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Another layer of the rotting onion that is the British ruling class


 
George Osborne, Britain’s chancellor of the exchequer (and David Cameron’s college chum and next door neighbor) is pretty much fucked, I think, no matter how you slice it. On Australian television today, Natalie Rowe—a former dominatrix who ran the Black Beauties escort agency, a $500 an hour prostitution ring in the 1990s—dumped a bucket of shit all over Osbourne’s head, reminding viewers of her role in what Osbourne himself called an “absurd smear campaign” against him in 2005.

Ms. Rowe, speaking on ABC Australia:

“I mean it’s been said in the newspapers that he was at university. He wasn’t. At the time he was working for William Hague. I remember that vividly because he called William Hague insipid and I didn’t know what the word meant. I do now. So he definitely was in government by then but I think he was getting more and more of a high profile. So there was definitely, there was cocaine on that night on the table. George Osborne did take cocaine on that night. And not just on that night. He took it on a regular basis with me, with his friends. There were more witnesses, not just me, that witnessed George Osborne taking cocaine. So it’s you know, there are other people out there that know the truth. On that particular night he had taken a line. And I said to George jokingly that when you’re prime minister one day I’ll have all the dirty goods on you. And he laughed and took a big fat line of cocaine.”

But it doesn’t end there, oh no, the sordid mess is even messier, and is now deeply connected to the News of the World hacking scandal.

Mark Lewis, the attorney representing Rowe had this to add, speaking to Australian journalist Emma Alberici:

MARK LEWIS: The editor at the time was Andy Coulson. And I think that’s worth remembering because of the future relationship that we have between the Conservative Party, the prime minister and Andy Coulson… That editorial could have gone completely the other way. It could have said, for example, whilst we do not believe that George Osborne took drugs he showed a serious error of judgement being at the party or being at the flat where drugs were taken, where there was an allegation of prostitution. He showed that error of judgement and therefore he’s not right to be in the heart of politics. Now the decision on which spin to give to the story by the editor of the News of the World particularly was something that determined his future in politics.

EMMA ALBERICI: You think so?

MARK LEWIS: Undoubtedly so because the editorial could have been written the other way. And if it would have been written the other way it would have finished his career I’m sure.

Rowe decided to sell her story to The Sunday Mirror in 2005 after watching Cameron and Osbourne refuse to say whether or not they’d ever taken drugs in a session of the House of Commons. Later that day, she was shocked to see the story on the front page of The News of the World. Police have allegedly told Rowe that reporters working for Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World newspaper had hacked into her phone.

News of the World called Rowe a coke-snorting hooker and used an unnamed source to discredit her story.

MARK LEWIS: The editor at the time was Andy Coulson. And I think that’s worth remembering because of the future relationship that we have between the Conservative Party, the prime minister and Andy Coulson.

EMMA ALBERICI: Andy Coulson also wrote an editorial, or had it written for him, dismissing Natalie Rowe’s story.

MARK LEWIS: That editorial could have gone completely the other way. It could have said, for example, whilst we do not believe that George Osborne took drugs he showed a serious error of judgement being at the party or being at the flat where drugs were taken, where there was an allegation of prostitution. He showed that error of judgement and therefore he’s not right to be in the heart of politics.

EMMA ALBERICI: You think so?

MARK LEWIS: Undoubtedly so because the editorial could have been written the other way. And if it would have been written the other way it would have finished his career I’m sure.

Tory sleaze is back with a vengeance! But Chunky Mark, the angry cab driver is having none of it…
 

 
Via Ian Bone’s blog/Thank you Chris Campion of Berlin, Germany!

Posted by Richard Metzger
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09.12.2011
11:09 am
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