BBC Banned From Reporting On "cash For Honours"

BrianH

BrianH

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The Attorney-General has taken out an injunction against the BBC to prevent BBC News reporting an item related to the "cash for honours" enquiry. How much more abuse of power can we expect from the Blair government?
 
Originally posted by Desert Orchid@Mar 2 2007, 10:13 PM
Does he give any grounds?
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Does he have to?.

He doesn't like what they're going to say isn't that enough :D and he's the President afterall

You might recall an elongated discussion I had with Clive on this a few months in the context of the illusionary concept that the West pedal as freedom, which was put in an American context in this instance (as that is what was being debated). I'll re-produce a bit from it, provided you can apply the context I'm sure you'll see similarities.


Freedom of expression is fine, so long as it conforms with what they want you to say. If however, you start expressing things they don't want you to say, then they have a problem? Broadly speaking they do one of a few things.

1: Allow you continue if they assess the threat to be negligible, as perversely this only reinforces the idea of that you are free etc

2: Discredit the dissention through the mobilisation of the various state apparatus and private corporate mutal interests

3: Or finally, if they believe the threat to be credible and dangerous, then frankly 'freedom' is seen as the naked imposter that it is in the (American) way of life, and they either systematically suffocate it, or brutally remove it.

This final point is actually quite interesting as it goes to the heart of (American) freedom. What I believe you actually have is the freedom to go so far, and once that thought becomes a movement, or is perceived to be a danger than the state will move against it.
 
That is obviously American in origin - in fact such a report as the BBC's would not be suppressed in the USA, though it would be much more likely to appear in the written media than on any of the networks.

I have little doubt, and the government will be of the same mind, that the BBc will be succssful on appeal and by then the leaks will have informed those of us who are interested enough to find out what exactly the content of this latest report is.

As far as the question asked by one of Mr Tony's few remaining fans on this side of the Atlantic, I didn't hear any grounds, but I can tell you what they will be - "Not in the public interest". And, of course, in the Orwellian world that our legislators currently inhabit the exact opposite meaning can be applied.

Other items ruled as being "not in the public interest" in recent times were the bringing to court by the Serious Fraud Office of the management of BAE on charges of bribery and corruption, the granting of the inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly even the same powers as those held by a local coroner, an enquiry into private equity firms and the "huge gains" they were making (this was requested by one of his own party's ex-cabinet ministers).........need I go on?
 
Yet another example of the dangerous elitism of this government, all behind Blair's saccharine smile. It's gone well beyond being patronising now into the realms where, with so many more CCTV cameras, so many ways to track this and that - even the latest nutso notion about trackers in private cars - the illusion of freedom of the Press (or other forms of news media) is just that. No country is as surveilled internally as this one, and again and again we're told what's not acceptable for us to learn about. At the same time that broader and broader powers are extended to the police and presumably other interested parties, we're fed dumber and dumber news - cutesy stories with happy endings, for Chrissakes, with imbecilic news readers prattling inanities to each other. News? More like bread and circuses. Keep 'em clinically obese and happy, and they won't want to know anything nasty.
 
It saddens me when leaders hide behind the 'not in the public interest' fence.

I'm all for governments keeping the general public on a need-to-know standing but I'm surprised someone as astute as Blair doesn't see that it looks as though he's got something to hide.




Still, it could be worse. (We could have David Cameron as PM.)
 
Originally posted by Desert Orchid@Mar 2 2007, 11:57 PM
I'm surprised someone as astute as Blair doesn't see that it looks as though he's got something to hide.
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Now I wonder why it would look like that?

As for Cameron being worse, there's probably little difference between them but would any other of our potential PMs have taken us to war on a lie?
 
Blair has gone way beyond caring what the public think, and into arse-covering mode. He knows the shine's gone from his armour with the lies and counter-lies over the Iraq war, and that people are seriously beginning to wonder what horror stories might lie within even that one framework. David Kelly as a victim of being hounded to death is just one. Whether one believes his death was a suicide or murder is immaterial to the fact that the man was telling the truth and died for it.

I can't make flippant comments like 'still it could be worse' when things like that happen, and I didn't even know the man, just as I don't know the British or American soldiers dying in Iraq on the back of a pack of lies. We do all now know, as many of us had known full well at the time, that the stories about WMD, nuclear programmes, imminent attack threats, and God knows what else were complete and total poppycock. They were the basis for the invasion and they are the reason for our boys being maimed and killed, and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis being caught up in the subsequent uncontrollable firestorm.

The UK might be different under David Cameron, but I doubt that the Tories will keep us in Iraq as the puppet of the USA and the prime benefactor of Bush's, Rumsfeld's, Rice's and Cheney's investment accounts. And quite possibly Tony Blair's.
 
The double standard is amazing of course. This is a government that believes it has the right to know absolutely everything it can lay its grubby hands on about its population, and has intruded like no other before it, and hasn't finished yet, but when the government itself comes under survielance from its civilian population......... :ph34r:

Remember they're still expecting us to pay £90 or something to buy and carry ID cards.

Reminds me of an old Soviet joke (always had a dry sense of humour the Russians).

"We have invented a brand new type of television.
One that watches you"

Mind you Blair's turning off the analogue signal of course, and forcing us all to buy Blair compatiable sets in the future...... Could it be :ph34r:
 
:laughing: Oh, what, you mean he can do even more damage than that nice Mr Blair? Not that I'm going to be voting for him or the Labourite bar stewards. In just what way would the UK suffer more, Euro? (I've spotted a shitcan and a twat tonight - are you on the gottla geer again?) :suspect:
 
No. I`ve been on the local train platform from 2-11, which means dealing with all the inbreds from Blackburn, Accy and Burnley.

Cameron is the Tory version of Blair. Which means he`ll be just as oily and dishonest but just that little bit worse.
 
You have my sympathy - that's a helluva long haul of a working schedule. Perhaps you SHOULD have a stiff drink!

Mmm... sadly, there's a lot of slime in politics, probably it's an illusion to think that there was a Golden Age somewhere. It would be refreshing to find someone who really lived up to some sort of standard. I've been unamused to read tonight that Al Gore, he of 'An Inconvenient Truth' is guilty of spending $30,000 a year on his electricity bills for his TWENTY ROOM mansion in Tennessee - TWENTY TIMES more than the average American! Oh, dear, feet of clay, feet of clay...
 
There was no golden age, just the odd decent bloke - like Clinton and John Smith. I`d like to think the country would be that bit better if he`d lived.
 
I liked Clinton very much indeed, and while I don't know too much about Smith, he did seem to be a straight dealer. It'd just be good to have someone who was the sort of person you'd like to have as your friend, or like a really good boss, but strong enough to take on the international stage, without fawning over despots or idiots.
 
Originally posted by Euronymous@Mar 3 2007, 12:28 AM
There was no golden age, just the odd decent bloke - like Clinton and John Smith. I`d like to think the country would be that bit better if he`d lived.
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I think that John Smith was probably the last of an era, though we will never know.

Clinton presided over a period of history that presented him with very few bigger challenges than allegedly keeping his dick in his pants.

Cameron comes across as Blair-in-waiting, and that is certainly not what the UK needs.
 
I think perhaps we need to be a bit cautious about the frothing at the mouth about this injunction.

The news is that the AG - being the only person who can get an injunction to prevent a contempt of court in advance - has applied on the request of the police . If that is the case the reason is to prevent any investigation being prejudiced not to protect anyone against whom an allegation is being made.

FROM THE BBC WEBSITE

The attorney general's office and the Metropolitan Police issued a joint statement on the matter.

In it, they said the application for an injunction was made by Lord Goldsmith "at the specific request of and in co-operation with the police because of their concerns that the disclosure of certain information at this stage would impede their inquiries".

That statement added: "The attorney general acted in this respect completely independently of government, and in his independent public interest capacity."

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell told BBC Two's Newsnight that "the attorney general acts in the public interest, and in particular, he's got an interest to ensure that no possible prosecution is prejudiced or that no possible defence to a prosecution is prejudiced".

He added: "I think what one might be able to infer from the fact that he felt it necessary to seek this injunction is that he at least contemplates the possibility that a prosecution of some kind will follow."
 
Yes, we learnt that later. But tell me, do you really believe the Downing Street statement that the first they heard about it was on the ten o'clock news?
 
Interesting.

I did hear that this morning, which obviously alters things, but it was some what surprising that the BBC seemed to be inferring/ presenting it as a gagging order last night, but have since shifted, which is a strange position for them to have adopted as they were seemingly making out to have been in the dark originally.

The cynic in me would have to conclude that the Government therefore had the motive to allow broadcast and then claim subjudcie at a later hearing, that they haven't probably presents them in a more favourable light, but the inference is reasonably clear I'd have thought as Menzies Campbell QC has alluded to
 
Thanks, Ardross. Your clarification helps a lot. My faith in Tone is restored :)

Looking around the corridors of power and those that stalk them, does anyone believe there is better, more honourable Prime Minister material than Blair? He isn't perfect but he strikes me as a lot less imperfect than so many others. I agree that John Smith was a major loss to the nation. So was Robin Cook.

Blair has been as much a victim of unfortunate circumstances as a creator of them. Our close association with the US has been his/our undoing thanks to the idiot across the water but did he really have a choice? I'm not convinced he knew the invasion on Iraq was based on a lie but he's had to make the best of it. (And all the other party leaders agreed at the time it was the right thing to do based on the intelligence reports on which they were relying.)

I do suspect he's an honourable person who's had to deal with the least stable period in world politics for several decades and Bush's side have had more to do with creating the instability than anyone else.

(Sits back and waits for the onslaught...)
 
What's that saying..........."you can fool some of the people, some of the time................."

DO, if he wasn't aware the invasion wasn't based on a lie, why is he still kow-towing to Dubya?
 
Desert Orchid, I knew you were a man of faith without needing any evidence to support it but I wasn't aware that this extended to Mr Tony. There is enough evidence that he knew the whole rationale put to the house and the country was a concoction - and the late Robin Cook was well aware of it. I won't bore you with reams of stuff but just try this for starters:

Blair knew he was talking bollocks
 
Originally posted by Desert Orchid@Mar 3 2007, 10:43 AM
I agree that John Smith was a major loss to the nation. So was Robin Cook.
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Agreed. So we have Cook, Clinton, obviously JFK and Smith. I see a pattern, was JS a coozehound as well?
 
I met someone in November 2003 at a time when TB was still pedalling this myth about WMD. This person represents another Government, one who you'd broadly call critical but friendly. Not surprisingly the subject came up in the few hours we had, and I was told quite explicitly that not only that there wasn't any WMD, but that there never was after Hans Blix et al. In other words the UN had actually been very successful (for once) in actually dismantling and disrupting whatever Iraq had, and as it transpired it was never as much as was widely thought, (Saddam indulged in a bit of poker with his population and neighbours it turned out) which when seen in context is actually quite understandable. Their own capacity was close to non existant (less than Iran's) and what they had accquired from Rumy amongst others, had largely been destroyed, degraded, or in very few cases, used up. (More was expended in the war against Iran remember), which is why the Americans assisted in aspects of supply.

I must confess to being surprised a bit, as I felt sure that in line with most nation states, and any with military aspirations, and especially in that region, they must have some kind of low grade capacity? But my contact was adamant that there wasn't, and never was at the time of shock and awe. Hence why Colin Powell was relying on artists impressions of what a mobile laboratory might look like, fuzzy aerial photographs of a new roof being built on a factory, and testimony from the regimes emigre opponents, many of whom had little contact with Iraq, when he went before the UN on Feb 9th.

Suffice to say, if this particular Government knew that, then I fail to see how TB couldn't?

Again I remember their words quite vividly;

"You won't get anything out of it you know. The Americans will take the bloody lot. I just don't know what the UK's thinking. You'll be lucky if you get a filling station outside of Basra for your reward".

I quite like the Bush line; If Iraq didn't present a threat then, it sure does now :brows: - wazzock. At least TB hasn't tried invoking that justification yet
 
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