Guardian Leveson Hypocrisy EXPOSED

Recent events at Guardian Media Group have not inspired confidence that the paper which for so long stood apart from Fleet Street conformity would continue to shine the light of investigative journalism where the establishment would rather they did not. The willingness to stand up for those traduced by press misbehaviour has gradually been eroded. And now has come a sellout of jaw-dropping proportions.

Kath Viner

The rot set in over former editor Alan Rusbridger’s aborted appointment to head the Scott Trust, that body which oversees GMG. New editor Kath Viner turned on her predecessor, who was viciously defenestrated in what can only be described as a coup against the Ancien Régime, the excuses centring around losses that the Guardian and Observer titles had incurred under Rusbridger’s leadership. It was only the start.

Journalists who had given the Guardian many of its great stories in the recent past decided to call it a day: David Leigh, Nick Davies and senior sage Michael White all departed. Leigh had been involved in many of the Tory sleaze exposés of the 1990s, notably the “A Liar And A Cheat” front page splash that marked the beginning of the end for the self-enriching Mostyn Neil Hamilton as a Conservative MP.

Davies had doggedly pursued the phone hacking scandal from its first reporting in the paper in 2009, through to the moment two years later when the dam burst over the Dowler hacking and the Murdoch empire was, for once, undone. The subsequent Leveson Inquiry showed the world the venal, corrupt, unprincipled, uncaring and self-serving nature of much of what is passed off as journalism. But the paper now wants no more of that.

Instead, today the paper of Charles Prestwich Scott, and latterly of Alastair Hetherington, Peter Preston and Alan Rusbridger has published what amounts to an apologia for the status quo, saying of Leveson Part 2 “What is missing here is an appreciation of the present. Investigations into past behaviour ignore what the media industry is today. Facebook is by far the most pervasive network for news. Google dwarfs others in terms of media distribution. Sparky websites and blogs vie with traditional newsprint for readers and advertising revenue. Yet there is silence on the means to regulate them”.

This ignores the weight given by readers of newspapers, as well as politicians and other opinion formers, to the printed word. The Guardian carries more clout, despite its relatively small circulation, because it carries the trust that the new media cannot.

That trust, and that continuing “Power without responsibility”, to once more use the phrase first turned by Stanley Baldwin, are why there should be more attention paid to the occasions on which the Fourth Estate strays from its declared high principles. Moreover, Leveson Part 2 brings the long story arc that began with Nick Davies’ revelations to its conclusion. To abandon it now is to abandon all those victims of press misbehaviour.

Alan Rusbridger

Yet all that the Guardian’s editorial can manage is “A fitting coda to Leveson would be not another inquiry, but a referral of the proposed merger of 21st Century Fox with Sky to Ofcom”, suggesting that the Daniel Morgan Independent Panel will somehow manage to conclude its work without the back-stop that Leveson 2 would have provided.

And that is not all: added to the effective abandonment of all those victims of press malpractice is what amounts to a shameless U-Turn over Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. After declaring that IMPRESS is not really independent - I don’t recall Ms Viner or any of her staff making such a suggestion to the Press Recognition Panel which concluded that IMPRESS was indeed demonstrably independent - comes yet another craven apologia, which could have been written by the press establishment itself.

“A free press is a constitutional necessity, not an ornamental timepiece. There is no other option but to repeal section 40. The Guardian believes that the independence of the press is best served by self- not state- regulation. Most others agree”. What the Royal Charter process gives us is not “state regulation”, and it shames the voice of Liberal Journalism to claim otherwise. Worse still, the Guardian has abandoned not merely those with whom it stood during the phone hacking scandal and subsequent trial, but its own beliefs.

We know this as Guardian News And Media’s submission to the Leveson Inquiry, which considered how mediation could be used to resolve complaints - similar to the low-cost arbitration system offered by IMPRESS, which the latest editorial manages to ignore - and which also considers what it called an Alternative Dispute Resolution, or ADR, process to ensure disputes are where possible kept out of the courts, included this paragraph.

“To comply with Article 6, a complainant would continue to hold the right to pursue a claim through the courts if dissatisfied with the ADR process. However, the courts would have regard to the history of the ADR when determining whether the claimant had acted reasonably. An unreasonable decision to pursue legal proceedings would be likely to leave the claimant exposed to paying the costs of those proceedings, irrespective of their outcome … One possibility is that the mediator could prepare a report as to whether the parties have acted reasonably. That report would then be admissible on costs at the conclusion of any subsequent legal proceedings (thereby treating the mediation process as without prejudice save as to costs)” [my emphasis].

What I have highlighted is the Genesis of Section 40. In the Guardian’s Leveson submission. Compare and contrast with today’s craven editorial.

It is with a heavy heart that Zelo Street must conclude that the Guardian, of all newspapers, has not only abandoned the victims of press malpractice, it has also abandoned its own principles, perhaps in the belief that the wave of hatred from the rest of the press over phone hacking - where the Guardian declined to observe the culture of Omertà, refused to remain silent - would abate. On this, they could not be more wrong.

Without the investigative journalism that Leigh, Davies and their colleagues majored in over so many years, there is little else in the Guardian but more and more punditry. In this, the paper risks heading the same way as the rest of the press, but with more left-leaning comment, and less clout when it calls out what it sees as wrong.

And without the principles to which it has held firm while so many other papers have regarded such things as readily expendable, the Guardian will swiftly surrender its cutting edge, its USP, indeed, its very Raison d’Être.

It is not yet too late for Ms Viner and her team to revisit and rediscover what made the Guardian great. But it looks increasingly doubtful that there will be any revisiting. The legacy of Scott has been squandered on the altar of expediency, to be lost for ever.

David Blunkett Exposed As Sellout

One of the seminal moments in the history of the BBC’s Question Time was the first appearance of (then) Labour Councillor David Blunkett. How, many wondered, would a blind man manage with the programme’s format? Would then chairman Robin Day have to make special allowances for him? How could he establish a rapport with the audience, as well as put his case for a left-leaning politics at the height of the Thatcher era?

In the event, no-one need have been concerned: for Blunkett, the appearance was a triumph. His masterful revelation of just how badly NHS staff were paid, by taking out two nurses’ pay slips and laying them out on the panellists’ table, silenced any Conservative comeback and enthused the audience. Thus the legend of a peoples’ champion overcoming his own particular battle with adversity was forged.

The Blunkett legend was not severely dented even after two resignations from the Blair cabinet. He had, after all, been a diligent and long-serving MP, his elevation to the Lords after standing down from the Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough seat in 2015 agreed to be fair recompense for a lifetime of public service. He had been an inspiration to so many. But now we know that he long ago sold out in order to enrich himself further.

As Private Eye magazine has revealed today, “in November 2005, Blunkett was driven to Wapping. Rupert Murdoch and Rebekah Wade (as she then was) gave him a drink and offered £150,000 a year to put his name to a ghost-written weekly column for the Sun. Blunkett accepted instantly, noting in his diary that ‘you don’t refuse Rupert twice’”. He accumulated at least £350,000 in the three following years.

Worse, Blunkett kept schtum over phone-hacking, despite being one of the most high-profile targets of the late and not at all lamented Screws. He proceeded to not only secure a £300,000 settlement over the hacking, then managed to blame not the Screws, but the Observer instead, because the latter paper had revealed the deal. Blunkett accused the Obs of “intrusion”. Yes, after the Screws had hacked his phone.

Small wonder that Blunkett now does not want Part 2 of the Leveson Inquiry to go ahead, which may not be unrelated to its terms of reference: “to inquire into the extent of corporate governance and management failures at News International and other newspaper organisations, and the role, if any, of politicians, public servants and others in relation to any failure to investigate wrongdoing at News International”.

As the Eye points out, one politician who would be “caught” by that definition would be Blunkett, who has dutifully wheeled out the standard press establishment response on Leveson 2, claiming “Despite the length and cost of the first Leveson Inquiry, there are now calls for Leveson Two to examine yet again the past misconduct of the press”. But Leveson 2 would not revisit Leveson 1. And there is more.

The Liverpool Echo reported last June that “Former MP Lord David Blunkett said Liverpool fans ‘got off lightly’ in a 1990 meeting with Hillsborough report author Lord Justice Taylor … Documents released by the Hillsborough Independent Panel (HIP) also reveal the politician requested an ‘off the record’ meeting with Lord Justice Taylor, who led an inquiry into the disaster, to talk about ‘the contribution which crowd disorder made’”.

The impression of ambivalence over the events that resulted in 96 deaths, and hundreds of injuries, is inescapable. And it gets worse: Alastair Morgan, who is campaigning to secure justice for his brother Daniel, murdered in a south London car park almost 30 years ago, and a matter in which the Murdoch press has interfered significantly in the past, revealed that Blunkett had been appallingly uncooperative when Home Secretary.

He Tweeted yesterday “This man declined to even meet us when we were seeking a judicial inquiry into my brother's murder” and later added “I'm sure Labour's home office knew Southern Investigations was in business with NOTW when they refused us a judicial inquiry in 2002”. Blunkett had effectively done the bidding of the Murdoch mafiosi.

Like the central character in Howard Spring’s novel Fame Is The Spur, David Blunkett started his career as a champion of the less fortunate, willing to stand up for those poorly-paid NHS staff and other public servants. But as the years progressed, he slowly but surely was absorbed by the establishment, choosing conformity and comfort, and ultimately sold out, and was sold, to Rupert Murdoch.

The Morgan family were rebuffed, the Hillsborough victims left to the efforts of those politicians who came after him. But the money was good. Thus the career trajectory of another who has gained the world, but along the way lost his soul.

Piers Morgan Trump Love BACKFIRES

Whatever the reception among many of the UK media for the USA’s newly elected President, the combover crybaby Donald Trump, there will always be one of their number ever ready to sing his praises, tell the world what a great guy he is, and excuse any and every episode of the appalling, bigoted, narcissistic, misinformed, bullying, threatening, intolerant, misogynist and generally stupid outbursts. That individual is Piers Morgan.

The former Daily Mirror editor, who still claims not to have known about any phone hacking that went on at the paper when he occupied the editor’s chair - despite being renowned as a “hands-on” editor, and despite Private Eye magazine not yet receiving word from his lawyers about their naming the Mirror group executive who played Morgan the notorious McCartney-Mills voicemail - remains ever ready to stick up for The Donald.

This defence also extends to taking to Twitter and sticking his bugle into exchanges that may be less than adulatory towards Trump. Thus it was that when my good friend Sunny Hundal said of British singer Rebecca Ferguson “The only UK singer (and big name) who was mooted to play at Trump's inauguration has pulled out”, Morgan was in like a shot to denounce both Hundal and Ms Ferguson. “'Big name' - is that a joke??” he snarked.

This was the cue for an avalanche of ridicule. “Oh Piers try not to be too upset that nobody wants to be seen with your orange friend” chided Richard Lowe. Liam Gascoigne tried to let him down gently with “I think the fact she was the biggest name interested in performing was the point”. After all, Aretha Franklin, Justin Timberlake and Elton John have already made sure that The Donald knows the answer is thanks, but no thanks.

Another helpful soul tried to put Piers Morgan straight, telling him “Who were you expecting? I think Trump's down to UKIP-voting pub Elvis impersonators now isn't he?” Back on the subject of Ms Ferguson, Jade Estebanez mused “let's face it no one wants to sign for him even she pulled out and they dropped her from a crisp commercial”. The real celebs all wanted to play for Barack Obama. Not for Trump.

Why that might be was spelt out to Morgan in the most direct manner by David Rae, who put him straight with “It's the biggest name that the pussy grabber could get”. Making comments like that, and his occasionally breathtaking lack of respect for women, is not working in Trump’s favour. Then Luke Smith confirmed “yeah it is a joke, that she was the only singer he could get that was remotely interested, even managed to mess that up”.

What to do? Paul McManus had a suggestion for Morgan to help him curry yet more favour with The Donald: “why don’t you sing for him?” Well, it would be an excruciatingly bad experience, although it couldn’t be any worse that Lee Marvin singing Wandering Star, in Paint Your Wagon, or indeed Clint Eastwood murdering I Talk To The Trees in the same film. And Morgan would at least be a name some citizens would recognise.

The reality is that Donald Trump is poison for celebs right now. Wake up Piers Morgan.

Amol Rajan’s BBC Press Cowardice

Former Independent editor Amol Rajan was recently appointed the BBC’s Media Editor. And last night came his first contribution to the Corporation’s flagship Ten O’Clock News - an item on press regulation, and the controversy over Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act. Many viewers may have found the report informative and even persuasive, but what it demonstrated most was Rajan’s residual cowardice.

Amol Rajan ((c) BBC)

For those who may think that is too strong a word to use about a news item with which one takes issue, a little background is in order. Rajan was in charge at the Indy when that paper investigated the, shall we say, unconventional lifestyle choices of former Culture Secretary John Whittingdale. Veteran reporter James Cusick had the story of Whitto’s dalliance with a known sex worker ready to roll - and there was more.

The main angle of the prospective Indy report would have been that several other newspapers had been offered the story of Whitto and the dominatrix, but all had either passed on the chance, or had begun to investigate, only to see their work spiked. Whitto was, at the time, also stalling on Section 40 - the same measure on which Rajan was reporting last night. What happened to the Indy’s own investigation is now well known.

Rajan attended a Society of Editors meeting at which Whitto spoke. Also present was the Mail titles’ editor-in-chief, the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre. After he returned from this gathering, by complete coincidence you understand, Rajan had the Whittingdale story pulled. It was a moment of utter and complete cowardice.

Now he is at it again: the Ten O’Clock News report included not an interview with any of the victims of press abuse, but instead with Max Mosley, and then only a brief chat where Mosley reiterated his contention that the law as it stands suits the rich, but for ordinary people to get redress for press misbehaviour is next to impossible. Moreover, my information is that Rajan did not ask campaigning group Hacked Off to set up an interview with one or more victims of press abuse. That is a serious omission.

But there was time for a rather longer segment focusing on Ian Murray, the editor of the Daily Echo, an ostensibly local paper based in Hampshire. Here, Murray trowelled on the paper’s history, giving the clear impression that it was both a local paper, and under threat. What Murray did not tell, and what Rajan managed not to mention, is that the Daily Echo is not some vulnerable local brand, but part of a national newspaper group.

The Daily Echo is part of Newsquest - this can be found by scrolling down to the foot of the website front page. The anti-Section 40 message is the same there as it is at the York Press, as it is at the Bradford Telegraph & Argus. There may be no corporate direction given on the Newsquest website, but the message has clearly gone out. Amol Rajan had the chance to call out Newsquest, but as with the Whittingdale story, he chickened out.

Amol Rajan taking his cowardice in the face of the press establishment to another media outlet would not normally arouse criticism - it would at least show consistency - but this is the BBC we are talking about. That makes his cowardice a matter for deep concern. The Corporation’s media editor should report without fear or favour. This is not good enough.

Don’t Menshn People Of Colour

Yesterday, campaigning groups Hacked Off and Avaaz marked Culture Secretary Karen Bradley’s “consultation” on Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act and Leveson Part 2 with a protest outside the DCMS on Parliament Street in central London, which turned out not to be as straightforward as it seemed thanks to a strike by workers who staff Tube stations. Zelo Street was on hand to witness proceedings.

(c) Doc Hackenbush 2014

And definitely not on hand was (thankfully) former Tory MP Louise Mensch, now with very little to do following her getting sacked from her own website, the sub-Breitbart dustbin of speculation and Fake News Heat Street. But as she is still a News Corp Vice President, if only of paperclips, Ms Mensch knew which side her bread was buttered: if this was a protest in favour of Section 40, it had to be not merely opposed, but ridiculed.

So she took to Twitter, and in her own inimitable fashion, opened mouth and inserted boot in no style at all as she trilled “And by ‘protestors’ we mean seven old white blokes with beards, three girls in Chelsea tractor troos and nobody of colour #Section40”. Well, I don’t do beards, there was hardly anyone who did, and she missed several others. Moreover, her “nobody of colour” was not only demeaning, it was plain flat wrong.

This was confirmed when Hannah Mian - who is in the centre of the photo on which Ms Mensch was commenting - decided to speak up. “I am in this photo and I am a person 'of colour' Louise” she pointed out gently. So would Ms Mensch concede that she loused up on this occasion? Ah, but all you Zelo Street regulars know the answer to that one: the first rule of being Louise Mensch is that you are never, ever in the wrong.

And so back came the reply “No Hannah, no you are not”. For reasons best known to Ms Mensch, she included Hannah Mian’s Twitter photo in that reply. But she remained plain flat wrong - Ms Mian was in the middle of the photo. OK, she wasn’t facing the camera at the time, but it has to be said once more, she was there. Perhaps now the Honourable Member for the distant constituency of Manhattan Upmarket would yield.

Er, no she wouldn’t. Instead, Ms Mensch doubled down on her idiocy. So after telling Ms Mian that she was not a “person of colour”, someone who was allowed to become an MP - this has to be stressed, Tory selection people - Ms Mensch added “unless you count unfortunate  blue eyeshadow”. Er, hello, what is this, amateur night at the Foot-In-Mouth Lack-Of-Racial-Awareness oasis? Someone out there had seen enough.

That someone was Alex Winters, who describes himself as the “Welsh one from Cbeebies” (not on my viewing list, but Ms Mensch may understand that better), who summed up the mood of incredulity and exasperation with “Mensch, you're a grade A imbecile”. Louise Mensch started out dutifully kicking Hacked Off on behalf of her Murdoch masters, but ended up confirming she is not just Barking, but has overrun the buffer stops at Upminster.

But good of Rupert Murdoch to get one of his VPs to boost the Hacked Off and Avaaz campaign. If he’d like to assign Louise Mensch permanently, it’d be much appreciated.

Fawkes Paul Mason Smear BUSTED

Showing the world that they care about the NHS (cue hollow laughter) the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog have dedicated a whole post to the service today without slagging it off or otherwise dispensing falsehood and misinformation. That is because, for once, the NHS is not The Great Guido’s target. That honour goes to left-leaning commentator Paul Mason.

Mason, who has incurred the displeasure of the Fawkes folks’ masters, those being the right-leaning part of the Fourth Estate, for dispensing opinions which cause many of them significant discomfort, had said before any of Sunday’s front pages were revealed that there would be a move to keep the growing problems of the NHS off those front pages. He also referred to the larger part of the press as “propagandists”.

That aside may happen to be true - minor point, eh, lads - but one does not put one’s head above the parapet and say such things without there being a sustained effort afterwards to shoot it off. The Fawkes rabble did not need to wait to be prompted: the prospect of being thrown a few more biscuits was too appealing to pass up.

And so it came to pass that The Great Guido posted “Paul Mason’s Trumpian NHS Crisis Conspiracy Debunked”. What has Trump or Trump-like behaviour to do with it? Well, nothing at all, but then, when you’re running a borderline Fake News operation, you just chuck anything over the fence in the hope it’ll stick. This is followed by “Over the weekend Paul Mason emerged from his leather-jacketed midlife crisis to reveal his latest conspiracy theory”. Ho Yus. The Fawkes folks calling “conspiracy theory” on others.

But go do on. “Mason reckons the press are conspiring to keep NHS stories out of their papers so they can please their proprietors and secure invites to Downing Street drinks parties”. No, O Great Guido, that is not what he said. What Mason said was that the press would find ways to take the NHS story OFF THEIR FRONT PAGES.

And Mason was right, with one exception: the Observer, aka Guardian on Sunday, put the NHS on its front page. The Mail on Sunday ran a major story on the same subject, but on inside pages only. Mason was proved right. But The Great Guido ploughs on, telling a whole stack of lies, before telling their readers that Mason is telling, er, lies.

So we see “Mason told his followers that journalists at the Mail on Sunday had kept the NHS crisis out of the paper” (no citation), “Mason said there was ‘No NHS crisis’ in the Sunday Telegraph” (ditto), “Mason also claimed the Sunday Times had ignored the issue” (ditto), and “Mason said the same of The Sun on Sunday” (ditto). Then they wibble “Mason has so far failed to tweet any of this coverage or admit he was telling his followers a pack of fibs”. That is because he did not claim what the Fawkes mob are claiming.

Paul Mason said “front page”. Apart from the Observer - which the Fawkes rabble has ignored - he was right. The evidence the Fawkes blog manages to pony up confirms that he is right. That can only mean one thing: The Great Guido is indeed running a borderline Fake News operation. And in this he is succeeding magnificently.

And it will dent Mason’s credibility not one jot. Another fine mess, once again.

Sun Desperation Boils Over

The clock is ticking down for those wanting to let the Government know their views on the future of press regulation in the UK. And for the Murdoch goons at the Super Soaraway Currant Bun, the realisation that very few of their readers are fussed about the regulation régime under which the inmates of the Baby Shard bunker operate has given way to a mixture of blind panic and screaming hysteria, with everything being thrown into demonising those who seek change.

That's what he thinks about the little people

That's change, as in an end to the press' ability to bend sham press regulator IPSO to their will, an end to their ability to tell the little people they routinely smear and defame that it's their place in life to suck it up, and sue if they think they're hard enough, an end to mealy-mouthed and discreet "corrections" buried away where the vast majority of readers won't see them, and an end to taking months - if not years - to 'fess up and admit their appallingly bad behaviour.

No, for today's Sun editorial, none of this gets a mention. Instead, there is another howling denunciation of those who have the audacity to want the paper to cease marking its own homework. "We urge Sun readers to stop Max Mosley and leftie luvvies stealing your fundamental right to a free press" screams the headline. Clearly, the fundamental right to be royally and regularly shat on by a bunch of overpaid and talentless bully boys must be defended at all costs.

No whopper is too big to pitch into the mix, and so readers are told of "vindictive celebs", taking the biscuit in no style at all. As any fule kno, the tabloid press, and the Murdoch branch in particular, are  the epitome of vindictiveness. The Sun still hasn't atoned for its disgraceful behaviour over the Hillsborough stadium disaster, now almost 28 years in the past. The paper cares so little about the people of Merseyside that they not only continue to give employment to disgraced former editor Kelvin McFilth, they gave him his own office on the 13th floor.

Look who's defending our free and fearless press

And talking of the human pustule that is Kel, guess who has been called upon to come over all righteous on the subject of press regulation, a matter that he couldn't have given a fig about when he was in the editor's chair, and still considers little more than a minor inconvenience? You guessed it, the supporting act not occupying the moral high ground is McFilth Himself Personally Now.

After Sun says blubbers "We know that Impress have whipped up their tribe of keyboard hatemongers into swamping the Government with anti-press messages" (thus demonstrating that the Murdoch doggies can't tell Hacked Off from Impress), it's over to Kelvin McFilth for "If you were an orgy-loving racist like Max Mosley was, you too would want to shackle the press". What colour is the pot, O bigoted kettle? The thought also enters that Kel's comment may be actionable. I do hope so.

Yes, Kelvin McFilth, the editor who decided Winston Silcott was guilty because he was black, the pundit who whips up incitement against a Muslim woman for wearing a headscarf, is getting all high and mighty about something someone else did decades ago. Rather more decades than separate the present day from Kel's exploits as Sun editor. Such is the panic and desperation that has taken over the Murdoch goons - sling the mud and deal with any legal blowback later.

Don't be taken in by Rupert Murdoch and his fellow mafiosi. Ignore Kelvin McFilth and his hypocritical dribblings. Get the full story on press regulation from the people at Hacked Off. And back a regulation system that gives redress to the little people, the ones that papers like the Sun have trampled over for long enough. Section 40 and Leveson 2 must both be enacted. The end.

Sophy Ridge On Sunday

As if the addition to the Sunday morning schedules of Peston On Sunday, with its eponymous host, prominently displayed croissants (ooer), along with Allegra Stratton and Screeny McScreenface (tm) were not enough, Sky News (“first for breaking wind”) has now shuffled the pack and replaced the dependable Dermot Murnaghan with Sophy Ridge, for whom headlining their own show is a definite step up.

Sophy Ridge ((c) Guardian)

Zelo Street regulars may recall that I reviewed the then-new Peston show last May, and concluded that The Andy Marr Show (tm), which precedes it on the BBC, was reasonably safe for now. And the same conclusion has to be reached from looking in on Sophy Ridge On Sunday - this is a show on a channel whose Sunday morning audiences are not large, and there is one significantly-sized obstacle for Ms Ridge to overcome.

That obstacle is a rather large table - or perhaps it’s meant to be a desk - which sat there between Ms Ridge and her first set piece interviewee, Theresa May. It’s like trying to converse across a large dinner table - you end up finding it easier to chat to those to your immediate left and right. But there is no immediate left and right. It puts Ms Ridge at a disadvantage in forming a rapport with the interviewee.

Bear with me on this: on the Marr show, there is no table, desk or indeed anything between the host and his interviewee. It makes for a more intimate, yet challenging, situation. Even the Peston show, where the host sits behind a desk, sits key interviewees to Peston’s right, so they do not have to chat across the desk. Peston’s pundits sit across a table from him, but it is not a substantial obstacle.

As for the Sky “glass box” studio, this, sorry Sky people, is little more than a gimmick. When Ms Ridge is in full interview flow, it doesn’t matter whether it’s a glass box, a more conventional studio as the BBC and ITV use, or indeed any other room fitted out with cameras and suitably wired for sound. And then we come to the pundits.

Yes, I know, this is a subject on which I could go on (and on, and on), but once again bear with me. There is, at times like this, an opportunity to look outside the apparently hermetically sealed media establishment bubble and have someone reviewing the papers who is not part of that establishment. Nobody - and I include Marr and Peston in this - is bringing on young talent, that next generation to which we must inevitably hand over, and put our trust in, in the coming years. Sunday punditry is an apparently closed shop.

We see the same talking heads on all three shows - OK, more MPs on Peston, perhaps - so today brought Julia Hartley Dooda (again) to the Marr show, yapping about how losing the UK’s most experienced European diplomat was A Very Good Thing (er, hello). Even when it’s someone from the Guardian, it’s always the same one or two people. Totally London centric. Totally media establishment centric. No-one else need apply.

Back at Ms Ridge and her new show, her perhaps most significant problem is going to be increasing that audience share. Marr is on right before her, Peston (although not starting his news season until next week) is on at the same time, and back at the BBC, Sunday Politics is on at 1100 hours. Where do you get a look-in? Social media involvement and re-runs will be crucial. And, Sky people, please get rid of that honking great table.

Nadine Dorries Sells The NHS Pass

After it was revealed that Red Cross Ambulances had been helping out hard-pressed NHS services this winter, and their head had some forthright words to say about the state of the health service, there was clear disquiet, even among those on the right: the NHS, despite attempts to denigrate it by right-leaning papers and their hangers-on, still cares for more than 90% of the population, most of whom regard it highly.

But for those of a left-leaning disposition, there was not mere disquiet, but severely adverse comment on the Tories’ stewardship of the NHS, and none was more forthright in this regard than Paul Mason. “Yes, sure, people dying on trolleys; Red Cross land rovers deployed... that's just normality under Theresa May's Tories” he asserted. But the MP to whom he had responded happened to be (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries.

And The Fragrant Nadine was not going to let this insolent behaviour from one of those rotten lefties stand unanswered. So in she waded, ranting “It was normal under Labour in 90s + inevitable now with massive surge levels of uncontrolled immigration”. Let’s take this nice and slowly, shall we? Most of the 90s was spent under a Tory Government. Then Labour came to power in 1997 and committed to following Tory spending plans for two years. So it was normal under Tory spending plans, thanks.

No matter, she wasn’t finished with the upstart Mason: “It's a reason why so many in northern Labour seats voted for #Brexit to stop spiralling levels of  immigration and reduce pressure on #NHS”. That’s because 20-something eastern Europeans are far less likely to need the NHS than older Brits, isn’t it? Doesn’t make sense. And there’s more.

After Mason declined to give any quarter to Ms Dorries - brave man - and shot back “I was waiting for some fascist or UKIP wacko to pin the crisis on migrants but a Tory beat them to it”, she lost it. “If you want to deny that a surge increase in population over a short period of time wouldn't have an effect then look in the mirror, whacko”. Mason is a pundit. Ms Dorries is supposed to be an MP. But she was still up for some afters.

“Even those pro uncontrolled immigration wouldn't in their maddest moments suggest that our health infrastructure can just keep coping”. To deploy one mental health smear might be considered unfortunate; to deploy another one in its wake looks like carelessness. And after Alastair Campbell opined “Not true that NHS has an annual winter crisis. It did when we had a Tory govt. They stopped under Labour. Now back” she made it three.

“You must have amnesia. You were spinning like mad when press were saying 'end of Blair and Labour after NHS winter from hell’”. Two things here. One, I would refer the Hon Member for Mid Bedfordshire to the reply I gave earlier - Labour stuck with Tory spending plans for two years at the end of the 90s - and two, let’s look at the data.

And the A&E performance data since 2004-5 suggests that Big Al is broadly right, and Nadine Dorries is broadly not. The A&E figures began to deteriorate almost as soon as Young Dave got his feet under the 10 Downing Street table. What was normal in those last Labour winters is now not being managed even at the height of summer. And what happens in winter is really not good at all.

Still, being Nadine Dorries means you can blame someone else. No change there, then.

Tony Parsons Plays I-Sky

In the early days of Sky, when Rupert Murdoch had more or less bet the house on the new broadcaster succeeding, the Super Soaraway Currant Bun carried so many “news” items that were blatant plugs for Sky that Private Eye magazine ran a series called “I-Sky” (geddit?!?). There was no shortage of material. And the Eye might want to resurrect the feature, after Tony Parsons’ latest column.

“WATCH OUT BEEB Sky’s Sophy Ridge bagging the PM’s New Year interview isn’t just girl power – it’s a snub to the Brexit-bashing BBC … The interview would once have routinely gone to Andrew Marr at the BBC” is the headline, followed by “THERE is a new sofa in town from today, occupied by Sky’s rising star Sophy Ridge and her new politics show”. This is not just an opinion column, is it, Murdoch goons?

Parsons pretends that he is making a point about attitudes to the EU. He isn’t. After the obligatory “As we negotiate our difficult divorce from Brussels, this is a healthy development for our national debate … Marr, Peston and Ridge are all fine broadcasters and highly accomplished inter-viewers … Any one of them would have given the PM a good grilling”, comes the cheap and evidence-free BBC bashing.

“May has also chosen Sky above the BBC, a decision that has reportedly resulted in mouth-foaming fury within Broadcasting House”. It’s New Broadcasting House, Tone, and you just made that up. But do go on. “The BBC has had this snub coming to them for the corporation now reeks with an undisguised, unapologetic and increasingly hysterical bias against Brexit”. You just made that up, too. Habit forming, isn’t it?

“I have many friends at the BBC”. Are some of them brown or black? Any migrants? “None of them voted for Brexit”. Ah, THOSE kinds of friends. “I doubt if there is even one person within the BBC who voted for our country to leave the European Union”. Who was banging on about others being “hysterical”? And then comes another blatant Sky plug.

“Andrew Marr - a good guy, a fine journalist [and damned with faint praise] - is paying the price for the BBC’s grotesque bigotry against Brexit … But good luck to Sky’s Sophy Ridge … I have no doubt she will ask the PM all the hard questions she would have been asked at the BBC … The question that 17.4million of us should ask is this - why do we continue to pay a licence fee of £145.50 to the BBC when the corporation openly despises us?”

Is a Corporation capable of despising all those people? Is it bigoted? QTWTAIN. Parsons is, as so often, writing to the order of his masters, and inventing the abuse to suit. The editorial line is clear: the BBC getting it in the neck is routine, but now Sky must be talked up. Shun those who despise you, come to the Murdoch mafiosi’s cash cow. After all, it’s only £264 a year - plus all the potential add-ons. Ker-ching!

Tony Parsons’ column should be reclassified as “advertorial”. And have the HMV logo included in its heading. After all, that originally stood for His Master’s Voice.

[And a word in your shell-like, Tone: you could try harder with your press regulation item than recycle what Rod Liddle already wrote. You are getting paid for it, remember]

Top Six - January 8

So what’s hot, and what’s not, in the past week’s blogging? Here are the six most popular posts on Zelo Street for the past seven days, counting down in reverse order, because, well, I have places to go and people to see later. So there.

6 Littlejohn Lies For His Supper Another day, another mostly fictitious account of what Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act would bring. But it’s only an opinion column.

5 Fawkes Lineker Smear BUSTED The perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog went after the Match of the Day lead presenter and former footballer, who had committed the heinous crime of not wholeheartedly backing the press establishment on Leveson 2 and Section 40.

4 Sarah Vine Booze Hypocrisy Mrs Michael “Oiky” Gove went after all those young people who went out for a few drinks on New Year’s Eve. A few drinks being what she does every night of the year. We know because she says so.

3 Free Speech Campaigners BUSTED The people at 89up, notably Michael Harris and Padraig Reidy, told anyone who would listen that Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act was a “Gagging Clause”, which it is not. But what they put in the small print was that they were being paid by the press establishment.

2 Murdoch Fires Louise Mensch - OFFICIAL As I told you all last November, Ms Mensch has been effectively sacked from her own website Heat Street. But it’s all amicable and she’s still a News Corp VP. Honestly.

1 Sun Gets The Blowback From Hull After the Murdoch goons slagged off the 2017 City of Culture, the moves for a sales boycott in Hull intensified. Not a good look for a paper that lost £60 million last year.

And that’s the end of another blogtastic week, blog pickers. Not ‘arf!

Free Speech Campaigners BUSTED

[Update at end of post]

The people at the 89up website want you to know that they are in favour of free speech. This is most reassuring. Some of them also want you to know that commencing Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act would be harmful to free speech, which is not true. This does not deter them: people like Michael Harris and Padraig Reidy are clearly on a mission to campaign for their beliefs, and to have their opinions carry the day.

To this end, 89up has set up a “campaigning site” which claims Section 40 is a “Gagging Clause”, which it is not. Harris has claimed, in addition, that Leveson did not propose Section 40, and that this was “drafted badly behind closed doors with no consultation”. Leveson and the subsequent discussions which resulted in the Royal Charter on press regulation featured extensive consultation with every imaginable interested party. But they should have left the door open, because, er, because.

Perhaps Harris and his pals also believe the “dreamed up over pizza in Ed Miliband’s office with Hacked Off present” canard. Belief can be an interesting concept. It can be so interesting that it can be not only formed, but, for an appropriate sum of money, it can also be bought, although of course Harris denies such things influence his thinking.

Meanwhile, Harris and Reidy happily venture on to Twitter to let their followers know that “Hugh Grant's complaints against press end with a  a free pass for every oligarch on the planet”, and to praise Andrew Norfolk for claiming Section 40 “loads the dice in favour of criminals” (Norfolk writes for the Murdoch press, who know all about loading the dice in favour of criminals, especially the ones they used to employ).

What you will not see Harris and Reidy do is say anything for the victims of press abuse, the little people at whom the press establishment stick their fingers up and tell to “come and sue us if you think you’re hard enough”. That only the rich - yes, oligarchs, crims, and the rest - can afford to get redress when the press defame and smear them, well, these noble and principled free speech campaigners manage to forget. Easily done, eh?

Lame excuses ...

Actually, this is not accidental, nor some kind of forgetfulness. That is because Harris and Reidy are, as I suggested earlier, being paid to sing for their suppers. Their paymasters are the News Media Organisation, a front for the press establishment. In other words, they are being paid by the press to say that the press is right. This they do with panache, élan, more than a little of that bravado and derring-do, and utter shamelessness.

... duly busted

“My views haven’t changed since I worked at Index” protests Harris. Press regulation reform, Leveson, Section 40 and Leveson 2 on the menu there, was it? One has to wonder if there is anyone out there batting for the press establishment who is not directly or indirectly on their payroll - or, like some of the less principled hangers-on, merely cheering for them in the hope that someone will throw them a biscuit.

Michael Harris and Padraig Reidy may not believe or accept it, but they are fatally compromised on this issue. Moreover, they are propagandising, and dishonestly so. They are not alone. The press establishment knows that groups like 89up are the finest advocacy money can buy. That’s why they’ve bought them.

[UPDATE 2110 hours: Messrs Harris and Reidy have become particularly righteous about this post, tellingly spending inordinate amounts of time on Twitter trying their best to make me feel guilty about saying boo to such august and principled individials.

However, and here we encounter a significantly sized however, it now transpires that 89up is of such high principle that it has sponsored content with the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog - a borderline Fake News site.

This post, creatively titled "Stop The Gagging Order - Save The Free Press", contains assertions like "Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, cooked up by Hacked Off and Brian Leveson". Strangely, Harris has claimed on Twitter that Leveson didn't devise Section 40. And Hacked Off have not been drafting legislation.

I'm sure there will be a perfectly good explanation from the 89up people. But maybe not for some time]

Dacre Besotted With May

Picture, if you will, a school playground. The older students have just welcomed a new pupil, a quiet, slightly posh girl who has been made a prefect. Not many people know her, and those that do aren’t sure that she’s much of a team player, or cares very much about them. Some teachers don’t rate her academically. But for the school bully, it is all so different. He is always ready to rush to the aid of the new girl.

Who says I'm making a f***ing idiot of myself, c***?!? Er, with the greatest of respect, Mr Jay

The school bully sees in the new girl a way to demonstrate his power. He’s generally pretty crap with girls, so thinks he’s got a chance with the new girl, even though she’s just stringing him along. He’s making a complete fool of himself, but such is the fear of the other students that none of them dare point out the obvious. For him, she can do no wrong. Whatever she chooses to do is fine by the school bully.

And that, dear readers, is, in a nutshell, the real life relationship between our new and not at all unelected (honest) Prime Minister Theresa May, and the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, bully boy editor of the Daily Mail. Dacre has long been known to have a problem with women, and his projection of all his beliefs on to Ms May demonstrates little more than unrequited adoration, the sign that he is utterly besotted with her.

So when today’s Daily Mail Comment, the authentic voice of the Vagina Monologue, was committed to print last night, nobody else at the paper would have had the courage to tell him that his adoration for the PM was looking a teensy bit obvious. “Could there be more eloquent proof than the extraordinary events of the last week that the Remoaners will grasp at any straw, however flimsy, in their cynical bid to sabotage Brexit negotiations – and subvert the democratic will of the British people?” it begins.

Then comes the first sign of adoration: “And didn’t those events also demonstrate just how resolute the Prime Minister is in her determination to thwart them?” It gets worse. “Sir Ivan Rogers resigned as ambassador to the EU with a petulant and treacherous sideswipe at Mrs May … Cue the usual shower of embittered Remainers, lining up to lavish praise on Sir Ivan … What a motley crew these Jeremiahs were”. Do go on.

“Within 48 hours, this concocted hysteria - seized on gleefully by the BBC - simply evaporated”. BBC behind it all: CHECK! Er, so how come it “evaporated”? “Rather than getting involved in a war of words, Mrs May had neutralised him with quiet, ruthless efficiency”. And a fanatical devotion to the Pope, perhaps?

The grovelling gets yet worse: “Our PM’s calm assurance augurs well for the difficult negotiations ahead. The road may be rocky but her aim is simple … there are many big issues aside from Brexit and Mrs May will need all her steel to tackle them … the naysayers will continue to snipe … she should ignore their carping and get on with the job. With a 17-point poll lead she has the country firmly on her side … Britain stands on the threshold of a new age of genuine self-government. If Mrs May can guide us safely across it, she will go down in history as one of the great Tory prime ministers”.

Pass the sick bucket. Poor Paul Dacre. There he is, making a prize fool of himself, and Theresa May couldn’t give a fig about him. Having a schoolboy crush in your late 60s looks toe-curlingly embarrassing. But not for those of us who can’t stop laughing.