Met deputy assistant commissioner Sue Akers [JW: this is the third level in the hierarchy; her job is Head of Organised Crime] tells the Leveson inquiry there was ‘a culture at the Sun of illegal payments’. She also tells the inquiry of emails indicating multiple payments made to individuals amounting to thousands of pounds. In addition, she confirms that a system was implemented to hide the identities of those receiving payments.
The payees of the bribes were Akers’ colleagues, serving MET police officers; public officials by any standard.
The presumably hard evidence behind Akers’ allegations look like a smoking gun for the ongoing FBI investigation into possible violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act by Murdoch’s US vehicle News Corp.
This could be even more fun than the kamikaze GOP attack on contraception.
Author: James Wimberley
James Wimberley (b. 1946, an Englishman raised in the Channel Islands. three adult children) is a former career international bureaucrat with the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. His main achievements there were the Lisbon Convention on recognition of qualifications and the Kosovo law on school education. He retired in 2006 to a little white house in Andalucia, His first wife Patricia Morris died in 2009 after a long illness. He remarried in 2011. to the former Brazilian TV actress Lu Mendonça. The cat overlords are now three.
I suppose I've been invited to join real scholars on the list because my skills, acquired in a decade of technical assistance work in eastern Europe, include being able to ask faux-naïf questions like the exotic Persians and Chinese of eighteenth-century philosophical fiction. So I'm quite comfortable in the role of country-cousin blogger with a European perspective. The other specialised skill I learnt was making toasts with a moral in the course of drunken Caucasian banquets. I'm open to expenses-paid offers to retell Noah the great Armenian and Columbus, the orange, and university reform in Georgia.
James Wimberley's occasional publications on the web
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11 thoughts on “Evil Empire 2 update, downgrade”
Why do you think that Murdoch will be treated any more roughly by US authorities than your average bankster?
Murdoch’s a quintessential outsider, a recently naturalized Aussie with a chip on his shoulder and no friends, only allies of convenience; he’s in major legal and political trouble already in the UK, so vulnerable; and above all, his American media properties are diehard enemies of the Administration (not to mention rational policymaking and civilised politics) in a way the banks are not. If Holder can take down Fox News even slightly, he’d be a fool not to.
Good answer, but the situation is more complex.
Murdoch has no friends, but he does make deals-and keeps them. He is not a diehard enemy of anybody in power, although I agree that he is a diehard enemy of civilization. If you can credibly threaten or reward him, he will relent on you, as he did with the Clintons. He usually goes easy on the New York power structure, in return for various favors. IIRC, he had a similar accommodation with the Blair ministry in the UK. (I don’t think that Murdoch has a chip on his shoulder-that’s Roger Ailes.)
The administration would only be foolish if 1.) they take it easy on Murdoch and 2.) Murdoch doesn’t relent. The administration would be righteous if they act as you want. The administration would be cynical if there is mutual accommodation. I would put my money on the first or third door, although I would put my hopes on #2.
Relentless boorish anti-elitism is how you sell rightwing politics to low-income voters. (It’s basically antisemitism without the Semites.) He would be peddling this stuff in his downmarket publications no matter what strain of rightwing politics he personally may have. The test of your hypothesis is the tone of his tonier publications. I don’t know the Times of London that well. If it is boorishly anti-elitist, I’ll concede your point.
James Wimberley: Er ist der Geist der stets verneint.
Bedenkt, er hat ein weiches Holz zu spalten.
Katja: Volltreffer!
I’ll believe it when I see it.
her job is Head of Organised Crime
Things haven’t been the same since the old Don died.
To borrow an alicublog trope, I would like to kiss this comment’s ring and acquiesce in its taking free apples from my cart whenever it likes.
Why do you think that Murdoch will be treated any more roughly by US authorities than your average bankster?
Murdoch’s a quintessential outsider, a recently naturalized Aussie with a chip on his shoulder and no friends, only allies of convenience; he’s in major legal and political trouble already in the UK, so vulnerable; and above all, his American media properties are diehard enemies of the Administration (not to mention rational policymaking and civilised politics) in a way the banks are not. If Holder can take down Fox News even slightly, he’d be a fool not to.
Good answer, but the situation is more complex.
Murdoch has no friends, but he does make deals-and keeps them. He is not a diehard enemy of anybody in power, although I agree that he is a diehard enemy of civilization. If you can credibly threaten or reward him, he will relent on you, as he did with the Clintons. He usually goes easy on the New York power structure, in return for various favors. IIRC, he had a similar accommodation with the Blair ministry in the UK. (I don’t think that Murdoch has a chip on his shoulder-that’s Roger Ailes.)
The administration would only be foolish if 1.) they take it easy on Murdoch and 2.) Murdoch doesn’t relent. The administration would be righteous if they act as you want. The administration would be cynical if there is mutual accommodation. I would put my money on the first or third door, although I would put my hopes on #2.
No chip on his shoulder? I’ve always thought of Rupert Murdoch as the type specimen for the Australian Cringe. The common tone in Murdoch’s varied media empire is the relentlessly boorish anti-élitism. Er ist der Geist der stets verneint.
Relentless boorish anti-elitism is how you sell rightwing politics to low-income voters. (It’s basically antisemitism without the Semites.) He would be peddling this stuff in his downmarket publications no matter what strain of rightwing politics he personally may have. The test of your hypothesis is the tone of his tonier publications. I don’t know the Times of London that well. If it is boorishly anti-elitist, I’ll concede your point.
James Wimberley: Er ist der Geist der stets verneint.
Bedenkt, er hat ein weiches Holz zu spalten.
Katja: Volltreffer!
I’ll believe it when I see it.
her job is Head of Organised Crime
Things haven’t been the same since the old Don died.
To borrow an alicublog trope, I would like to kiss this comment’s ring and acquiesce in its taking free apples from my cart whenever it likes.
Thank you so much, Mrs. Tilton.
Got any Macouns on that lovely cart of yours?