Phone hacking: Rupert Murdoch 'urged Gordon Brown' to halt Labour attacks

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian

• Former PM was asked to 'defuse' NoW row, says ex-minister
• Ed Miliband calls for full details of 'criminal behaviour'

Toby Helm and James Robinson | Saturday April 09 2011 22.16 BST

Rupert Murdoch used his political influence and contacts at the highest levels to try to get Labour MPs and peers to back away from investigations into phone hacking at the News of the World, a former minister in Gordon Brown's government has told the Observer.

The ex-minister, who does not want to be named, says he is aware of evidence that Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation, relayed messages to Brown last year via a third party, urging him to help take the political heat out of the row, which he felt was in danger of damaging his company.

Brown, who stepped down as prime minister after last May's general election defeat for Labour, has refused to comment on the claim, but has not denied it. It is believed that contacts were made before he left No 10. The minister said: "What I know is that Murdoch got in touch with a good friend who then got in touch with Brown. The intention was to get him to cool things down. That is what I was told."

Brown, who became increasingly concerned at allegations of phone hacking and asked the police to investigate, had claimed that he was a victim of hacking when chancellor. He made Murdoch's views known to a select few in the Labour party.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/apr/09/phone-hacking-rupert-murdoch-gordon-brown

---

For some background: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=4533810">News Of The World Hacking Row: British MP Calls For Murdoch Evidence

The timing of this resignation was no coincidence: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=4704969">(Former Murdoch Employee) Andy Coulson resigns as David Cameron's director of communications

The Guardian have a special section for the phone hacking scandal, which has a MASSIVE archive: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/phone-hacking

[Snoutport]

1. It feels like Christmas in April!

I'm tellin' ya...I think this is going to pull down and destroy the right wing government in the UK. I seriously think that this is going to flip the country to the left.

[harmonicon]

6. flip to the left?

The UK is already leftist. The Conservative party got something like 30 - 35 percent of the vote, with the two main leftist parties splitting most of the rest of the vote. There is an election being held soon to determine whether or not the voting system for MPs will be changed to stop this sort of split from happening again.

[SemperEadem]

13. the conservatives got that vote before all these austerity measures

got put in place by the conservatives.

Since implementing them, they've done nothing more than rile up the people. Now this. AND Cameron's comm. chief had to step down, too? This thing here reaches up very high into government.

[Snoutport]

16. Yes it does. And high up in Scotland Yard as well. And the royal family.

I wonder if they tried to hack the queen? They hacked the princes so #3 & 4 to the crown as well as the princesses so that goes pretty high up into a family that doesn't liked to be messed with much. The Royals very well might come out swinging here pretty soon as well.

[Turborama]

11. I've enjoyed following the updates you've been posting in GD

They've provided a very good synopsis of what's been going on.

In fact, they've been such a compelling and well researched read that if it was a book it'd be a real page turner.

[muriel_volestrangler]

12. Since this shows that Murdoch's influence was just as much under Labour as under the Tories

I can't see this having a significant left-right effect. All the voicemail hacking, the useless police investigations etc. happened under a Labour government. Yes, it shows Cameron's judgement was crap when he hired Coulson, but since he's already gone, I think the Tories are now isolated enough from this to avoid serious damage.

Murdoch may suffer, though, and that's good news.

[Turborama]

17. Did Murdoch succeed in influencing Brown, though?It seems he wasn't backing away from investigations

He was stopped from having his judicial inquiry by Sir Gus O'Donnell, not Murdoch. Unless, of course, Murdoch (0r even Cameron) was more successful in urging O'Donnell to "halt Labour attacks": http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4808590

[SoapBox]

2. Same crap that the KKKoch Brothers are most likely up to but, the difference is...

...we have an Activist Radicalized Thug Supreme Court (that will support them), they have
all the RushThugs and T.HaterBaggers in their pocket...and the Dems/Libs/Progressives
in D.C. are spineless jellyfish.

We're doomed.

[loudsue]

3. Makes you wonder how the "blue dress" was known about, and Eliot Spitzer,

caught w/ his pants down. I'm just wondering how much these guys have on the members of the US legislature, since George Bush's cousin is one of the main guys at Faux news here in the USA. Dontcha know they were also the ones to mess up the 2000 election.

[Iliyah]

4. I see we have

our own "pimp" - LOL

Will the corporate media here in the United States pick up on this, a little. Nope.

One of the reasons why information is not getting out about these gopers aka tea brats is the effing media. They praise stupid over smart. But this incident may only get a slap on the hand. Show it on the internet and twitter. Talk about it. Keep it alive, when revealed, shit will hit the mother F fan.

[alfredo]

5. Now all they need is hookers and it will be a perfect scandal.

[Lasher]

7. So it appears Murdoch was involved in an attempted coverup.

I wonder if that is a criminal act under UK law.

[JoeyT]

8. Yep. Perverting the Course of Justice.

Perverting the course of justice, in English, Canadian (see article 139 of Canadian Criminal Code), and Irish law, is a criminal offense in which someone prevents justice from being served on himself or on another party. It is a common law offense carrying a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.

[Lasher]

9. It's the coverup that gets 'em.

As was the case with Scooter Libby and Richard Nixon.

[No Elephants]

10. I missed the part where he said when Murdoch will be arrested.

[loudsue]

14. Yes! I want to know when they're going to lock the mofo up for good!

Or do they let the wealthy and powerful get away with everything in the UK like they do in America?

[suffragette]

15. They also hacked the minister responsible for media policy

Some important questions and points raised in this article about that.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/organgrinder/2011/apr/10/newsoftheworld-phone-hacking
Tessa Jowell phone-hacking admission changes everything


What's also different is News Corp's admission that Tessa Jowell was a victim of phone hacking. On further reflection that is absolutely fundamental. Jowell, of course was the culture secretary between 2001 and 2007 - and the minister responsible for media policy. She was also at the centre of a media storm in the first few months of 2006 after allegations that her husband David Mills had accepted a bribe (without her knowing) in the course of his work for Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Jowell was certainly a legitimate target of investigative reporting - but the fact that she and Mills were hacked is nevertheless troubling.

The question, of course, is what else may have been discovered when her phone was hacked. The answer may well be that nothing of consequence was eavesdropped. But we do not yet know for sure. Could have some important detail or element of media policy have been left on her voicemail? Was it listened to, noted down and passed up the organisation? Or did nothing of the sort happen? At this point, on the evidence publicly available (ie none) it is not possible to be sure.
~~~
News Corp is certainly keen to settle her (and David Mills's) case. Jowell only filed her first lawsuit on March 18 - although Jowell herself did say last September that she had been told by the Met Police that her phone had been hacked "28 times" by May 2006. Clearly the tabloid publisher concedes it was bang to rights on the back of whatever it has already knows about her case.
~~~
Should Jowell chose settle with the News of the World, one would have to hope that truth behind her hacking would come out. That is to say there is a public interest in knowing when the cabinet minister was targeted, what (if anything) was learned, and what became of any information obtained.

[defendandprotect]

18. Everything on the right is faked -- criminal -- politically violent -- only way they can rise ...

It's a Hollywood Sound Stage -- and we need to keep pushing to break thru it!!


GOP gave start up funding for the Christian Coalition in 1980's --

Richard Scaife funded Dobson's org -- and othe rw wealthy funded Bauer's.

All of the rw think tanks were funded by wealthy right wingers --


GOP radicalized the NRA which was used to target not only liberals and moderates in

the Dem Party, but also in the GOP.


GOP used "pro-lifers" to introduce the violence of murder into our political debates.

The rw needs violence to grow on.


We've had 50 years of rightwing political violence taking liberal and progressive

leadership from America -- often even before it had a chance to rise.


Stolen elections?

GOP controlled computer voting has been with us since the late 1960's --

And the LARGE computers used by MSM came in during mid-1960's giving them new powers

to PREDICT and CALL elections -- and ELECTORAL COLLEGE VOTES -- what we saw in 2000

was merely a REVERSAL of those new powers!


Capitalism is a system intended to move the wealth and natural resources of nations

from the many to the few --

It's only been with us a few hundred years and has pretty much destroyed the planet!!

Capitalism is suicidal --

Unregualted capitalism is merely organized crime --