Paul Dacre at the Leveson Inquiry

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here

I was going to add comment to the other thread I started here at the beginning of the inquiry but purely for the comedy value alone, I felt this warranted it's own, shiney new thread. The above isn't word for word, just the guardian blog, but there are some crackers in there, and I haven't even got to the end.

Did you know, criticism of the Daily Mail stems from a lack of understanding on how journalism works? Next time you see a thread on here quoting the Daily Mail, just remember, we just don't understand how journalism works. Feast your eyes on the pearls of wisdom dished out by the one and only Mr Dacre, and enjoy...

Can't wait for today although have a gynaecology appt first thing shall be telling him to get on with it!

they are handing info over to the US!!!

'Adam Smith, the special adviser to the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has resigned, saying he acted without the authority of his boss and that he had allowed the impression to be created of too close a relationship between News Corps and the Department for Culture, Media and Sport.'

Do we believe this?

Damage limitation attempt in full swing...

Wonder what he has been promised for that little action?

Have to say I loved Dennis Skinner and Tom Watson at todays PMQ's

Also wtf is this??? www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/oct/24/david-cameron-rupert-murdoch?CMP=twt_gu

I've sky+'d PMQs for later. Just seen a snippet of callmedave getting a tad worked up. Skinner's comment 'when posh boys are in trouble, they sack the servants' was I think 'fair comment'

ooh it was good

callmedave was getting very annoyed and hunt looked like he was about to burst into tears

thank god someone's talking about callmedave. I started a sad lonely thread about how he's always just dreadful at PMQs, like a horrible boarding school bully. His advisers need to tell him it's called PMQs because other people are supposed to ask him questions and he's supposed to answer them because he is at the service of the people. He always acts so outraged that he is being questioned - sort of "ugh the plebs are saying something - how dare they?"

I would have thought that after the "Calm down dear" debacle one of his advisers would have had a word but they are probably also Bullingdon Club tossers with a sense of entitlement so maybe don't get that he really lets the mask slip on these occasions.

This Jeremy Hunt thing is such a cock-up and it's a time to look serious and determined to root out cronyism, not get all shouty and red-faced and just generally toff-like.

I'm a bit confused about the Parliamentary status of these 'special advisers'

they're not civil service, they're not elected, they are appointed by Ministers - so if one of them makes a mistake, the Minister who appoints them should be where the buck stops, is that right?

But not in this instance...

I do like the likes of Dennis Skinner; like Tam Dalyell, he can say what he likes, pretty much

CallmeDave is well on the back foot here, isn't he?

yes the Ministerial Code makes it clear that ministers are responsible for their special advisers. I don't know how JH thinks he can hang on at this point.

The funnist thing I've found is that the only tory they could find to defend Hunt was Gove, you know your screwed

'Adam Smith, the special adviser to the culture secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has resigned, saying he acted without the authority of his boss.'

Didn't that Werrity creature say the same thing a little while ago? Anyone remember what happened to his boss? He had Dave's full support too.

Murdoch is a smooth operator so confident and self assured for his age (even if he is a **)

I'm enjoying him being put in his place and the little comfort breaks Leveson is building in purely to stop Murdoch playing the weak and feeble old codger defence.

I like various points raised including the unlikehood of him not knowing that Eady concluded that NoW journalists blackmailed a woman in the Mosley sting - being told by Leveson to go off and read the judgement!

Also the ridiculousness of not knowing what was going on after the phone hacking trial because he trusted people to tell him but didn't think to enquire when they didn't.

I also liked the 'Iask the questions' putdown from Jay and the lecture from Leveson about having to answer questions following Murdoch's rudeness to Jay and Jay's sarcastic remark that he has a thick skin.

I'm finding Old Man Simpson's periodic banging on the table a bit off-putting.

Wonder what happened round about 11ish when Leveson ordered someone to sit down and stop what they were doing?

I suspect it might have been Wendi getting ready to deliver a karate chop

anybody else wonder if Cable's set-up by the Telegraph might have been orchestrated elsewhere purely to get him out of the way so that Hunt could take over? (or am I a conspiracy fetishist? )

Only Hunt, as Shadow Culture Secretary, was in cahoots with the Murdochs about the BSkyB takeover long before the 2010 election...maybe they all assumed it would fall into his remit after the election & didn't expect it to go to the Business Sec?

From what I recall, the Telegraph didn't publish that aspect of the sting.

The information was passed to Robert Peston by a Telegraph source.

Peston is a big friend of News International what with being fed loads of his stories from there.

Murdoch was complaining about press harassment today! His questioner saw the irony, but Murdoch had to be brought to see it.

That 'sit down' rebuke from Leveson was when a solicitor for Linklaters tried to get NI's barrister to intervene during Robert Jay's accusation that there'd been a cover up between NI and the firm of solicitors Burton Copeland NI engaged to look into phone hacking.

Jay went on to point out the NI continued to resist waiving client privilege that would enable Burton Copeland to speak on the subject.

The other legal firm involved (can't remember the name right now) managed to get NI to waive privilege that revealed that NI's terms of reference were so narrow as to be useless.

NI were putting it about that they had authorised a full inquiry and allowing it to be believed that the law firm hadn't looked into it closely because they were incompetent.

Lot of firms of solicitors involved for NI, weren't there? Anyone would think it was an attempt to make sure no firm had a complete overview.

Harbottle and Lewis were the firm who won the right to point that they weren't negligent, just hobbled.

How long before Murdoch is back in bed with Labour? Not long methinks The sun and the sun on sunday about to switch allegiance again apparently

I don't think they'll be in bed with any politicians ever again.

(I would just like to say God bless the knee-jerk leftie Guardian for keeping on & on & on about this however much they were derided by the rest of the press & much of Westminster )

I think Murdoch has stuck the knife in and will now twist it!

I read sth this week about the rather remote but frightening possibility of the sun papers switching to ukip, their policies being closest to murdoch's. Labour if they want to capitalise on this govts appaling record would do well to not touch NI with a bargepole.

That would be scary! But not impossible

Oh I hope they do! that will finally put the lie to the notion that they ever influenced election results, rather than always jumping on the right bandwagon