. . . the freedom of Wapping Wharf! I had better explain, not least for the benefit of my foreign readers. Whilst waiting for Dave to give his sub (very sub) -Churchillian report to parliament and to relish the sight of Clegg trying desperately not to fill a sick-bag, I watched some of the proceedings of the Leverson enquiry into press practices. Today, Mr Thurlbeck has been in the witness box interrogation cell. He was the chief reporter for The News of the World. My heart went out to him as he tried, manfully, to inject just a tiny amount of realism into the fairyland ruled over by that pompous prat, Lord Justice Leveson. Checking his Wiki entry I was unsurprised to see that he acted for the Inland Revenue ('the dirty rat'!) in the case against the beloved Ken Dodd for tax evasion:
Leading judge Sir Ronald Waterhouse QC later commented in an interview on Leveson's performance in the courtroom that "he lost the mood of the case, and he certainly lost the jury".
Well, he certainly lost me today. A typical 'bigwig', far removed from the real world inhabited by the 6 million readers of the NotW whom he, and his little bearded stooge posing the questions, obviously consider to be so far below the salt that they are out of sight and thus out of mind and may, indeed, should, be safely ignored.
Thurlbeck, impeccably polite, refusing to rise to the sneers of his interrogator, stood up bravely for his newspaper and praised both its reporters and also its ethos - which is more than you can do for The Guardian which has now been forced to retract its lie story that it was the NotW who hacked Millie Dowler's 'phone, thereby killing off a newspaper and putting hundreds out of work. No doubt Thurlbeck will be shot later! I don't think I have ever read the NotW but I have regularly cheered it as it raked the sewers of the land and placed the shits they found on their front page. We have lost a great institution and if the high and mighty Lord Justice Leveson has his way there will be more to go.
I've never read NotW either, but felt a twinge of anxiety at its passing. If the number of shits was diminishing I'd be less concerned, but as far as I can see it isn't.
Posted by: A K Haart | Monday, 12 December 2011 at 15:33
Quite so, AK, we need more rakers not less.
Posted by: David Duff | Monday, 12 December 2011 at 16:53
So the Milly Dowler story was a lie?!?!?!?
Dear god, I'm very confused. Will they investigate The Guardian now? How could they have made a mistake like that? I remember the response from Milie Dowler's mother when she first heard this story. It was heart-breaking.
Posted by: Dom | Monday, 12 December 2011 at 20:53