was certainly defamed and portrayed as the most awful wicked witch and David Cameron was stridently abused for refusing to denounce her I the Show Trial that went on in Parliament at that time. I would like to think that the Watson's of this world might apologise as well but I shan't be holding my breath.

It's safe to say Mrs Brooks had the "forces from hell" well and truly unleashed upon her by "you know who" and his associates.

But she survived.

What a woman!

Tom Watson is far less pleasant than he looks.

Ed Miliband ‏@Ed_Miliband · 3 mins
My thoughts today are most importantly with the victims of phone hacking who suffered terrible intrusion into their privacy.

Oh please Ed...it's not like they've died!!

Slackbladder said:

Ed Miliband ‏@Ed_Miliband · 3 mins
My thoughts today are most importantly with the victims of phone hacking who suffered terrible intrusion into their privacy.

Oh please Ed...it's not like they've died!!

Many of them are however celebrities. He knows what he's doing.

Slackbladder said:

Ed Miliband ‏@Ed_Miliband · 3 mins
My thoughts today are most importantly with the victims of phone hacking who suffered terrible intrusion into their privacy.

Oh please Ed...it's not like they've died!!

Lol, he said eating a bacon sandwich garnished with the flowers he forgot he was being photographed buying for his wife.
This perfidious message listening to, it's intolerable!

Slackbladder said:

Ed Miliband ‏@Ed_Miliband · 3 mins
My thoughts today are most importantly with the victims of phone hacking who suffered terrible intrusion into their privacy.

Oh please Ed...it's not like they've died!!

My thoughts today are with the next 5 YouGovs

edmundintokyo said:

Slackbladder said:

Ed Miliband ‏@Ed_Miliband · 3 mins
My thoughts today are most importantly with the victims of phone hacking who suffered terrible intrusion into their privacy.

Oh please Ed...it's not like they've died!!

Many of them are however celebrities. He knows what he's doing.

Going for the serial shagging and drug taking vote?

BobaFett said:

@Scrapheap

I'm sure Dan Hodges is run by some sort of algorithm, endlessly shouting into a vacuum a la the Chinese across the straits to Taiwan. You can fade him in and out and when you return he'll be saying the same three things as he was a week, a month, a year ago. A beacon of consistency in a dangerously changing world.

Hmm, did Hodges emerge about the same time tim disappeared?

Slackbladder said:

edmundintokyo said:

Slackbladder said:

Ed Miliband ‏@Ed_Miliband · 3 mins
My thoughts today are most importantly with the victims of phone hacking who suffered terrible intrusion into their privacy.

Oh please Ed...it's not like they've died!!

Many of them are however celebrities. He knows what he's doing.

Going for the serial shagging and drug taking vote?

The David Tennant serial luvvie vote

How about the innocent of Syria, Mr. Miliband, abandoned by you to a fate far worse than phone hacking. Thoughts today not with them?

My thoughts right now are with multi-millionaire's like Steve Coogan, Hugh Grant and Sienna Miller.

What a life of tragedy and toil the poor loves must have to endure.

Mr. Fett, quite a few people (me, for example) said that whilst the photos were clearly not very flattering they also didn't matter a jot, or words to that effect.

When referring to a matter of judgement, I'd rather have Cameron's misjudgement on a matter of personnel, than Blair's over Iraq's, or Miliband's political game-playing over Syria.

A keyboard warrior who has recently decamped from PB must have very itchy fingers.

I would have liked to have read his comments on DC and AC...