Keep Calm and Womble On

The Leveson hearing continues to Bore On for Britain, with live coverage on both BBC News 24 and Sky News, for heaven’s sake. As if anyone apart from Guido Fawkes and the usual politico-journo junkie suspects are really interested in watching minute-by-minute coverage from that sweaty oak-panelled room in the Royal Courts of Justice, where the testimony can hardly be heard above the ticking of the lawyers’ taximeters.

I’ve taken up watching Russia Today and Al-Jazeera to get my afternoon’s news fix. At least you get an idea that something important is happening outside in the real world.

It’s not as though we haven’t been here before. Whatever Leveson decides, we know what’s going to happen. Indeed, I’ve tried to interest Laurence Rees in a blockbuster TV series, tentatively titled The Calcutt Committee: A Lesson From History, but so far he’s not answered a single one of my emails. Maybe it’s because I couldn’t bring Nazis into it in a meaningful way.

Still, it’s good to see Fleet Street’s Finest have got their heads down and are still digging up the Stories That Really Matter:

W T Stead, eat yer heart out. Now this is a scoop!

Full story here.

Phone hacking: The Revolution devours its children

David Leigh...into the Battle of Hackistan

Excellent comment from Fleet Street Blues about how David Leigh, investigations editor of The Guardian, is now in the frame for his self-admitted hacking into a phone. Oh, says the Guardian, between mouthfuls of humble pie, it wasn’t for “tittle-tattle”. It was for “investigating corruption and bribery”. Fair enough. Still illegal, though. Tittle-tattle, corruption- and bribery-busting, intellectual-profiles: if the means by which you gather these things are illegal, sorry, you’re nicked my beauty. What is it about the word “illegal” you up-yourself ponces do not understand?

As FSB said way back when this whole scandal first broke, journos have long used illegal, immoral and sometimes criminally dangerous ways to get stories. Yes…and? If they got away with it, well, they got a front page splash, maybe a promotion or a bonus and a round of drinks in the pub. If they got caught, they got hauled up before the beak fined or, rarely but occasionally, chucked in the nick, and when got out, a round of drinks in the pub.

Let’s not forget what has been behind the holier-than-thou stance of the Guardian and the BBC on this matter: the chance for a good round of Murdoch-whacking.

The Guardian has been caught out with its hypocritical knickers down with Leigh (I see Guido has another pop today), and I suspect there may be others to scurry blinkingly out into the limelight from Rusbridger Cathedral.

Then there is the BBC. Is it whiter than white? I suspect not, but I do not know. What I do suspect is that if someone manages to lift Auntie’s skirt, there will probably be an almighty stink, most probably from the direction of Panorama. I thought it odd of the Beeb to have Peston covering this whole affair. I mean, the Business Editor? Strange call: the US and EU economies are going to hell in a handcart, but never mind that, you haul in your Business Editor to cover a story about media phone hacking.

What’s that all about?

NOTW: Guido says never say goodbye (sort of)

Isn’t the internet wonderful? It’s amazing the links it throws up, seemingly randomly, but often to an extent you wonder whether there’s some evil Blofeld-type mind behind it, pulling the strings of the Matrix in the devious way his fluffy white cat might play with a mouse.

For instance, Guido’s story tonight on the cover of the last edition of  the NOTW there was carried an ad for this book on its right hand sidebar:

Uhhh, cue The Communards, sort of

Never Say Goodbye, eh? According to the Irish Independent:

Former journalist Linda Kavanagh’s experience as a writer and observer comes through in this, her fifth novel, exploring the self-perpetuating nature of bullying and the lasting effect it can have on young lives. Alternating between past and present, Never Say Goodbye draws the reader into a web of deceit and suspense. It keeps the pages turning right up to the denouement, which comes as an unexpected and horrific climax. If you are a fan of Jodi Picoult, this one’s for you.

I thought Staines had built up a successful mega-business selling ad space on websites? He hasn’t just been using Google ads like the rest of us nerds all along, has he? But maybe Guido has actually specifically placed this ad on this page with this story? If so, what exactly is he trying to tell us?