FOLLOW US ON:
GET THE NEWSLETTER
CONTACT US
‘Sensational’ Sex Scandal said to have rocked UK Government

noremacdivad01on.jpg
 
The Mail on Sunday is more than a little coy about a story on its front cover today, which claims:

No.10 rocked by secret love affair: ‘Stunned’ PM holds crisis talks over fears tryst will ‘blow political agenda out of the water’

The paper refuses to give details of this “sensational love affair” for “legal reasons” but says it does not involve anyone serving in Cabinet. But the scandal is “dynamite,” and “If the affair is revealed, it is likely to cause as much public surprise as the disclosure of the relationship between [former Prime Minister] John Major and [politician] Edwina Currie, which was kept secret for nearly two decades until 2002.”

The MOS begins the story as follows:

David Cameron has held crisis talks at Downing Street after being told of allegations of a sensational love affair which has potentially significant political implications for him.

For legal reasons, The Mail on Sunday cannot disclose the identities of the people involved or any details of the relationship – even its duration – other than that they are middle-aged figures. The affair has now concluded.

But this newspaper can report that when aides told Mr Cameron the identities of the alleged lovers he was ‘stunned’, and, according to sources, ‘immediately realised the importance of the story’.

The Prime Minister and his aides also discussed the possible fallout should details of the affair become public – and how such disclosure could ‘blow out of the water’ any major political set pieces planned by No 10.

One senior source told this newspaper last night: ‘This revelation is dynamite. None of us could believe it when we first heard it. Then we just thought, “What a complete mess”.’

The source added that, apart from the political implications, the revelation had caused ‘great personal distress to innocent parties’.

It is understood that the Prime Minister was told of the relationship - which does not involve anyone serving in the Cabinet - within the past few weeks.

The whole story suggests more than it offers, and as many of the “Conservative faithful” want rid of David Cameron, it would appear the Mail on Sunday may have the whiff of something which may expedite this sooner rather than later.

At 16.00 BST, there has been no coverage of this story on any of the UK television news networks—BBC, ITV and Sky News.

Only the Daily Telegraph and the Guardian have given the story any coverage.

The Telegraph, contradicts one of MOS assertions, by quoting a government spokesperson who declares:

“There have been no crisis talks or meetings.”

As a topical aside, the Telegraph ran a story, a few years back, about a survey on who would have an affair with a Downing Street politician.

Meanwhile, Roy Greenslade in his Guardian blog, is at a loss to explain the who, what, when, where, why, of the story, and can only conclude:

Of course, it could be nothing more than journalistic hype, but I somehow doubt that. It’s not in the nature of the MoS editor, Geordie Greig.

So what’s it all about? What “legal reasons” prevent us from knowing more? Is there an injunction in place, an anonymised injunction possibly?

I have asked and, as yet, no answers. I would guess that the MoS’s lawyers have advised those in the know to say no more.

Whatever the nature of this “sensational” story, it would appear that it is one, which will run and run—until the “truth” is out, and the political agenda behind the headlines has been done.

Read the whole MOS story here.

Another tale of interest, is this one regarding a past 10 Downing Street scandal involving 2 non cabinet members, which led to calls for resignation.
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
06.02.2013
12:39 pm
|
The Heavyweights are slowly turning on Rupert Murdoch

image
 
It’s been a hell of a week for the Murdochs.

On Sunday,  Rupert “Digger” Murdoch released his Sun on Sunday, the tawdry replacement paper for the equally tawdry and now defunct News of the World.

On Tuesday, singer Charlotte Church had a David versus Goliath moment when she took on Murdoch’s “massive corporation with endless resources, [and] a phenomenal amount of power” and won £600,000 in damages, for information illegally obtained by Murdoch’s paper on the singer and her family. As Church told the Independent newspaper that News International were not sorry:

“In my opinion, they are not truly sorry, only sorry they got caught.”

Not a truer word said, for the News of the Screws would have carried on their underhand, illicit and corrupt methods if the Guardian had not been assiduous in their investigation of the whole Phone Hacking Scandal. Indeed, Charlotte Church said she only agreed on the settlement with the News International because they planned “to go after my mother again”.

On Wednesday, James Murdoch announced his resignation from News International - this is damage limitation, possibly as a precaution against future criminal proceedings and against the further tarnishing to the family business. But wait - can Murdoch’s brand be even more tarnished and disreputable? An organization currently under investigation for corruption, bribery and extensive illegal activities?

And all the while the Levenson Enquiry continues.

Of course, there will always be those dumb apologists who make the pitch that without Murdoch we wouldn’t have had this or that or the other. Well, this that or the other, just isn’t so, for if one was to take all the good Murdoch’s papers have allegedly achieved, and weigh it up against the bad it has actually perpetrated across the UK and the world, then the Murdochs would be found sadly wanting.

Murdoch’s suitability to be running a business, let alone a newspaper, is the question posed by respected journalist and broadcaster Peter Oborne, in the Daily Telegraph, where he asks:

Is Rupert Murdoch a fit and proper person to run a company?

It may seem an obvious question, but it’s not the sort one expects to find in the conservative Telegraph, where Oborne writes:

Until now, it is only the lesser people who have carried the can for the culture of criminality that flourished inside News International, with the buck stopping with editors such as Andy Coulson and Rebekah Brooks. The time has come to look higher up – and I am not thinking of hapless James Murdoch, who belatedly resigned as the chairman of News International yesterday afternoon.

Rupert Murdoch, the company’s founder, insists that he never had any knowledge of wrongdoing, and no doubt that is true. But he was the man at the top. He took a very keen interest in the way his British newspapers were run (a newspaperman to his fingertips, last weekend he could be seen hard at work in the newsroom as the Sun on Sunday was launched) and it was he, and nobody else, who set the culture.

We learn more about this culture practically every day. It was a culture of bullying and intimidation, where facts were distorted and lies told. It was a culture which merged the boundaries between police, media and the political class. Though brilliant in many ways, it also did a great deal to debase and even to destroy our public life. Now Rupert Murdoch, an American citizen of Australian heritage, is promoting the break-up of Britain through an alliance with Alex Salmond, leader of the Scottish National Party (they met yesterday).

Murdoch’s culture, we now know for a fact, included the criminal culture at the News of the World. We have also heard the corruption allegations from Sue Akers concerning the Sun. Of course nothing has been proved, but if even half of what she says turns out to be true, then it is time to ask whether Rupert Murdoch is a fit and proper person to run not just a newspaper, but any British public company.

Undoubtedly, Murdoch is a wily businessman, but the core values his business seed and promote are the lowest, most insidious and craven, which clearly reveal Murdoch’s true ambition - his thirst for power.

Read Peter Oborne’s article here.

Details of Don’t Buy The Sun here.
 

 
Via the Daily Telegraph
 

Posted by Paul Gallagher
|
03.01.2012
07:25 pm
|