Week 27.2011 12.7.2011

Tendring Topics………on Line


The End of the World? Not quite; just its bad ‘News’!


The only thing that surprises me about the phone-hacking scandal that led to the closure of the News of the World are the depths to which this revolting publication appears to have sunk. Could they really have hacked into the mobile phone of an abducted and (as we now know) murdered child, read the texts on it and then deleted some of them, leaving space for more? Surely even they must have realized that they were raising false hopes that the child was still alive and capable of using her phone. They were also, of course, confusing the Police and hindering their investigation. Perhaps they were well aware of this, but confident that they’d never be found out, just didn’t care.

As the days passed we learned of ever more outrages committed by Mr Rupert Murdoch’s news-vultures, as they rummaged for tasty morsels among the entrails of other people’s grief. This didn’t surprise me. The News of the World has for many years been prepared to go to any lengths (perhaps I should have said ‘any depths’) to get a sensational and scurrilous news story. I became aware of this personally in the late 1970s. The News of the World had been an early acquisition of Rupert Murdoch’s media empire and had been under his control for a decade.

My wife Heather and I had always tried to instil a social conscience and what we thought of as ‘Quaker values’ into our two sons. We were, I think, successful in this - even though we didn’t manage to turn them into regular ‘go-to-Meeting’ Quakers! Thus it was that one of them, living and working in a London suburb, volunteered to give some of his time (and much of his sleep!) as a volunteer at Centrepoint, the Central London Shelter for homeless young people. He told us some heart-rending but uplifting stories of 16 to 21 year olds who had made their way there, had been given emergency shelter and helped to find a more permanent home and begin a new life. It was a charity that subsequently attracted the interest of Princess Diana and her two sons, Princes William and Harry.

While our son was helping there, a News of the World snooper (I suppose that he would have called himself an investigative journalist!) pretended that he was homeless and was welcomed; thereby taking a place that could have helped a truly homeless young person! He discovered that circumstances sometimes made it necessary for homeless boys and girls to sleep in the same room, though obviously in separate bunks. His sensational story, suggesting that Centrepoint was little more than a Charity-run brothel, discouraged and disheartened volunteers and donors – and probably resulted in some homeless young people preferring to take their chance in shop doorways and bus shelters! I am glad to say that Centrepoint recovered from the scandal and went on from strength to strength.

I am equally glad that the News of the World hasn’t make a similar recovery from the scandal that engulfed it, even though I suspect that it has been sacrificed in the greater interests of the Murdoch Empire, and that it will before long re-appear with a different title, but much the same ethics. I only hope that no-one suggests that its closure means that ‘a line has been drawn under the matter’. On the contrary, the public enquiries already set in place should be pursued with increased rigour. They should be conducted by a judge, and witnesses required to give evidence under oath, so that those who lie can be prosecuted for perjury. Serious consideration should also be given to the ownership of newspapers and radio and tv stations that can sway public opinion and win or lose British elections.

I have found degrading in the extreme, the spectacle of British Prime Ministers (Mrs Thatcher, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron – they’ve all done it) humbly seeking the favourable attention of a foreign newspaper proprietor!

I abhor petty nationalism and I hope that no one would accuse me of being xenophobic. I do feel very strongly though that British news media should always be under widely distributed British ownership and control. Popular newspapers or tv stations, controlled by those who do not share our history, and our cultural and moral values, can do far more harm to the British ethos than many thousands of the immigrant Poles, Slovaks and other East Europeans that UKIP and BNP supporters and their like worry so much about.

Mrs Rebekah Brooks


Mrs Rebekah Brooks is a colourful figure at the very centre of the scandal that led to the demise of the News of the World. A friend of the Cameron family (yes, our Prime Minister and his family) and promoted to Chief Executive of News International, she was that scurrilous Sunday newspaper’s editor at the time that the alleged phone hacking and bribery of police officers was taking place. The editor of any newspaper or magazine is ultimately responsible for the publication’s content and for the behaviour of its reporters, journalists and other staff. It is with the editor that, as they say in Mr Rupert Murdoch’s adopted homeland, ‘the buck stops’.

That being so, it is surely extraordinary that she has made no admission of guilt or responsibility, has no intention of resigning her office and doesn’t expect News International’s ‘emperor’ to require her to do so. In this, she is clearly correct. Mr Murdoch has initiated a stringent internal enquiry into what has been going wrong with the News of the World - under the leadership of Mrs. Brooks.

This is surely rather as though Hitler having heard, for the first time, disquieting rumours about what was going on in Auschwitz, were to have put Heinrich Himmler in charge of a thorough investigation there! Why, I wonder, is Mrs Brooks so confident of her position? Why is Mr Murdoch so supportive of a senior member of his staff from whom he might have been expected to wish to dissociate himself. Could it be that she is, in some way beyond my knowledge or understanding, a keystone of News International and in a position to bring that mighty Empire tumbling in ruins about our ears?

An on-going story!

It was just before the weekend that I wrote the above – yet already the story has changed. The News of the World is no longer. Another journalist has been arrested. Rupert Murdoch has flown over from the USA to exert personal control. Mrs Brooks is no longer heading an internal investigation but is to be interviewed by the police. She is, so we are assured, not being interviewed as a suspect but as a witness.

When Andy Coulson left Lewisham Police Station after he had been helping the police with their enquiries, his remark that ‘there is a lot I would like to say, but cannot right now’, may well have sent a shiver down several well-heeled spines! In ‘Midsomer County’ it would have presaged the early departure of the speaker from this world, and yet another case for Detective Chief Inspector Barnaby!

Come to think of it, the present situation has all the ingredients of a first class tv drama – a sleazy newspaper, a cosmopolitan news media billionaire, corrupt coppers and an utterly ruthless but glamorous redhead with a fatal charm that gains her entrée to the highest circles. You really couldn’t have made it up!

I can’t wait for the next instalment!

Some News from Suffolk

Despite having lived in Essex for well over half my life, I still think of myself as being essentially ‘a Suffolk Swedebasher’. I have been interested therefore in the saga of Mrs. Andrea Hill, Suffolk County Council’s Chief Executive and one of the highest paid local government officers in the country - and that is saying quite a lot!

Appointed in 2008 on a salary of £218,000 a year, many of her colleagues had disliked what was claimed to have been her ‘domineering management style’. An Independent Enquiry into allegations of bullying, harassment and irregular expenses claims, was launched after the body of David White, the County Council’s Head of Legal Services had been found hanging in Butley Woods near Ipswich. She has been on extended leave with full pay since Easter, while this Enquiry took place.

The result has now been made known. A statement from the county council says that it is satisfied that ‘there was no evidence to support claims of bullying or harassment, or that Mrs Hill was in any way responsible for Mr White’s death. With regard to the expenses claims it had been concluded that there had been no dishonesty but that, ‘some of her claims might not have represented the best use of public money’

It was agreed that Mrs White would resign her post forthwith, with the ‘golden handshake’ of a year’s pay - £218,000. No doubt that was dictated by the terms of her contract on appointment. It isn’t too difficult though to imagine the reaction of former Suffolk County Council employees who will have received a pittance on being made redundant during her period of office.

I learn from the local Gazette that Colchester as well as Suffolk had had the benefit of Mrs Hill’s services. From 2001 until 2004 she had headed Colchester Borough Council’s Management Team, on a salary in the region of £80,000 a year, before departing ‘to fresh fields and pastures new’. In this position she is said to have initiated Colchester’s ‘Firstsite Art Gallery Project’, a frequent inspiration of angry and indignant letters in the local press. It is three years behind schedule and, says the daily Gazette, likely to end up costing £28 million!

Colchester’s outspoken Lib.Dem MP Bob Russell is quoted as saying, ‘I considered her tenure at Colchester Council to have been a disaster. Council taxpayers of Colchester will be paying for decades to come’.


A ‘Family Friendly’ Government?

That’s what they say – but the facts contradict this claim.. All the evidence suggests that the second decade of the 21st Century is a distinctly unpropitious time to be raising a family – except of course for those who, like most of the friends and relatives of our top politicians, are seriously wealthy. For them the purchase of food and other items on which most of us have to spend a large part of our total income, will only form a small fraction of their expenditure.

A report in the Church of England newspaper ‘The Church Times’ reveals that a survey for the Quaker founded Joseph Rowntree Foundation (it is circumstances like this that make me doubly happy about my dual membership!) has found that ‘Families need to earn 20 percent more this year than last year if they are to maintain an acceptable standard of living’. What is an ‘acceptable standard of living’? The Church Times says, ‘Since 2008 the JRF has gathered information about focus groups to set a benchmark for what it considers to be ‘an acceptable standard of living’. The benchmark is set at a level that rules out extravagances but allows for such items as a mobile phone and a self-catering holiday in the UK once a year. That seems pretty reasonable to me.

The JRF found that parents with two children needed to earn £18,400 each to reach that standard – a total of £36,800, both parents working full time. This compares with £28,727 a year ago. Families with just one earner need gross earnings of £31,200 and a lone parent would need to be earning £18.200 to meet the minimum acceptable standard of living. The worst hit are those claiming credits for child care, who need to meet a 24 percent shortfall to maintain their standard of living. The official cost of living rose by 4.5 percent in the year to April but the price of ‘essential items’ rose from between 4.7 and 5.7 percent in the same period because of a sharp increase in the price of food during the past year.

Author of the report, Donald Hirsch from Loughborough University says, ‘In practice, earnings have risen by less than inflation, meaning that people on low incomes are finding it substantially harder to make ends meet than a year ago.

‘The squeeze in living standards, caused by the combination of rising prices and stagnant incomes, is hitting people on low incomes hard……in particular the reduction in support for child care has made many low-earning families worse off, it has substantially reduced the incentive to work for relatively low pay, for families who need to use child care in order to do so'.


Meanwhile fuel prices have gone up yet again. Many – particularly the poorest of us – are going to face a stark choice this coming winter: Heat or Eat? They’ll be hard put to it to manage both.

 Family Friendly? I don’t think so.