News of the World to relaunch online? Tom Watson tried to tease out Rupert Murdoch on Twitter this morning by suggesting the News of the Word is about to be relaunched online. I understand that the campaigning Labour MP has insider sources in Wapping who have given him the lowdown on a planned relaunch of the dear old “I made an excuse and left” News of the Screws. So then, this is Murdoch’s contrition for having broken every law in Britain and then blamed it on his staff: to relaunch the thing in another medium. When the launch happens, I do not doubt it will be the most humble day of his life.
The depth of criminality inside Newscorp is still emerging, with the head of news at The Sun having been charged two weeks ago with authorising illegal payments to police and army officials. Chris Faro was charged on several counts, including conspiring with prison officers, others based at a high-security psychiatric hospital, police officers from three forces, and British army officers to commit misconduct in a public office. Chris obviously has a company bike.
In turn, former crime editor at the Screws Lucy Panton has been charged with making illicit payments to a prison officer and his ex-partner. I could not possibly comment on rumours that she is the company bike.
Hark unto the sound of silence among the Newscories at these events. See how demure is their demeanour.
George Osborne fiddles while Britannia burns. The government figures out this week – relating to GDP growth in the UK – don’t use the RPI or the CPI as a measure of inflation. Instead, the Draper uses his own deflator, which might actually be better described as a vibrator, aka a bit of a wank. Nobody’s sure how Osborne gets to where he does based on the Osbornotron, but the growing suspicion among observers of such things is that the ‘measure’ is complete bollocks designed to make things look better than they are.
No! Really? Yes, really.
Until Squeaky became Chancellor in 2010, RPI and the Treasury’s deflator produced pretty much equal results. But then Georgie-Porgie’s version was introduced, and hey presto the RPI and the Georgenator have ever since been diverging disturbingly. The Chancellor of course ignores the RPI measure because it doesn’t support his spurious numbers. In fact – as the ever watchful Merryn Somerset Webb notes – using the RPI to deflate nominal GDP suggests that the real economy has been contracting since 2008. It concludes that we are in a depression.
Camerlot lies. Nothing new people, do move along, thank you so much. O Ben Brogan my dear, I told you so.
A bit of a fracking con. I wonder how many Sloggers have spotted that there is something of a mismatch between the occurrence of demonstrations against fracking, and the reporting of same in the British press?
Of course, the Goforits are continuing to snow this through, but the reality is that we are about to dig up what’s left of rural England because successive British governments have made a balls of energy policy, and no serious investment has been made in post-fossil technologies. Given the true nature of fracking (basically, it is a Ponzi scheme based on diminishing returns and suppression of the nuisance factor for local residents) this will I think turn out to be one of the white elephants of all time. Whether it will be in a room or not is entirely down to the media. We shall see.
The Slog 