God, those NoW journos were utter scum weren't they?

[headfairy]

apparently by deleting Milly's messages her family still had some hope that she might still be alive

chipstick - like the revolting Sally Bercow :o :o Purrfect

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

Journalists/MPs/Police ....

Oh dear looks like the guardian got it a little bit wrong re Gordon Brown.

Hmm Hammy- I think you're probably right in that I can;t imagine GB didn;t have the ability to do anything or the knowledge but I do know wrt to kids being dx'd that you just become a passive absorber of information, you kinda hand your souls over to the powers and question little. If you're wise anyhow; I didn't and it doesn;t endear you to your professional team tbh.

With someone like GB I think it's very ahrd to pull apart the eprsonal- from which point I can see why he would be too caught up to do anything- from the politician who ahs had to show some media savvy to have the role at all.

I just subscribed to Private Eye for a year, just so I can get next week's issue (I'm in Belgium). Can't wait.

Celia Walden's book is total crap. I heard the abriged version for Radio 4 and couldn't believe they'd recorded it. Full of utter bollox, hearsay, speculation and terrible portraiture of Best and his family. If the Best family don't sue, I'd be mightily surprised.

Another sidenote, but I was really pissed off to hear about Johann Hari. He's be such a great commentator and journalist and he's a very stupid bloke for cribbing those quotes. He's talented, so why did he bother cheating? (supossing it's all true)

sayanything so did I, my sister gets a copy so I normally gets hers when she is done but she has been hogging them recently! Anyway, it is money well spent - the Eye has been brilliant in reporting this for years. I suspect the police just need to trawl through the old issues, they will get far more than what News International is prepared to give them!

ah, so this is how the game will be played: sun discredits the medical records storym having found a "member of the public" to accept responsibility and the times says yes, yes, but it was because we think brown was being corrupt with murdoch.

nice deflections.

bet your arse that nothing about cameron turns up, until cameron turns turncoat that is.

Laziness and poor standards, BornSicky.

Regarding the Browns situation, I was going to say that it would take a person of great strength and integrity to be able to stand up to an organisation that could scupper your chances of being elected to what you would presume to be the most important and influential job you would ever have - and one that only a very select few could expect to achieve.
But then I thought, surely a person of great strength and integrity is what we bloody well need in a Prime Minister .

Erm, yes, Bullet.

Exactly bullet. I think it could have worked in his favour after the initial mauling if the rest of this had come to light he may well have had a different outcome. He wasn't up to it and nor it seems are many of them Who can people trust?

Piers Morgan got a rude awakening last week

www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jul/08/hugh-grant-news-international-rupert-murdoch?INTCMP=SRCH

"Piers Morgan ? a man whose moral compass directs him unerringly to that side of the bread where the butter is to be found ? tweeted that Grant was "a screechy, sanctimonious little prick". He found himself un-followed in droves."

I suspect "member of the public" means "hospital worker who decided to call us", in contrast to "PI we commissioned to look for specifically this sort of info".

And this is what NI describe as "a legitimate source". Nice.

The hospital worker may not feel quite so legitimate when their employers and the police have finished with them.

Great linkage from everyone on this thread, btw.

Maybe so Bullet, but as many people seem to believe all the filth that was thrown from the Murdoch (and other) press, would GB not have some good reasons to be cautious? This was a personal attack, he had responsibility to his party and supporters to consider as well. It might well seem trivial, but there were many who had hopes of GB, however futile those hopes might have turned out. Should he have abandoned everything because of personal attacks, especially as he would have been given a right pasting in the press for bleating about it and trying to get sympathy on the basis of his son's illness.

I would agree that it's likely someone from the hospital rang notw about Gordon browns baby. If I was that person I'd be shitting my pants right now. I wonder what the chances of their identity being uncovered is? If it is they could easily lose their job.

He would have got huge sympathy because it would have been genuine and warranted as what had happened was so revolting. But for whatever reason it wasn't bad enough for him to really consider exposing the whole thing

guardian is reporting they were a parent with a CF child who has also signed a statement today.

Right, let me get this straight. NOTW wants the exclusive of the story, then it's seen as perfectly acceptable by them to break the story.
Gordon Brown wants to take charge of how he breaks the news about his son and suddenly he risks a pasting. I am not criticising your post LucaBrasi, but if (ha! if ) this is the way NI works, then I hope it gets absolutely slaughtered.
And not that I would ever be - or wish to be - a politician, but yes, if any journalist tried to blackmail me I would go public with it.

Bullet,that is the way they work. If he complained about it, and raised his suspicions, then yes, he would have got pasted. Not quite as much as he would have as he would have as PM granted, but his ambitions, when Chancellor, were well documented in the broadsheets

Plus, RB was furious when he briefed the the Press Association which of course stopped the 'exclusive', and said that (to paraphrase, will find the guardian article if you want) 'this was not the way it works and if you want to be PM then you'd better fall in line'

Now Brown, like most politicians. was not adverse to playing politics in normal, well politics. But the Murdoch press knew this well, and eventually did paste him. He helped them along the way of course, but there is no doubt that political reputations can be seriously damaged on a press baron's/editor's whims. This is why they court them. And why also why shoudn't

A scummy story which shouldn't be published is a scummy story which shouldn't be published whether its source is 'legitimate' or not. An editor who doesn't know this shouldn't be in the job.

Its just struck me that adverts have to be 'legal, decent, honest and truthful'. Why doesn't this apply to journalism?

Don't expect me to think that that is nothing but absolutely reprehensible LucaBrasi.

eeeeeeeeeeeuw. nice behaviour from fellow parent of child with CF... society going to the dogs, really, innit?