i am sure this will spread even further
it may be bye bye for Murdoch in England and with luck other places as well
Printable View
i am sure this will spread even further
it may be bye bye for Murdoch in England and with luck other places as well
What's interesting is that the American media over-exposed and consumed us with every little detail of the "royal wedding", but the coverage on this is quick and "spotty" at best. I can understand why Fox News isn't covering it , but these other major news organizations (The few Rupert doesn't have his hand in) should be covering this as ongoing breaking news.
Great exchange on Radio 5 the other day, where they had a call between a bereaved father from the 7/7 bombings who had been told that his family's voicemails had been hacked, and on the other end, News International's hapless official spokesman.
Spokesman: " I can only apologise for what happened. It was deplorable and inexcusable. If you give me your number......"
Father: "You've already got my bloody number - that's what this is all about. Just how stupid are you?"
Your overnight reporter signing off for the time being......
In the middle of all the turmoil, it seems likely that for at least some of today (Tuesday), the spotlight will be turned on one senior Metropolitan Police officer in particular, John Yates, for admitting yesterday that his "review" of the 2007 investigation amounted to no more than a cursory look at brief summaries which were already available, without any recourse to the actual documentation for the case.
It was on that basis and on his recommendation that the case was closed.
Once again, thank goodness for the Guardian's persistence.
The senior end of the Met is up to its grubby little elbows over this, whether they were in receipt of largesse from News Int, were possibly being blackmailed for personal indiscretions (already documented affairs), or were being leaned on by even more senior individuals to stay in good relations with the Murdoch empire.
Whatever the reason, it stinks, and for once, let's hope heads roll at the right level.
I think in this case the corruption is pervasive and reaches into such top levels a shake-down is inevitable, John Yates is living on borrowed time. The revelations on Brown's son also put Rebekah Brooks more squarely into the frame as editor of The Sun at the time -how did The Sun get the boy's medical records? Did she never ask her journalist for the source? Its as disgusting as the time they tried to get a photo of Russell Harty when he was dying of an Aids related illness.
Anyway, some of the smaller shareholders are suing NewsCorp in Delaware (where most corporations in the US are registered for tax purposes) -but their influence as shareholders is minimal -Murdoch owns rougly 30% of the shares of NewsCorp, the second biggest shareholder, Kingdom Holding Company (owned by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al-Saud) has 7%. But this also means that as the share price falls so does Murdoch's personal stake -nevertheless, its the 2nd biggest media company after Disney, raking in $25bn+ a year; my guess is that if it gets worse, Murdoch will abandon the UK altogether.
I was talking last night to some friends who live half the year in Australia and Murdoch's holdings there are bigger than I knew - two TV networks and many,many newspapers. Yet he is also something of a local hero - even though he dumped his citizenship years ago to annex America. His mother, still alive though now past 100, is often asked by reporters about Rupert and fends them off. On her hundredth birthday party it is said that Rupert was about to leave when, in front of hundreds of the assembled high and mighty of Australia, his mum called across the room - come back Rupert, you haven't kissed your mother goodnight. So he does kowtow to someone.
I share your expectation that at some point soon Murdoch will probably choose to divest himself of his press interests in the UK. That will cut the ground away from all suggestions he has too many media interests here. But OFCOM could still judge him unfit - which media commentators yesterday suggested would mean him selling SKY in the UK.
Interesting to see his tie up with the Saudis. His new service Sky Arabia, due in the spring, has backing from the royal family of the UAE. Now why didn't he get the Queen on board for Sky UK. Maybe THAT"S why his hench people needed her number.
"Yeah though i walk through the valley of the Shadow of death, I will fear no evil - for I'm the biggest bastard in the valley." Rupert.
"It's the end of the world as we know it, but I feel fine" REM - a song for Rupert and rebekah
There is a fairly comprehensive list of assets, including those obscure little Australian things, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/News_Co...n#Shareholders
Ironically, the Queen banks with Coutts, I don't know what brokers they use but I wil assume she has unit trusts, and that one or more of Murdoch's interests are in the basket, as it were. Something about hands and biting comes to mind...
Messrs Yates and Clarke from the Met in front of the Home Affairs Select Committee live right now on Radio 5. For once, riveting stuff.
It's all fine and good for all three parties to agree to "call upon" Murdoch to withdraw his bid for BskyB... but that actually has no impact in law. And if he does divest himself of the rest of NI then it might well be that the competition commission won't be able to reject his bid.
This outcome could - actually - be bad for journalism and plurality. If Murdoch's News Corp board intervene and, as is suggested, get their way and compel him to sell off his remaining UK papers - including The Times and Sunday Times which he has degraded, but kept alive through troubled loss-making times. Cut loose from his global billions they simply might not survive - I think that would generally be a loss - whatever your political views.
Murdoch is a smart player. he my yet get exactly what he wants.
Oh and I see that this is now beginning to spill over in the US - with the NY Times leading on it and News Corp shares taking a real hit on the US Stock Exchange.
Years ago we were told computing was sending us to a paperless society -the police yesterday admitted they have literally thousands of documents to go through, and have yet to identify all of the 4,000 people whose phones were hacked. It was on the news yesterday evening also, that its possible taps were put on land-line phones, and homes broken into as part of the News International campaign -and so far noone has mentioned hacking into computers which I would expect....this isn't a rotten barrel, its a coal mine of dirt...
STOP PRESS. News International has withdrawn its bid for BskyB. Where that leaves Murdoch's strategy for his empire is anyone's guess - given that it seems to have been pretty well predicated on seizure of all of Sky's revenues as it moves into serious profit.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
So he's lost the best-selling Sunday newspaper, plus its profits, withdrawn from this attempt to get hold of the jewel in the crown, the UK's politicians seem to have grown their balls back, and for what?
Saving a red-headed editor and gaining the wrath of shareholders on both sides of the Atlantic.
It doesn't look good, Rupe.
Ahh but Rebekah does have a gorgeous head of hair, doesn't she. it would be a shame if she ended up as just another presenter on Britain's Got Talent or something.
But Rupert - yep I reckon the knackers yard beckons. Who is that tapping on his shoulder wearing a dark robe and armed with a scythe?
it ain't over till the fat lady sings lol
I don't think the full force of the reputation issue has hit NewsCorp in the USA yet, although some of the smaller shareholders are taking their own company to court over the Shine deal, NewsCorps share price rallied after the news. If there are issues that matter in American that will make it worse for Murdoch, its: the bribing of police officers: if proven in court here, that will make NewsCorp liable to US law.
Murdoch has 'saved' $8bn not buying BSkyB but spent $5bn of it on a share buy-back -ultimately its his control of the Company and his inability or refusal to change the journalistic 'practices'/dark arts at the top level in News International that could see his Empire fall to pieces. I doubt he will remain in the UK to go before a Parliamentary committee.
BP was considered 'too big' to fail, is the same true of NewsCorp? If it collapsed, it would surely just mean other players taking up those assets -?
I also note that our American friends don't seem to have much to say on this story.
Steve Bell in today's Guardian.
Perfect.
What would we do without Steve Bell's cartoon terrrorism? Brilliant!
Now we have to suffer the embarrassment of watching the moral guardians of the universe throw shit at Ms Brooks and whichever of the Murdochs bothers to turn up to the Culture, Media, and Sport Committee -after her gaffe a few years ago when she said 'We have paid the police for information' which the same committee failed to follow up (as in, having Ms Brooks arrested) we now expect these people to do what? Are these people going to incriminate themselves? What about seeing them in a court of law -that's where people who break the law should go -if they have indeed done this. What should be a serious investigation is becoming a circus...I want the truth, but not this way.
Oh please, o please yes...
The Age
Quote:
THE fallout from the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal in Britain could reach Australia, where there is a growing push from politicians for an independent inquiry into the media.
The government is considering backing a Greens move for a Senate or independent inquiry that would include media ownership laws, newspaper self-regulation, journalist ethics and opinion masquerading as news.
I agree, Stavros, to the extent that they will take the UK equivalent of "pleading the fifth" and sit silently as questions are thrown at them. The Murdochs are, of course, flag-of-convenience US citizens, so the committee's scope for dealing withe them is limited. Not so Ms Brooks, who could be challenged further both within and beyond the remit of the committee.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Some interesting US input on Newsnight this evening which suggest that the FBI's interest in the affair is likely to develop pretty quickly, which could serve further to put the skids under Rupe's personal control of News Corp.
And Aeryn is helping to keep us up to date with events down under as well, where it appears that he is just as unpopular in his homeland as everywhere else.
I have a suspicion that the FBI probe is a case of Democrats baiting NewsCorp for political capital at a time of maximum pressure over the debt negotiations. I am not sure when the hacking culture began, and here it was reliant on complicity with the police, I don't know if they were or would have been able to do it in the US in 2001. I am also now sceptical about Gordon Brown's rage in the commons, given Allison Pearson's claims in yesterday's Telegraph, not that I consider he a reliable witness to history. His personal relations with Brooks and Murdoch don't seem to have nose-dived when they made him cry...I think we are rapidly getting to a stage where some hard evidence in court needs to be proven, we are sinking in a blizzard of allegations, and ultimately, its the Metropolitan Police who are looking like the most vulnerable part of this.
It's also been suggested that it's a Democrat tactic to gag or put a leash on the excesses of Fox News before the 2012 election. Is that credible?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Leaving aside one's opinions of Gordon Brown and his seeming reticence till this week, what sort of unspeakable arrogance was it that allowed Rebekah Brooks to think that she was the person who could decide when, where and how to announce to the world that the Browns' son had cystic fibrosis? And where the hell is the "public interest" element in that? Despicable beyond words.
Just announced - Rebekah Brooks has resigned.
And the whole saga creeps inexorably closer to the source.
Excellent - the lightning conductor has been removed. Roll on the showdown next week.
And Murdoch is coming to the commons to refute all the "lies" that have been told about his company. Sounds like the old bastard has finally lost it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
Ho o ho... I'd not put it past the old fella to survive all of this and still emerge with the whole of BskyB in a few months.
The second largest shareholder, Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal was on Newsnight and stated categorically she had to go -and now she's gone, surely no coincidence. It was also pointed out in the Telegraph that hacking into a phone of someone who has melted in the World Trade Center is not going to succeed, presumably the argument will be that voicemails are stored and are not just on the sim card, but there were no reliable communications into New York that day, and how would a hacker of known who to hack other than any names that appeared in the news reports after the event. Barbara Boxer on Newsnight waffled on about the law, but so far there is no evidence of it being broken in the US -there, its politics pure and simple until someone comes up with hard facts, which we are still waiting to have tested in a court of law.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
With it being Roop, I'd give it a 20% chance at best - anyone else 5%.
But against an odds-on certainty a month ago, it's shifted just a little.....
I wonder what would have happened if Rupert Murdoch had retired when he was 65...
I just saw this Fox & Freinds clip that really fucking pisses me off. These lying scumbag fuckers are claiming this NOTW hacking scandal is the same as all those other recent hacking scandals like what happened to Citicorp, and Bank Of America, so we should just move on. The only difference is those companies were HACKED INTO, and News of The World was DOING THE HACKING!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtC4g...layer_embedded
This channel always pulls this type of bullshit because they know many of their viewers are too lazy to look things up for themselves and will accept this muddied version of reality that Fox presents as the truth.
The Blood on Murdoch's Hands
By DAVID SWANSON
Nailing Rupert Murdoch for his employees' phone tapping or bribery would be a little like bringing down Al Capone for tax fraud, or George W. Bush for torture. I'd be glad to see it happen but there'd still be something perverse about it.
I remember how outraged Americans were in 2005 learning about our government's warrantless spying, or for that matter how furious some of my compatriots become when a census form expects them to reveal how many bathrooms are in their home.
I'm entirely supportive of outrage. I just have larger crimes in mind. Specifically this:International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights:The Fox News Channel is endless propaganda for war, and various other deadly policies. As Robin Beste points out,
Article 20
1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
"Rupert Murdoch's newspapers and TV channels have supported all the US-UK wars over the past 30 years, from Margaret Thatcher and the Falklands war in 1982, through George Bush Senior and the first Gulf War in 1990-91, Bill Clinton's war in Yugoslavia in 1999 and his undeclared war on Iraq in 1998, George W. Bush's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Tony Blair on his coat tails, and up to the present, with Barack Obama continuing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and now adding Libya to his tally of seven wars."In this video, Murdoch confesses to having used his media outlets to support the Iraq War and to having tried to shape public opinion in favor of the war. That is the very definition of propaganda for war.
The propaganda is, also by definition, part of the public record. Although that record speaks for itself, Murdoch has not been shy about adding his commentary. The week before the world's largest anti-war protests ever and the United Nation's rejection of the Iraq War in mid-February 2003, Murdoch told a reporter that in launching a war Bush was acting "morally" and "correctly" while Blair was "full of guts" and "extraordinarily courageous." Murdoch promoted the looming war as a path to cheap oil and a healthy economy. He said he had no doubt that Bush would be "reelected" if he "won" the war and the U.S. economy stayed healthy. That's not an idle statement from the owner of the television network responsible for baselessly prompting all of the other networks to call the 2000 election in Bush's favor during a tight race in Florida that Bush actually lost.
Murdoch's support for the Iraq War extended to producing support for that war from every one of his editors and talking heads. It would be interesting to know what Murdoch and Blair discussed in the days leading up to the war. But knowing that would add little, if anything, to the open-and-shut case against Murdoch as war propagandist. Murdoch had known the war was coming long before February 2003, and had long since put his media machine behind it.
Murdoch has been close to Blair and has now published his book -- a book that Blair has had difficulty promoting in London thanks to the protest organizing of the Stop the War Coalition. Yet Murdoch allowed Mick Smith to publish the Downing Street Memos in his Sunday Times. Murdoch's loyalty really seems to be to his wars, not his warmakers.
John Nichols describes three of those warmakers:"When the war in Iraq began, the three international leaders who were most ardently committed to the project were US President Bush, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australian Prime Minister John Howard. On paper, they seemed like three very different political players: Bush was a bumbling and inexperienced son of a former president who mixed unwarranted bravado with born-again moralizing to hold together an increasingly conservative Republican Party; Blair was the urbane 'modernizer' who had transformed a once proudly socialist party into the centrist 'New Labour' project; Howard was the veteran political fixer who came up through the ranks of a coalition that mingled traditional conservatives and swashbuckling corporatists.Bribery is dirty stuff. So is sneaking a peak at the private messages of murder victims. But there's something even dirtier: murder, murder on the largest scale, murder coldly calculated and played out from behind a desk, in other words: war.
"But they had one thing in common. They were all favorites of Rupert Murdoch and his sprawling media empire, which began in Australia, extended to the 'mother country' of Britain and finally conquered the United States. Murdoch's media outlets had helped all three secure electoral victories. And the Murdoch empire gave the Bush-Blair-Howard troika courage and coverage as preparations were made for the Iraq invasion. Murdoch-owned media outlets in the United States, Britain and Australia enthusiastically cheered on the rush to war and the news that it was a 'Mission Accomplished.'"
Murdoch is a major crime boss being threatened with parking tickets.
I hope he's brought down, but wish it were for the right reasons.
The U.S. House Judiciary Committee chased Richard Nixon out of town for the wrong reasons. The full House impeached Bill Clinton for the wrong reasons. And the worst thing the U.S. government has done in recent years, just like the worst thing News Corp. has done in recent years, has not been spying on us.
It's no secret what drove public anger at Nixon or what drives public anger at Murdoch. But, for the sake of historical precedent, it would be good for us to formally get it right.
Charge the man with selling wars!
David Swanson is a writer in Charlottesville, Va.
Olberman would be news director at FOX & O'Reilly would be preaching Marx.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Hippifried your answer reveals an important difference: the dominance of TV in the USA, the enduring role of newspapers in the UK, even though they are facing circulation problems and people under the age of 25 are less likely to have any brand loyalty to a paper. Indeed it goes further as today's Guardian runs an article that claims the kind of tabloid sins we believe Murdoch's papers have committed (belief at the moment not confirmed by a court of law) could not happen in the USA where regulations are more rightly adhered to but, crucially perhaps, where newspapers are no longer on the front line of major breaking news stories -the article is linked below.
It makes me wonder how many Americans here read a newspaper -either online, or through purchase of hard copy -? I have gone from buying a paper every day to buying one once a week, and not the bloated Sunday's -I can't see the point of paying for 100 pages of newsprint if I am only going to read 30, if that.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011...-phone-hacking
Stavros wrote: "I have gone from buying a paper every day to buying one once a week, and not the bloated Sunday's -I can't see the point of paying for 100 pages of newsprint if I am only going to read 30, if that."
Lot of people I know re now doing that. The trouble is how do you know which 30 pages you want to read. i get two papers every day and three on a saturday... and skim through to find the material I want to read. old habits die hard.
These days all the talk in the upper echelons of newspaper management is of diverting resources to build the on-line identity or brand in anticipation of the demise of the paper version. The Guardian in the UK plans to a 30-70 split of resources in favour of on-line. As more as more people get tablet computers and when electronic paper finally arrives, the old tree guzzling newspaper will die IMHO. But the e-readers haven't yet killed books. (Even if Amazon says sales of e books now out distance real books.)
US newspapers are local. There was no national newspaper till the '80s. & that was the ever sucky USA Today. Since then, there's been a huge rush to swallow up the locals in large & major markets, & to get the big papers distributed nationally, but all the nationals suck. Same goes for the cable news channels.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
Lots of people read newspapers. There's over 300 million people here, in a country that's 3000 by 1500 miles. They just don't read the WSJ or the New York Times. Why should they? Most people in the US don't live in New York & don't give a shit about it. There's a whole lot more going on than you ever hear about on the networks or the internet.
Hippiefried... "most people in the US don't live in New York and don't give a shit about it." It's not about New York though, is it? But The New York Times, now sold coast to coast, seems to this Brit who is a regular visitor to "obscure" bits of the USA to be the only American daily that even attempts to cover politics and current affairs from a global rather than local perspective. It's not about caring about what happens in NYC - for the met section of the paper isn't sold in Arizona or Nebraska - but the ret of the paper is a good read and widens the perspective of people. I suppose the WSJ used to do that well before it was guzzled down by Murdoch). Yes there are lot and lots of local city papers which may well do a good job in covering local politics. but The Baltimore Sun or Patriot ledger or even such old worthies as the Boston Globe or the Washington Post ...whatever ....certainly have to rely largely on agencies or syndicates for foreign news - in which there seems to be precious little interest among Americans outside of the wast Coast unless American boys are killing and getting killed someplace. When was the last time your local paper in Idaho or Utah carried stories about Burma, Brazil or Bangladesh?
Yes. The NYT & WSJ are a New York perspective. That's not necessarily an American perspective or a global perspective. It's just what the rest of the world sees from America. Turner was the first to base TV networks outside of New York, & they're still strictly cable. CNN's been bought out since then, & they've been shifting their center from Atlanta to New York. It's a different perspective. & yes, I get national & international news from the local paper because everybody with a web press is subscribed to the same wire services. That's where the NY Times gets most of theirs too. A chunk of the locals use them the same way, along with the other big syndicated newspaper conglomerates. The times & WSJ are actually local papers themselves. Why would anybody else subscribe unless they have some connection to that particular perspective, or they've bought into the hype about the "brand"? The idea that the rest of the country is disinterested in anything outside their own little corner of the world is simply untrue. If the national media drew the maps, you'd see New York & LA, with Chicago sticking out of the vast wasteland in between. The reason nobody really takes the national or international media (both print & electronic) seriously, is because they're so out of touch & snidely haughty at the same time.Quote:
It's not about New York though, is it?
The reason nobody really takes the national or international media (both print & electronic) seriously, is because they're so out of touch & snidely haughty at the same time
Janet Daley -an American ex-pat who lives and writes opinion pieces in London for the Telegraph, writes her usual 'the BBC is left-wing' piece today, her point being that in the UK we have no choice because we are legally obliged to pay a licence fee to receive tv signals into our homes and the fee goes exclusively to the BBC (as a whole, which means the fee is used to fund tv, radio, the web service, orchestras and so on).
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...t-revenge.html
In the UK the BBC has a sort of 'national' profile as 'the nation's voice', in what is obviously a smaller place than the USA. Murdoch owns Sky which has a small share of the viewing public. All tv in the UK is supposed to be 'politically neutral' which means that Daley gets into a lather because she detects a bias against the centre-right just as elements in the Labour Party think the BBC is soft on the centre and the Tories, and don't even get started on Israel and the Palestinians.
The charter of the BBC obliges it to 'inform, educate and entertain' and I can't think of three more compelling reasons to set up a tv station, but not so difficult if the money for it is effectively an extra tax. Fox News, or MSNBC could not happen here, I googled Olbermann and O'Reilly because I had never heard of them, and was amazed at the vitriolic rhetoric of the former against the latter on the Malmedy issue-unthinkable in the UK and something which I think a lot of British people would actually find offensive.
I am not suggesting that our media is not 'out of touch and snidely haughty at the same time', if we had a referendum in the UK on hanging, a simple majority would probably vote for it, but the issue is not discussed because 'it has been decided' it is not to be discussed, the debate on capital punishment is over -the same kind of editorial decision-making that gives more air time to some parts of the world and not others; and also the effects theory which suggests a broadcaster like the BBC or its main rivals in ITN and SKY (and in effect the whole population here who watches news watches one of these 3) can set the tone and the content of debate -if broadcasting standards have slipped in recent years its because newsreaders can sometimes give an emotional/moral slant to a story about which they are supposed to be neutral -9/11 and our own 7/7 atrocities being a case in point.
The question then becomes, not just about the future of newspapers, but of broadcasting and, crucialy -where will the news come in the next 50 years, how will it be packaged/presented, how will fidelity to the 'truth' be maintained? Is Huffington in effect now, a rival 'news' outlet on the web?
As you and Prospero suggest, news agencies already form the source for a lot of stories, and I am not too worried by the David Icke's of this world or other independent bloggers whose opinions are not news.
I also think it is a bigger problem for the USA because of the size of the country, the diversity of its languages and cultures and interests -OR is this in fact a benefit, meaing that no one corporation can dominate broadcasting and mould the news to its own ideology -and, if Murdoch's imprint on Fox/SKY goes, as he and his family leave the stage; or if the Empire is dissolved into new companies, will this change the landscape of American broadcasting? Does the replacement for FOX become less right wing? More right wing? Speculation, I know, but the world doesn't stand still, not even for Rupert Murdoch.
The size of the country is only a problem to those who would monopolize control over content. There's been a concerted effort for the last 3 decades to shrink the pool of media ownership, while increasing the number of outlets into niche markets. Personally, I don't like it. I'm not a niche. The cable "news" networks are practically all punditry nowadays. FOX news likes to tell everybody that they lead in the ratings, & that's true within their niche, but all the news networks combined don't add up to the numbers of a lame game show or reruns of even lamer sit-coms. The reality is that hardly anyone pays attention to any of it. Why bother, since almost everything of any news value on any or all of them in the last 24 hr cycle can be summed up during the half hr local news at 10 PM, & you get the local news weather & sports too? I'm sure the NY Times bumped up their subscriber base by going national. But does the rest of the country add up to what they already had locally? Stats are too easily skewed to make something's importance seem more than it really is.
Prospero asked:The answer is most likely: Today (if there were any stories about those places on the services). I would turn that around & ask: When was the last time a national or international paper had anything to say about Idaho or Utah? It's not like those places are devoid of activity. They're just not New York. All potatoes & Mormons, right?Quote:
When was the last time your local paper in Idaho or Utah carried stories about Burma, Brazil or Bangladesh?
I would turn that around & ask: When was the last time a national or international paper had anything to say about Idaho or Utah?
First, Rupert Murdoch was in Sun Valley when the scandal broke, though what Sun Valley is didn't make it into the coverage...Second, if anything, there are people here who complain we get too much coverage of the US in the British media. The Murdoch press issue in The Guardian has meant that its creepy obsession with Sarah Palin has (mercifully) disappeared; we have had reasonable, if not extensive coverage of the Presidential contenders in the GOP but no, I don't suppose other than lurid crime stories the domestic US gets a fair press here. Also, those of us who are interested in politics surf far and wide for news and information, whereas I doubt most people in this country could name a single Republican contender for President, and I doubt most Americans have heard of Ed Miliband...and I am not sure they should bother to find out...
Stavros wrote:"I doubt most Americans have heard of Ed Miliband...and I am not sure they should bother to find out..." Ae we letting slip a little of the mask here to reveal a Tory bias lol?
Hmmm. It's easy to dislike/despise both of the major parties.Quote:
Originally Posted by Prospero
I've got little time for Cameron and his Eton cronies, but Ed Miliband
leaves me stone cold. He's finally found a voice and an issue with the News International scandal, but otherwise he sounds like a typical new labour apparatchik, no matter how far he tries to protest to the contrary.
And as a lifelong Liberal, I feel horribly disenfranchised these days. :(