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Chris Huhne pleads guilty: Politics live blog

The Guardian: Politics Live Blog - Mon, 02/04/2013 - 08:10

Andrew Sparrow's rolling coverage of all the day's political developments as they happen, including George Osborne's speech threatening to break up the banks

Andrew Sparrow

Rupert Murdoch's back – and this time he's tweeting orders

News Corporation: Live Updates from The Guardian - Sat, 02/02/2013 - 20:05

Not content with rearranging his editors at Times Newspapers, the resurgent tycoon now seems to be guiding their actions and responses via his Twitter account

Time for an unreality check. Only a few months ago, remember, a humbled Rupert Murdoch was the last tycoon on earth politicians wanted to dine or chat with. His giant company and its overarching boss-cum-effective-owner – him – had been caught standing dozily by while hackers and bribers reigned just off stage. His closest confidants had been hustled into retirement or worse. His family was split, bruised, distraught. And News Corp, his greatest achievement, was carved into two at the behest of a cheesed-off board and shareholders.

Worse, Rupert, the great print lover, was pushed to the non-executive sidelines as far as the papers were concerned. He was out of the action, a pariah. Who on earth wanted his endorsement at election time? But baby, look at him now.

Who's that grand old man openly calling one of his editors an "ineffective manager"? Why, Rupert, of course. And encountering problems with his directors after ushering the allegedly ineffective one (James Harding at the Times) out of the door? And, nonetheless, brusquely appointing temporary, acting editors at his quality papers in Britain? Plus noshing with Boris Johnson and George Osborne in time-honoured fashion? It's as though nothing had happened: slates not merely wiped clean but forgotten entirely. The status quo ante with added tweets.

Now, let's be as calm as possible about Gerald Scarfe and last Sunday Times's suddenly notorious cartoon of Binyamin Netanyahu. Scarfe doesn't do cuddly: never has, never will. Cartoons aren't sober, responsible statements of an editorial view. Ask the Danes. Somebody should certainly have twigged that it was Holocaust Memorial Day. But the acting, temporary etc editor of the paper, Martin Ivens, was wholly within his rights to defend Scarfe's "typically robust" drawing and to emphasise "the last thing I or anyone connected with the Sunday Times would countenance would be insulting the memory of the Shoah or invoking the blood libel".

The Board of Deputies of British Jews protests. Israel's ambassador goes on Newsnight to point out that Netanyahu didn't build the supposedly bloodstained wall. Here we go round yet another difficult mulberry bush about "taste" – one made all the more impenetrable because the argument is about images, not words. Who wants the taste police out and about in situations like this? Ask the Danes again.

But then the old tweeter wades bluntly in. "Gerald Scarfe has never reflected the opinions of the Sunday Times. Nevertheless, we owe major apology for a grotesque, offensive cartoon". Thank you and good night, Rupert. What Ivens said is brushed aside. The oracle has settled matters, somewhat humiliatingly, in 140 characters or less. Ivens has peace-making meetings and expresses contrition. Scarfe pulls back a notch. This small episode comes to seem like the UK re-negotiating EU membership. And the reality of last year slides into oblivion.

Yet, surely, it isn't the job of a chairman, or even a CEO, to second-guess his editors or express top-of-the-head views on the cartoons they publish – any more than, for example, it's his job to canvass the Times's editorial support for Romney over Obama. It certainly isn't his role to blithely downgrade the editors he half-promotes.

Murdoch has gone of out his way, and way out of pocket, to keep the papers in being. He is doing that even now, using Australian TV cash to bulwark their balance sheets. He doesn't deserve knee-jerk denunciation. But the hacking and humbling remain raw in the memory. Absolutely the last thing that John Witherow at the Times or Ivens needs is to be labelled as some kind of puppet while the Great Leader tweets away. That's a lethal mistake.

One acknowledged strength of the Times is its comment section, where Matthew Parris, David Aaronovitch, Hugo Rifkind, Philip Collins, Danny Finkelstein and more offer varied opinions, by no means all of them predictable from one week to the next. They seem to enjoy the gift of independence. But the section editor who delivers that freedom – Anne Spackman – let it be known the other day that she's moving on. Trouble with the new regime? It's said not. Enough orchestrating the thundering is enough, apparently.

But that still presents a problem for Witherow. He'll need to keep the team together and recruit fresh, flexible voices. He'll need to be flexible and free-thinking himself. He doesn't need a back-of-the-orchestra job playing second fiddle to the Voice of Twitter.

Witherow, on his record, is a very capable, experienced operator. He and Ivens surely want to be left alone to build their own futures, refresh their own papers and make their own mistakes. How do you say that in 140 characters and expect it to stick?

Peter Preston
guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

British Antiterrorism Official Sentenced in Hacking Scandal

NOTW: Live Updates from the New York Times - Sat, 02/02/2013 - 01:00

April Casburn, a senior police officer, was sentenced for seeking cash payments from Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid.

News Corp's Will Lewis takes senior New York role

News Corporation: Live Updates from The Guardian - Fri, 02/01/2013 - 12:03

Executive who handled fallout from phone-hacking scandal to become chief creative officer of demerged publishing company

Will Lewis, one of the executives running News Corporation's controversial management and standards committee dealing with the News of the World phone-hacking scandal, is moving to a new senior role with in Rupert Murdoch's New York headquarters.

Lewis will become one of the key figures working with Robert Thomson, chief executive of News Corp's worldwide newspaper and book publishing operations, which will be spun off into a separately listed company as part of a demerger scheduled for later this year.

He is to be chief creative officer in the new company, which will have assets including News International's UK titles, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Post, News Ltd titles in Australia, HarperCollins book publishing and Fox Sports Australia.

"He will be responsible for the company's creative strategy and will haev a central role in developing new commercial opportunities including product launches, digital initiatives and acquisitions," said News Corp in a statement.

Also moving to New York is Anoushka Healy, the group managing editor of the Times and Sunday Times. She has been named as chief strategy officer for the proposed new company. She joined the Times in November 2002 as editorial communications director and rose through the ranks to take her current job in 2011. Healy, Thomson and Lewis previously worked together at the Financial Times.

The moves are part of a realignment of staff ahead of the demerger of Murdoch's publishing and Fox film and TV assets and signal the winding-down of the MSC, which was set up in 2011 at the height of the phone-hacking scandal as part of a damage limitation exercise by News Corp.

Information provided by the MSC to the Metropolitan police has prompted the arrests of dozens of current and former News International journalists over the last 18 months and made Lewis deeply unpopular with rank-and-file staff in Wapping.

The hostility towards him at News International also meant the prospects of a job at a senior level in the UK publishing division were always slim once the MSC's work was wound down, and Lewis had been widely tipped for a move to New York.

Lewis joined News International as deputy to the then chief executive Rebekah Brooks in the summer of 2010, shortly after he left Telegraph Media Group, where he had spent three and a half years as editor and editor-in-chief of the Daily Telegraph.

Although he had joined News International with a remit to promote integration across Murdoch's newspapers, Lewis quickly became involved in dealing with the response to the phone-hacking scandal, and, according to allies, uncovering the initial evidence that led the company to concede that the practice went beyond a single rogue reporter at the News of the World.

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Lisa O'Carroll
guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Reporter whose evidence convicted April Casburn says police officer was 'sacrificed' by News International

NOTW: UK Telegraph Live Blog - Fri, 02/01/2013 - 11:09

News of the World reporter whose evidence led to conviction of DCI April Casburn says he has 'sympathy' for her and believes she has been 'sacrificed' by the publisher.

Reporter whose evidence convicted April Casburn says she was 'sacrificed' by News International

NOTW: UK Telegraph Live Blog - Fri, 02/01/2013 - 11:09

The News of the World reporter whose evidence led to the conviction of DCI April Casburn said today he had "sympathy" for her and believed she had been "sacrificed" by a company intent on protecting its share price.

Ex-NoW reporter blasts News Corp for role in jailing of detective

News Corporation: Live Updates from The Guardian - Fri, 02/01/2013 - 10:47

Tim Wood, whose evidence contributed to case against April Casburn, says publisher should not have revealed its sources

The former News of the World reporter whose evidence contributed to the jailing of a senior anti-terrorism police officer has launched a scathing attack on the paper's owner, News Corporation, for its role in the case.

Tim Wood is furious that News Corp, the ultimate owner of the now-defunct tabloid, handed over an email he had written, which Justice Fulford said was crucial to Detective Chief Inspector April Casburn's conviction and imprisonment for 15 months.

Wood was the journalist who took the call when Casburn phoned the News of the World early one Saturday morning on September 2010 to tip off the paper that Scotland Yard was launching a new phone-hacking investigation.

He told the Exaro News website that the decision by News Corp's management and standards committee to hand over the email about the details of his phone conversation with Casburn to the Met was a "betrayal" of one of the most basic principles of journalism, which is "always to protect the source" of a story.

"The MSC was established to counter damaging claims of a cover-up at News International over phone hacking," Wood told Exaro News.

"But I believe that it has gone too far, betraying more confidential sources than any other body or person in the history of journalism."

The MSC, set up by News Corp to deal with the phone-hacking scandal, has been handing over emails to Scotland Yard since 2011 when News International, the UK publishing arm of Murdoch's empire, decided to change its tack and co-operate fully with police amid mounting criticism that it had tried to cover up alleged criminality at the Sunday tabloid.

This information has resulted in the arrest of dozens of current and former News International journalists, including 22 on the Sun.

Wood said in his 30-year reporting career he has been quizzed four times about his sources by police but has not once breached the "tenet of journalism", which is never to reveal sources.

He added that the MSC's decision to hand over evidence that can potentially lead to sources being identified threatens the work of all journalists.

"The MSC's betrayal threatens the confidence of any future source who is thinking of going to News International's four newspapers and hoping to remain anonymous," Wood said. "It also threatens the ability of reporters on the publisher's titles – the Sun, the Times and their sister Sundays – to operate effectively in the future. Indeed, the MSC's actions jeopardise the work of all journalists."

He was coming to the end of his night shift just before 8am on 11 September 2010 when he took the call from Casburn and quickly fired off an email to his boss and the paper's crime editor detailing the conversation.

During her trial, the jury heard that Casburn did not give Wood her name during the phone call, but left a mobile phone number which was later traced by Scotland Yard detectives to her personal handset.

Neither Wood nor any of his bosses acted on the call, suspecting it was a "sting operation" as the caller was phoning looking for money about an investigation into the paper.

"My immediate reaction was that this was a sting or crank call. She could hardly be a senior police officer in reality, I thought," Wood said.

"I spoke to the news editor, Ian Edmondson, who was also suspicious. He told me to email the details to him and the crime editor, Lucy Panton. I did this, and thought no more of it."

Wood heard nothing more of the email until he was contacted by police 18 months later. When he arrived at Snow Hill station in Farringdon, central London, he was handed the email memo he had written to Edmondson and Panton.

He said he expected News International to step in with help "but none was forthcoming". The National Union of Journalists told him that News International had "compromised" him and he had no choice but to be a witness.

Journalists covering Casburn's case were surprised that Wood was the prosecution's prime witness as there have been numerous previous examples of newspapers, including the Guardian, the Times and the Financial Times, risking sequestration of assets or journalists risking imprisonment for refusal to reveal sources.

In 1990 journalist Bill Goodwin, of the Engineer magazine, was hauled through the courts for refusing to betray a source.

Mr Justice Fulford, who presided over the Casburn case, said he had "no difficulty" believing the accuracy of Wood's email note of the conversation with the DCI.

"It seems to me Mr Wood was a reliable, honest and disinterested witness. He took the time and trouble doing the telephone call to find out in detail what Ms Casburn was [offering]. He had no reason to lie and every cause to be cautious given the risk that the newspaper was about to become victim to a sting as he suspected," Fulford said.

Wood told Exaro on Friday that Casburn was not seeking money for a story but "seeking reward in return for information that might help a large corporation defend itself against damaging allegations".

News International declined to comment. It is understood that the publisher is offering legal support to journalists.

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Lisa O'Carroll Josh Halliday
guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Senior Met Police detective jailed for 15 months over corrupt payments

NOTW: UK Telegraph Live Blog - Fri, 02/01/2013 - 06:47

Senior Scotland Yard counter-terrorism officer April Casburn jailed for 15 months for offering to sell information about phone-hacking investigation to News of the World.

Politics live: readers' edition - Friday 1 February

The Guardian: Politics Live Blog - Fri, 02/01/2013 - 05:00

Share breaking news, leave links to interesting articles online and chat about the week's events and BBC question time

I'm not writing my usual Politics Live blog today, but, as an alternative, here's Politics Live: readers' edition. It's intended to be a place where you can catch up with the latest news and find links to good politics blogs and articles on the web.

Please feel free to use this as somewhere you can comment on any of the day's political stories - just as you do when I'm writing the daily blog.

It would be particularly useful for readers to flag up new material in the comments - breaking news or blogposts or tweets that are worth passing on because someone is going to find them interesting. A lot of what I do on my blog is aggregation - finding the good stuff and passing it on - and you can do this, too (as I know, because it happens every day when I'm blogging).

All of Friday's Guardian politics stories are here, and all the politics stories filed on Thursday, including some in today's paper, are here.

Guardian readers Andrew Sparrow
guardian.co.uk © 2013 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds

Lewisham hospital announcement: Politics live blog

The Guardian: Politics Live Blog - Thu, 01/31/2013 - 05:08

Andrew Sparrow's rolling coverage of all the day's political developments as they happen, including Jeremy Hunt's announcement about the future of the A&E department at Lewisham hospital

Andrew Sparrow

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