Czar of Spin in Feast of Slime

January 13, 2010

Slime

Blade admires a good bit of PR as much as the next man. He likes to think he is possessed of a fair, humane and even occasionally wise appreciation of this most ambivalent and yet entrancing of arts. And thus it is that he cannot but turn away in horror from the smug, complacent, self-satisfied and abidingly arrogant visage of Alastair Campbell.

The Czar of Spin’s evidence before the Iraq enquiry was a feast of slime. Campbell, whose affiliation for Burnley FC is thought to have alienated thousands of neutrals, slithered insouciantly from even the vaguest hint of remorse or humility. His performance was a master class in the art of evasion, the kind of thing that would have brought a smile to his face were he to have witnessed it in a  Labour politician facing a grilling by Paxman or some other leviathan of the airwaves.

Talking of a politician schooled by Campbell about to face an investigative grilling, none other Tony Blair is soon to step up to the plate. What to do? Wait and watch with bated breath? Or give in and accept that Messrs Blair and Campbell were right all along about Iraq? Trust Blade: a chink suggesting otherwise will not be forthcoming.

Pictured courtesy of soapylovedeb: the slime. And the horror.

 

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From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.