Across the pond

Half-term.

Grand-children in the house.

Tearing through my study.

Running up and down.

Eating all my breakfast.

Laughing all the time.

Blogging is impossible.

Tranquility quite gone.

But would I be without them?

No.

I was like that once.

And, sometimes they delight me.

Make me laugh and smile.

So, stay my little darlings.

Enjoy your-selves all day.

But, please, please,

A little quieter.

So that I can think.

And get my act together

To write a blog today.

You think he can’t accuse us any more of conducting a personal vendetta.

But maybe Mossad rescued him, filled him with rejuvenation medicine, winged him away to a hideout in Argentina.

I can imagine him sitting there in front of 50 computers, altering web sites and emails and of course milking bank accounts.

All the time chortling and smiling that smile of his, which you all know.

They thought they’d got me. And,  they don’t even suspect I am richer than ever and and don’t have to borrow from bankers ever again.

I hope I’m joking, not suddenly possessed of telepathic powers.

Captain Bob is still up to his tricks, folks. His ghost is rewriting the first draft of history. Just look at his entry in Wikipedia. He is ‘alleged’ to have stolen money from the Daily Mirror pension fund.  Mr Justice Forbes criticised some aspects of the first Board of Trade Inquiry. No  mention of the second BoT inquiry or the Hartley Shawcross Takeover Panel. No mention of the fact that even his wife,  Betty Maxwell, in her book written after his death, admitted he was a crook.

Wikipedia says the share price of his company collapsed after his death. Implication that it was because the brilliant Maxwell was no longer at the helm.

No mention of the FACT that the share price collapsed on the second day because there was no money left to repay the huge loans to the bankers. And worse there was no money to repay the £500 million borrowed from the Daily Mirror pension fund.

Then the conspiracy theories. Was he pushed off his yacht by the one of the secret services?

Reading this you would never realise that there is absolutely no doubt that Maxwell was one of the biggest swindlers in British financial history.

And sadly no mention of the facts uncovered over the years by a few journalists. We were not a conspiracy.

I was first on the trail, driven by curiosity. When I first met him in 1964, I thought he was brilliant and was writing what I expected to be a profile of new star of publishing. I followed him for about seven years, then went into teaching.

Before that I wrote my first really big story on him in 1966, when I was working for a weekly, called The Statist, I had been doing some quiet digging and realised I was dealing with an unusual and possibly dangerous. So I rang my deputy on The Statist, who had moved to the Sunday Times, who I was the only man I knew, who I could trust to join with me on this story.

We ventured out together, one Saturday afternoon to face the Captain in his lair, in the by far the biggest council house, near Oxford Town.

The result was a long profile by me in The Statist on the Friday. And a shorter crisp story by story by Oliver, which, contained some rather interesting facts, which even Maxwell had great difficulty in explaining.

Shortly after that the story was picked up in a big way by Godfrey Hodgson and Bruce Page of the Sunday Times Insight team with a team of forty scouring the globe.

Between us, we did a pretty good job. But it the reason he fell so heavily in 1967, was that he had run out of tricks, to disguise the emptiness in his house of cards.

We all thought that after the devastating report of the BoT enquiry he would never again be trusted with a public company.

But in a few years he was the boss of an even bigger empire.  In those years the only journalist following him was Tom Bower, an ex-BBC man who first met Maxwell when he was doing a Panorama profile. In the final phase Andreas Whittam Smith and Jeremy Warner at The Independent joined in. And in the final weeks just before his death a young woman from The Financial Times joined in. (probably Bronwen Maddox). She did some notable digging.

All of us were experienced business journalists. For another view of Maxwell turn to Stephen Bates, Guardian journalist, who has made his name mostly by writing about religion and the Royal Family.  There is a very funny and revealing story by him on  the gentlemanranters website. It is about the day he was sent in his first job, as a cub reporter on the Oxford Mail, to interview Maxwell.

The biggest omission on the Wikipedia web site, is a paragraph referring readers to the latest edition of Bower’s book, Maxwell: The Final Verdict. It tells the full story of Maxwell is can be bought from Amazon for peanuts.

Oh, gosh, horrible thought, perhaps the big man will be after me from the grave. Is their any lawyer out there who can tell me whether ghosts can sue for libel!

Captain Bob is still up to his tricks, folks. His ghost is rewriting the first draft of history. Just look at his entry in Wikipedia. He is ‘alleged’ to have stolen money from the Daily Mirror pension fund.  Mr Justice Forbes criticised some aspects of the first Board of Trade Inquiry. No  mention of the second BoT inquiry or the Hartley Shawcross Takeover Panel. No mention of the fact that even his wife,  Betty Maxwell, in her book written after his death, admitted he was a crook.

Wikipedia says the share price of his company collapsed after his death. Implication that it was because the brilliant Maxwell was no longer at the helm.

No mention of the FACT that the share price collapsed on the second day because there was no money left to repay the huge loans to the bankers. And worse there was no money to repay the £500 million borrowed from the Daily Mirror pension fund.

Then the conspiracy theories. Was he pushed off his yacht by the one of the secret services?

Reading this you would never realise that there is absolutely no doubt that Maxwell was one of the biggest swindlers in British financial history.

And sadly no mention of the facts uncovered over the years by a few journalists. We were not a conspiracy.

I was first on the trail, driven by curiosity. When I first met him in 1964, I thought he was brilliant and was writing what I expected to be a profile of new star of publishing. I followed him for about seven years, then went into teaching. Godfrey Hodgson and Bruce Page of the Sunday Times Insight team joined in on that phase. And then went on to other things.

We all thought that after the devastating report of the BoT enquiry he would never again be trusted with a public company.

But in a few years he was the boss of an even bigger empire.  In those years the only journalist following him was Tom Bower, an ex-BBC man who first met Maxwell when he was doing a Panorama profile. In the final phase Andreas Whittam Smith and his men at The Independent joined in. And in the final weeks just before his death a young woman from The Financial Times joined in. (probably Bronwen Maddox). She did some notable digging.

All of us were experienced business journalists. For another view of Maxwell turn to Stephen Bates, Guardian journalist, who has made his name mostly by writing about religion and the Royal Family.  There is a very funny and revealing story by him on  the gentlemanranters website. It is about the day he was sent in his first job, as a cub reporter on the Oxford Mail, to interview Maxwell.

The biggest omission on the Wikipedia web site, is a paragraph referring readers to the latest edition of Bower’s book, Maxwell: The Final Verdict. It tells the full story of Maxwell is can be bought from Amazon for peanuts.

Oh, gosh, horrible thought, perhaps the big man will be after me from the grave. Is their any lawyer out there who can tell me whether ghosts can sue for libel!

Captain Bob is still up to his tricks, folks. His ghost is rewriting the first draft of history. Just look at his entry in Wikipedia. He is ‘alleged’ to have stolen money from the Daily Mirror pension fund.  Mr Justice Forbes criticised some aspects of the first Board of Trade Inquiry. No  mention of the second BoT inquiry or the Hartley Shawcross Takeover Panel. No mention of the fact that even his wife,  Betty Maxwell, in her book written after his death, admitted he was a crook.

Wikipedia says the share price of his company collapsed after his death. Implication that it was because the brilliant Maxwell was no longer at the helm.

No mention of the FACT that the share price collapsed on the second day because there was no money left to repay the huge loans to the bankers. And worse there was no money to repay the £500 million borrowed from the Daily Mirror pension fund.

Then the conspiracy theories. Was he pushed off his yacht by the one of the secret services?

Reading this you would never realise that there is absolutely no doubt that Maxwell was one of the biggest swindlers in British financial history.

And sadly no mention of the facts uncovered over the years by a few journalists. We were not a conspiracy.

I was first on the trail, driven by curiosity. When I first met him in 1964, I thought he was brilliant and was writing what I expected to be a profile of new star of publishing. I followed him for about seven years, then went into teaching. Godfrey Hodgson and Bruce Page of the Sunday Times Insight team joined in on that phase. And then went on to other things.

We all thought that after the devastating report of the BoT enquiry he would never again be trusted with a public company.

But in a few years he was the boss of an even bigger empire.  In those years the only journalist following him was Tom Bower, an ex-BBC man who first met Maxwell when he was doing a Panorama profile. In the final phase Andreas Whittam Smith and his men at The Independent joined in. And in the final weeks just before his death a young woman from The Financial Times joined in. (probably Bronwen Maddox). She did some notable digging.

All of us were experienced business journalists. For another view of Maxwell turn to Stephen Bates, Guardian journalist, who has made his name mostly by writing about religion and the Royal Family.  There is a very funny and revealing story by him on  the gentlemanranters website. It is about the day he was sent in his first job, as a cub reporter on the Oxford Mail, to interview Maxwell.

The biggest omission on the Wikipedia web site, is a paragraph referring readers to the latest edition of Bower’s book, Maxwell: The Final Verdict. It tells the full story of Maxwell is can be bought from Amazon for peanuts.

Oh, gosh, horrible thought, perhaps the big man will be after me from the grave. Is their any lawyer out there who can tell me whether ghosts can sue for libel!

Ed Miliband does not stutter. But he has still not learnt to speak to the hearts of the people. And never was there a time in recent British history when it was a better time for an opposition leader to demonstrate that he cares for the thousands who are protesting on the streets. And the millions who are passionate Labour supporters.

His brother David is no better on this scale.  As I said, in my last blog, if only he could speak like Billy Bragg.

Both Ed and Dave have inherited the reforming zeal of their reformist father. They have also inherited his academic qualities. Although he sent them to Haverstock School, where they made friends with some of the mostly working class pupils, when they stand on the hustings they talk as if they were addressing an Oxbridge seminar.

Oratorical skills can be learnt. Winston Churchill was not a born orator. He learnt the skills. And learnt them late at life. He spent hours rehearsing all those speeches, which still echo down the centuries.

All it needs is a lot of hard work and a gifted teacher. As we all now, because we have watched The King’s Speech, and seen how a stutterer leant how to speak to the people in their hour of need.

The best man to teach him would be Eric Stadlen the best radio tutor I have come across. I have watched him in the studio using very similar tactics to those employed by King George VI’s speech therapist with many students, including not a few Oxbridge educated public schoolboys and girls. What they had to learn to do was to speak heart to heart, not to make a speech, or read a speech, which is a mode most get into when given a microphone.

Eric is, alas, dead.

And, as I write, I remember that even Eric had a few failures. Only a few days ago I came across a very amusing account of one of them on the blog of one of BBC secretaries who was in the studio at the time.

Winston Churchill Jnr, me and ‘The World at One’ « Magnificent Ageing

His name was Winston Churchill, the grandson of the Winston mentioned above. He had been sent to Eric, because he was being considered for radio and tv presenting jobs. Time and time again, Eric sat the secretary down in front of him, and said, ‘Don’t talk to the nation, talk to Penny’.

But Winston just didn’t get it.

But he did get the jobs he wanted. But he was always dropped after a few programmes. He got the job because he had the right name and a good track record as a print journalist. And he was much better looking than his granddad. A blue-eyed blonde god without a weight problem.

But in front of the microphone he was as wooden as when he first sat down in Eric’s BBC studio.

Give it a try, Ed. Don’t rely on the party machine to find experts to coach you. Ring Billy Bragg for starters and get him to sit in when you are next rehearsing an important speech.

The people’s protest movement came to Charmouth this morning. Nobody threw any stones or fire extinguishers. The Dorset police did not even turn up, so no-one was injured by kettleing tactics. True, there were not thousands on The Street, but the library was full to overflowing.

Attendance was helped by the presence of Billy Bragg, who lives in the neighbouring village of Burton Bradstock. He came along with his guitar and sang a few of his songs, including the Battle for Barking, which  celebrates, amongst other events, that day in Cable Street in the 1930’s when London’s east enders took to the streets  to protest against fascism.

He also made a rousing speech, which captivated his audience, quite as much as his songs. If only Ed Miliband, our shadow prime minister, could speak half as well, the national campaign to save public libraries would be un-stoppable.

In his speech, Bragg linked the library protest with the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and with the current student protests over tuition fees.

‘When the government steps back from the brink and our libraries are saved, don’t forget the students, who will still be fighting tuition fees.’

He proclaimed his commitment to a caring society, which enabled poor boys like him, to gain free access to the rich diversity of our culture, books as well as music. And he thanked the post-war Attlee government for providing them, along with free health care via the National Health Act.

In fact, we owe our public libraries, to one William Ewart, a Liberal MP, who introduced the Public Libraries Act in 1850. The Act was only passed after two years of acrimonious debate in committee and on the floor of the House of Commons. Ewart had to face opposition from the Conservatives, but also from several in his own party. The main argument against was that it was taxation without consent.

But for the poor boys of the 1850s libraries were useless, because the vast majority of them could not read and write properly. That was not rectified for another thirty years and it was rectified by the education reforms of Disraeli’s Conservative government, ushering in free schooling.

Both David Cameron and our local MP here, Oliver Letwin profess to be great admirers of Disraeli. Letwin wrote the Conservative manifesto, which spelt out their commitment to a modern day version of compassionate Conservatism, termed the Big Society. But the way they are implementing these cuts is angering, not only non-Conservatives, but bed-rock supporters of their own party. (Most of the crowd this morning were Conservative voters, although the organiser was a Liberal Democrat.)

William Ewart, was not a poor boy, like Nye Bevan. He was educated, like Cameron, Letwin and that other great compassionate Conservative they admire, Harold Macmillan, at Eton and Oxford.

So they should both pop into their local libraries this weekend, take out decent biogs of Disreali and Macmillan, and refresh their memories on what compassionate Conservatism is all about.

Not because he likes it. The British establishment never liked him, and his first wife, had a nasty time, being patronised by the great and good.

But because his business interests are at risk.

His underlings here, have been implicated in the phone tapping scandal, so much so, that his trusted hack, Andy Coulson, has finally had to reisign as the Prime Minister’s spinner in chief.

He has come here to emphasise that he is still the boss, not his son, who has been trying to behave as if he knew something about journalism, apart from what he learnt from his dad.

He  has come here, because he wants to get 100 per cent control of Sky Television, to add to his his existing monopoly control of the British media.

This is not polemnic.

Monopoly power, as defined by the old rules, was more than one thired of the market.

Murdoch exceeded that long ago.

The debate should be about whether Murdoch is not already too powerful, not whether he should become even more powerful.

But the government minister responsible for making the decision, as to whether this decision should be referred to the Competition commission, has said he will give more time for Murdoch to argue his case.

Which only goes to show, that he is totally ignorant of the history of the British media.

There has never been a time, when one company has had so much power.

Murdoch owns the biggest circulation tabloids, in the Sun and the News of the World. And the still highly  respected Times and Sunday Times, amongst the serious newspapers.

As well as Sky Television, which has been enormouslly successful, in purshading people to pay for what they view.

By comparision the rest of the right wing press, is a joke. The Telegraph, owned by the tax exiled Barclay Brothers, still produces a decent serious newspaper, but has no prescence in broadcast. Likewise, the Daily Mail, although it is still a trenchant voice for the British right, and which still gets stories which the rest miss.

The Express, now owned by the Pornographer general, and has few serious journalists. The Mirror struggles, with no financial resources. The Independent goes on, not because it has any economic viability, but because decent journalists are prepared to write for them, even though they don’t get serious money.

But Rupert Murdoch is in town, to tell David Cameron, that he  should toe the line.

Which David Cameron, and his underling, Jeremy Hunt, may well do.

But history will remember, that if they ignore the facts – and to state them again – the Murdoch media already has more than a  monopoly of British media, that Cameron and Hunt kissed arse.

As the Americans say.

It is blunt and unpleasant.

But it is saying it as it is.

And Hunt and Cameron should remember, that Rupert Murdoch, is not hooked on political ideology. Although he is undoutedly right wing and Christian, he is totally prepared to support winners, which is why he helped Tony Blair and the Labour Party to power.

Years ago, we had a Labour politician named Harold Wilson, who was deemed paranoid (i.e. mad) because he thought his phone was tappeded by the secret services.

Fast forward a few years, and to an age when our present Prime Minis is  has just had to accept the resignation of his his chief spin doctor, a forrmer employee of the most right wing media empire, over phone hacking. He still maintains he knew nothing about what was happening in his own newsroom.

Though one of Cameron’s senior cabinet colleagues, Chris Hughne, a former journalist, has today said, what all the journalists covering the rstory have been saying all along.

Fleet Street, from The Guardian to the News of the World, does not operate that way. Andy Coulson, was far from incompetant. But even if he were he would have been aware, like everyone else, of what was  happening in his own newsroom on the hot story of the day.

Coulson did not go to jail, with his underlings. He resigned as editor, and proclaims to this day, that he knew nothing about what was happening in his own newsrooom.

Thereby protecting his Lord and Master, Rupert Murdoch.o

Because if Coulson knew what was going on, the question becomes did Murdoch know.

Murdoch, unlike Lord Beaverbrook, does not ring his editors at breakfasttime every day. He mostly appoints them and leaves them to do  the job, according to his well known prejudices. But with anything high profile, he rings them for a chat.

Which he may well have done in the case of the phone hacking.

Coulson protected his boss by his stance. And delighted his boss when he became the Prime Minister’s chief spin doctor.

Not only did Rupert know he was welcome to tea at No 10, but he knew that every day he had a trusted lietunant telling Cameron how to deal with the press.

No-one can prove this, unless Coulson shops his boss.

But if it is true, it means that Cameron is still playing footsy, with Rupert Murdoch, in the hope that he will deliver the voters.

But even if Rupert Murdoch is the not the bloke I know, but some saint believing in truth and justice, he should not be given even more monopoly powers over the British media.

His only surviving competitor in television is the BBC, whom he cantinually attacks as wasting the taxpayer’s money, and run by a bunch of lefties. (Which shows how little he knows of the Beeb, which certainly employs some lefties, but also employs many who are even more right wing than Murdoch.)

In print he owns the top selling tabloid and the highest circulationn broadsheet, with the exception of te Telegraph, as British as roast beef, except that it is now owned by the Barclay twins, who are tax exiles in the Channel  Islands and notoriouslly secretive.

The question should be, not whether Murdoch should be allowed to take total control of Sky, but whether he should be forced to selll some of his other holdings in British media.

Just remember that it is Murdoch’s Fox Television in the US which insists that Obama is a Muslim and which incited the tea party of Sarah Palin and her campaign of hatred, which led to the appalling violence, including the near assasination of a US leftish Jewish senator.

But the British police have found no evidence of phone tapping, even though Gordon Brown thinks they tapped his phone.

The British police I deal with personally are the best in the world (much better than the French, the Germans and the US).

But I have real fears that their standards are being corrputed, by those who think there is nothing wrong with being lovey dovey with tabloid reporters, and nothing wrong with sleeping their way into protest movements, and fucking the wife of the politician they are employed to protect.

They now think that a Dutchman was the killer. But their former suspect, pilloried by the media, with the help of police ‘leaks’, is still  held, althouhgh on bail. His reputation in shatters.

Do they think he was an accomplice, of the man, they now think wars the murderer?

If not, why do they not clear him, and try and make amends for the damage to his reputation, resulting from the press coverage, fuelled by police leaks.

The police have a difficult job. There is  a huge public need to find the villain. Fuelled by the press.

But unless the police think that the Dutchman was acting in conspiracy with their first suspect, they should release him from arrest on bai9l.

And, even also say, Sorry.

Dear reader, you may have noticed that your prime minister has not commented on the departure from his government of the Rupert Murdoch hack, Andy Coulson. To whom he was devoted.

He has left Nick Clegg, his Liberal Democrat deputy, to carry the flack . So that he can evade the odour of being exposed as as someone whoo  was quite prepared to employ one of Murdoch’s minions, who  tookj the flak for his boss.

Cameron, like Blair and Brown before him, is quite happy to see Rupert Murdoch via the garden entrance to 10 Downing Street. Although, theee days he is not even an Australian,  he is an American citizen. But he is super rich, and he owns a huge chunk of the British media.

Far more than the monopoly rules advise.

And whom Cameron still courts. Although Andy Coulson is gone.

As well they might, because Murdoch has been super successful in getting newspaper readers and television viewers to consume his prodduct.

And Cameron, and Blair and Brown before him, kiss his arse.

Despite the evidence from hundreds of polls, that the great British public  does not share Murdoch’s born again belief in his kind of Christian God.

And despite the evidence, those of the British electorate who support te Conservatives are a minority. Many support the Liberal Democrats. A much greater number vote Labour, but their only consistent support is from  The Guardian, which is written by Oxbridge educated chaps.

No newspaper, no television channel, speaks for today’s British worker.

Britain’s free press is only available to those who have millions to spare.

That is what the competition commission should  be looking at.

Not only, Murdoch, but the other tycoons, who are trying to cash in by selling their wares.

Not driven by journalism and the pursuit of  truth.

Today, David Cameron, faced the first serious challenge of his government. One of his most senior colleagues, Chris Huhne, spoke aot  against him.

Or, rather against the sort of clap trap that has been produced by the mainstream press.

Huhne, said today, that the phone tapping was clearly not the result of one rogue reporter. Hughn, a former journalist, merely voiced what a9ll journalists know.

Which is how newsrooms work.

But David Cameron has not fired him.

Because Cameron also knows how newsrooms work. Because his first job was working as a lackey for a Jewish  media tycoon,  when he learnt how to spin. Journalists who were around at the time remember him.

And, he was something far short of the apostle of truth. He was  a hiredd hack for a fairly ruthless media operator, who believed that the private sector delivered truth, as opposed to the BBC, which was a left wing conspiracy.

Peopled by the likes of  Nick Robinson, who would like to be a Conserervative MP.

Not at all the left wing conspiracy, which Rupert Murdoch alleges.

Cameron has not only employed a Murdoch lackey as his press officer, he has, like Brown and Blair before him, welcomed Rupert Murdoch into Downing Street, to hear what he thinks is right for Britain.

Although, Murdoch is a born Australian, but now an American citizen, and the owner of Fox News, who is America, have fostered the hate campaign, which led to the  attempted assasination of an American senator. And, who has contribited millions to the US Republican Party.

Rupert Murdoch has already been given power over the British press which violates the monopoly rules existing when I started work in journalism in 1955.

He owns the Sun, hugely prosperous, because it shows female nipples on Page Three, and provides detailed sports coverage.

But, politics, it is a joke.

But  Murdoch was also allowed to win The Times, which is supposed to be a serious newspaper. Murdoch put in his own men to run it, with disastrous results. But, since then he  has hired some decent journalists, so that  The Times has recovered some of its credibility. But of course it toes the Murdoch line on Europe and on God, about whom most Brits are deeply sceptical.

So Murdoch has too much power already. And should not be allowed to gain 100 per cent ownership of Sky.

But the rest of the press is equally tainted.

The Telegraph, who sent in dolly birds to lure Vince Cable into indiscretions, about Rupert Murdoch, is owned by tax exiles, the Barclay twins, who are politically to the right of David Cameron.

The Daily Mail, still owned by the Northcliffe family, who are as resolutely right wing, as they were in 1894, feeds its readers with a murder a day, right wing political coverage, good sports, and lots of dolly bird coverage, but mostly not bare nipples. Lots of titivavtion for the males, but nothing offensive to most of the female readership.

The Express, which was the best selling newspaper when I began my journalist career in 1955, is now owned by the pornograher general, who is rich on porn. The Mirror, once the people’s newspaper, is a joke, underfunded, and with declining circulations.

The Independant, is kept alive by a few journalists, who work for love and commitment to decent journalism. It has no resources to cover interantional news. And few readers.

The only effective newspaper, who has opposed this right wing ramp is The Guardian, owned by the Scott Trust, deriving from its original Liberal owners. It’s circulation is minute compared, even with The Times, let alone The Sun. But it carries international clout on the web.

So obviously Murdoch has too much media power already, and should  not be allowed to get more without scrutiny.

But the real scandal, is that the majority of the British electorate is not Conservative.

But the mainstream media is overwhelmingly Conservative.

Britain has a free press, if you are rich enough to own media.

The millions who vote Labour or Liberal Democrat do  not have a press to advance their cause.

That is much more important than Murdoch, who is not immortal, and will be dead soon.

And his sons and daughters are not as shrewd as him. But the competetion are the Barclay Twins, tax exiles in the Channel Islands, the pornograher general, etc, etc.

We don’t have a free press.

We have a press run by a few rich men, who are prepared to spend their millions on newspapers, which mostly do not make money, but which give them power and influence.