Tuesday 17th February 2015

[ErnstRemarx]

No that's far too intelligent! Think sport.

Ooooh, I love a riddle! Was your mum a darts or footie commentator?

The football suggestion is getting pretty warm.

Did she used to commentate at Bristol Rovers on match days?

[RogerOThornhill]

No that's far too intelligent! Think sport.

Ooooh, I love a riddle! Was your mum a darts or footie commentator?

The football suggestion is getting pretty warm.

Was she a Bristol Rovers fan?

[ErnstRemarx]

The suspense is killing me: I've got to go to a Planning Connittee meeting in about 20-30 minutes, and iif I don't find out the answer, it'll gnaw away at me all evening, making me quite unable to execute my quasijudicial function.

So you see, unless you tell me the answer, someone here in Bury could fall victim to my anxiety and end up be refused premission to build a wall. You don't want that on you conscience, surely...

[pk1]

Harriet who?

Unusual surname isn't it ? Only ever heard it once before & that's Tim Yeo - surely not a relative ?

[citizenJA]

George Eaton @georgeeaton · 2h 2 hours ago
Labour keeping up HSBC pressure on Tories: Balls writes to Osborne with five questions. http://bit.ly/1AzOQa8" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It's quite a letter.

I was looking to see if anyone's posted it yet.
Love the clarity. Friendly, yet firm.

'We really cannot let this go, George. Please come out. We have to talk.'

Letter from Ed Balls to George Osborne

Dear George,

It has now been over a week since the full story about tax evasion and HSBC became public.

[text of letter]

Given the significant public interest in this matter, I am making this letter public. It is notable that you have not given any live broadcast interviews or given a statement in the House of Commons on this issue. However, these questions cannot continue to be ignored and I look forward to hearing from you.

Yours sincerely,

Ed Balls

http://press.labour.org.uk/post/1112761 ... ge-osborne

'P.S. Leave my window cleaner alone. That was totally rude.'

[pk1]

The Metropolitan police complained about a section of the programme which featured a reporter interviewing members of the public about the issue.

It said the interviews were presented as having been chosen at random, but in fact “the individuals were employees of an organisation [Livity4] for which the reporter had worked and which … had also worked for Channel 4”.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/f ... son-review" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

What a bloody disgrace & shows just how these broadcasters mug the viewers off !

[ScarletGas]

Ooooh, I love a riddle! Was your mum a darts or footie commentator?

The football suggestion is getting pretty warm.

Was she a Bristol Rovers fan?

Dead right.The Scarlet is from my Fathers home town of Llanelli and Gas from my Mothers Bristol.I support both the Scarlets and Bristol Rovers (for my sins)

[ScarletGas]

The suspense is killing me: I've got to go to a Planning Connittee meeting in about 20-30 minutes, and iif I don't find out the answer, it'll gnaw away at me all evening, making me quite unable to execute my quasijudicial function.

So you see, unless you tell me the answer, someone here in Bury could fall victim to my anxiety and end up be refused premission to build a wall. You don't want that on you conscience, surely...

OK,OK.Answered elsewhere. I would not be able to sleep tonight thinking of that blasted wall.Good Luck with the meeting.

[citizenJA]

Isabel Oakeshott ‏@IsabelOakeshott 2m2 minutes ago
BREAKING: I can exclusively reveal that Harriet Yeo, chairman of Labour's NEC 2012-13, is quitting the party over Ed M's position on Europe

Oakeshott sounds very full of herself about it - doesn't she just. Presumably the resignation is because Miliband won't commit to a referendum unless there is a significant treaty change proposed. What's so terrible about that? And is this resignation - of a former chair of NEC - really a bombshell? I don't know ... not been 'in the party' for long or deep enough to know.

Next up!

'Ed Miliband's next door neighbour's babysitter's great aunt refuses to vote Labour.'
Why this is bad news for Ed Miliband.

[citizenJA]

Exclusive

[rebeccariots2]

Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. If so apologies....But you had training.

Not when I started as what was called in those days, a nursing auxiliary. I worked in a hospital for the young chronic sick (young meaning under 65) & whose patients were all long term & with life limiting illnesses such as multiple sclerosis, huntingdons chorea & so on. It was hard, back-breaking work with few mechanical aids & certainly not what is available to carers nowadays.
I doubt it would ever happen tbh. Care homes will not jeopardise being struck off by having untrained care assistants harming their patients - their profit margins mean more to them than appeasing the Tories.

Me neither but they are not all as bad as they are made out to be. The bad ones are unacceptable but it's rather like the narrative that surrounds Mid Staffs, as if all care homes are bad because of a few in the same way as all NHS hospitals must be bed because of Mid Staffs.

You wouldn't have enjoyed the bit of You & Yours I heard earlier today PK. It was on paying for care .... I just heard the tail end as I was driving home. Their last phone call was from a bloke who owns 7 care homes. He said he wasn't bothered by people who had the means being able to pay for better care than those who didn't who were being paid for by the council. And he ended up by saying that anyone can get good care if they are prepared to pay £18 or £19 p hour for a really good nurse ... but with the rates they are able to pay for staff from council contracts they can only attract the dregs (can't remember if that was the exact word but definitely the sentiment) and that's why you get mistakes and poor care. The presenter ended the conversation PDQ. It left a very nasty insecure feeling. I really hope he's not right in many respects ... and then part of me thought if that is the case more times than it should be, someone has to say so ... and it has to be put right. The rates paid for care staff have to improve.

[citizenJA]

Harriet who?

Unusual surname isn't it ? Only ever heard it once before & that's Tim Yeo - surely not a relative ?

Is Tim Yeo still deselected for the sin of putting his money into renewable energy investments & for what he calls himself, 'being a moderate Tory'?

[ephemerid]

Harriet who?

Unusual surname isn't it ? Only ever heard it once before & that's Tim Yeo - surely not a relative ?

I don't think she's a relation to Tim of that ilk.

She is a trade unionist, according to Wiki, and on the NEC until 2013 - but having been leader of the Labour group in Ashford, she failed to win the Police and Crime Commissioner job and has been anti-everything ever since.

According to the Telegraph, she has defected to UKIP. The candidate there is a bloke called Gerad O'Brien, a local chap who thinks he is a credible alternative to Damian Green (Tory - majority 17,000+).

Ashford, like a lot of the Kent seats, has quite a strong UKIP presence - I wonder of UKIP will do their usual thing and get rid of the local and replace him with this woman?

Whatever, she's no loss.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

Harriet who?

Unusual surname isn't it ? Only ever heard it once before & that's Tim Yeo - surely not a relative ?

Not as far as I know. I think the Telegraph are pushing it to call a Labour Councillor who happened to sit on the NEC for a while "a top Labour figure". Another one, like those bedamned Danczuks, who think more about themselves than about what really matters; if she really felt this strongly then she could, should, have gone months ago. I have nothing but contempt for their ilk.

[ohsocynical]

Isabel Oakeshott ‏@IsabelOakeshott 2m2 minutes ago
BREAKING: I can exclusively reveal that Harriet Yeo, chairman of Labour's NEC 2012-13, is quitting the party over Ed M's position on Europe

Oakeshott sounds very full of herself about it - doesn't she just. Presumably the resignation is because Miliband won't commit to a referendum unless there is a significant treaty change proposed. What's so terrible about that? And is this resignation - of a former chair of NEC - really a bombshell? I don't know ... not been 'in the party' for long or deep enough to know.

Next up!

'Ed Miliband's next door neighbour's babysitter's great aunt refuses to vote Labour.'
Why this is bad news for Ed Miliband.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Harriet who?

Unusual surname isn't it ? Only ever heard it once before & that's Tim Yeo - surely not a relative ?

Not as far as I know. I think the Telegraph are pushing it to call a Labour Councillor who happened to sit on the NEC for a while "a top Labour figure". Another one, like those bedamned Danczuks, who think more about themselves than about what really matters; if she really felt this strongly then she could, should, have gone months ago. I have nothing but contempt for their ilk.

I am no fan of the Danczuks, but one has to say recent revelations make you look at their situation a bit differently.

At the very least, it suggests SD has reasons other than *just* self publicity for his focusing on child abuse

His wife has said there is not the slightest chance of her joining UKIP, btw.

[FuriousGeorge]

Speaking of the Telegraph....

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdo ... -telegraph

[AnatolyKasparov]

Was just going to post that myself - brutal, potentially incendiary, stuff

[TheGrimSqueaker]

Unusual surname isn't it ? Only ever heard it once before & that's Tim Yeo - surely not a relative ?

Not as far as I know. I think the Telegraph are pushing it to call a Labour Councillor who happened to sit on the NEC for a while "a top Labour figure". Another one, like those bedamned Danczuks, who think more about themselves than about what really matters; if she really felt this strongly then she could, should, have gone months ago. I have nothing but contempt for their ilk.

I am no fan of the Danczuks, but one has to say recent revelations make you look at their situation a bit differently.

At the very least, it suggests SD has reasons other than *just* self publicity for his focusing on child abuse

His wife has said there is not the slightest chance of her joining UKIP, btw.

His work in that area is his sole redeeming feature. And I'm not qualified to comment on her recent statement, so I won't.

[rebeccariots2]

Speaking of the Telegraph....

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdo ... -telegraph

That website must be experiencing a huge surge in users ... I just get webpage unavailable ... but I can see the Twitterati are all over the story. Apparently HuffPost are going to post something on it soon.

[FuriousGeorge]

removed as the website seems to have recovered now

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdo ... -telegraph

[AnatolyKasparov]

And as far as "Harriet who?" is concerned, this has to be seen in the context that UKIP have been trying - utterly frantically - to get Labour MPs to defect for over a year now.

With, of course, not a sausage

Moreover, that report says she isn't joining UKIP - merely "backing" them. Not that earth shattering, all told.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

Well, that has effectively buried the Harriet Yeo story! And Oborne certainly isn't mincing his words!!!

[rebeccariots2]

alan rusbridger ‏@arusbridger 28m28 minutes ago
Oborne:"The Telegraph has been placing the interests of a major bank above its duty to bring the news to Telegraph readers"
0 replies 68 retweets 12 favorites

Owen Jones ‏@OwenJones84 28m28 minutes ago
Wow. @OborneTweets sensationally resigns from the Telegraph "for a form of fraud on its readers" over HSBC coverage https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdo ... -telegraph" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

[citizenJA]

Speaking of the Telegraph....

https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourkingdo ... -telegraph

That website must be experiencing a huge surge in users ... I just get webpage unavailable ... but I can see the Twitterati are all over the story. Apparently HuffPost are going to post something on it soon.

Me too.

[yahyah]

Peter Jukes @peterjukes · 12m 12 minutes ago
No surprise, given the owners of three Fleet St giants are non-domiciled for tax reasons, that the papers avoid subject of tax avoidance

[rebeccariots2]

Blimey - thank you furious. That is an absolutely stonking exposee.

And no wonder Osborne hasn't been willing to talk about HSBC.

[rebeccariots2]

David Whitley ‏@mrdavidwhitley 25m25 minutes ago
If you can't read that Oborne resignation piece due to broken link, try the cached version: http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/s ... uk&strip=1 …

[AnatolyKasparov]

Its a great read, but how much is it going to be reported by an almost wholly complicit and compromised MSM?

[TechnicalEphemera]

Wow, Oborne was the one decent thing about the Telegraph.

And that is an earth shattering set of revelations. Now I don't hold much truck with Torygraph readers, but they do believe in tradition.

It is very hard to see how the paper can survive this. Political bias not because of opinion but because of cold hard cash.

The UKIP tendency of the Tory Party will go to war.

[rebeccariots2]

Sam Coates Times ‏@SamCoatesTimes 3m3 minutes ago
Ooop - turns out Ukip's newest supporter was de-selected last week as Labour Group Leader of Ashford Council last http://labourlist.org/2015/02/former-ch ... port-ukip/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

However – it seems there’s more to this story than meets the eye. Harriet Yeo was removed as Labour Group Leader of Ashford Council last week, after being accused of non-attendance at council meetings and a failure undertake council casework.

Last night she was deselected as a candidate for the 2015 local elections – and left the Labour Party the next day.

[mbc1955]

Five years ago I was invited to become the chief political commentator of the Telegraph. It was a job I was very proud to accept. The Telegraph has long been the most important conservative-leaning newspaper in Britain, admired as much for its integrity as for its superb news coverage. When I joined the Telegraph had just broken the MPs’ expenses scandal, the most important political scoop of the 21st century.

I was very conscious that I was joining a formidable tradition of political commentary. I spent my summer holiday before taking up my duties as columnist reading the essays of the great Peter Utley, edited by Charles Moore and Simon Heffer, two other masters of the art.

No one has ever expressed quite as well as Utley the quiet decency and pragmatism of British conservatism. The Mail is raucous and populist, while the Times is proud to swing with the wind as the voice of the official class. The Telegraph stood in a different tradition. It is read by the nation as a whole, not just by the City and Westminster. It is confident of its own values. It has long been famous for the accuracy of its news reporting. I imagine its readers to be country solicitors, struggling small businessmen, harassed second secretaries in foreign embassies, schoolteachers, military folk, farmers—decent people with a stake in the country.

My grandfather, Lt Col Tom Oborne DSO, had been a Telegraph reader. He was also a churchwarden and played a role in the Petersfield Conservative Association. He had a special rack on the breakfast table and would read the paper carefully over his bacon and eggs, devoting special attention to the leaders. I often thought about my grandfather when I wrote my Telegraph columns.

‘You don’t know what you are fucking talking about’
Circulation was falling fast when I joined the paper in September 2010, and I suspect this panicked the owners. Waves of sackings started, and the management made it plain that it believed the future of the British press to be digital. Murdoch MacLennan, the chief executive, invited me to lunch at the Goring Hotel near Buckingham Palace, where Telegraph executives like to do their business. I urged him not to take the newspaper itself for granted, pointing out that it still had a very healthy circulation of more than half a million. I added that our readers were loyal, that the paper was still very profitable and that the owners had no right to destroy it.

The sackings continued. A little while later I met Mr MacLennan by chance in the queue of mourners outside Margaret Thatcher’s funeral and once again urged him not to take Telegraph readers for granted. He replied: “You don’t know what you are fucking talking about.”

Events at the Telegraph became more and more dismaying. In January 2014 the editor, Tony Gallagher, was fired. He had been an excellent editor, well respected by staff. Mr Gallagher was replaced by an American called Jason Seiken, who took up a position called ‘Head of Content.’ In the 81 years between 1923 and 2004 the Telegraph had six editors, all of them towering figures: Arthur Watson, Colin Coote, Maurice Green, Bill Deedes, Max Hastings and Charles Moore. Since the Barclay Brothers purchased the paper 11 years ago there have been roughly six more, though it is hard to be certain since with the arrival of Mr Seiken the title of editor was abolished, then replaced by a Head of Content (Monday to Friday). There were three editors (or Heads of Content) in 2014 alone.

For the last 12 months matters have got much, much worse. The foreign desk—magnificent under the leadership of David Munk and David Wastell—has been decimated. As all reporters are aware, no newspaper can operate without skilled sub-editors. Half of these have been sacked, and the chief sub, Richard Oliver, has left.

Solecisms, unthinkable until very recently, are now commonplace. Recently readers were introduced to someone called the Duke of Wessex. Prince Edward is the Earl of Wessex. There was a front page story about deer-hunting. It was actually about deer-stalking, a completely different activity. Obviously the management don’t care about nice distinctions like this. But the readers do, and the Telegraph took great care to get these things right until very recently.

The arrival of Mr Seiken coincided with the arrival of the click culture. Stories seemed no longer judged by their importance, accuracy or appeal to those who actually bought the paper. The more important measure appeared to be the number of online visits. On 22 September Telegraph online ran a story about a woman with three breasts. One despairing executive told me that it was known this was false even before the story was published. I have no doubt it was published in order to generate online traffic, at which it may have succeeded. I am not saying that online traffic is unimportant, but over the long term, however, such episodes inflict incalculable damage on the reputation of the paper.

Open for business?
With the collapse in standards has come a most sinister development. It has long been axiomatic in quality British journalism that the advertising department and editorial should be kept rigorously apart. There is a great deal of evidence that, at the Telegraph, this distinction has collapsed.

Late last year I set to work on a story about the international banking giant HSBC. Well-known British Muslims had received letters out of the blue from HSBC informing them that their accounts had been closed. No reason was given, and it was made plain that there was no possibility of appeal. "It’s like having your water cut off," one victim told me.

When I submitted it for publication on the Telegraph website, I was at first told there would be no problem. When it was not published I made enquiries. I was fobbed off with excuses, then told there was a legal problem. When I asked the legal department, the lawyers were unaware of any difficulty. When I pushed the point, an executive took me aside and said that "there is a bit of an issue" with HSBC. Eventually I gave up in despair and offered the article to openDemocracy. It can be read here.

I researched the newspaper’s coverage of HSBC. I learnt that Harry Wilson, the admirable banking correspondent of the Telegraph, had published an online story about HSBC based on a report from a Hong Kong analyst who had claimed there was a ‘black hole’ in the HSBC accounts. This story was swiftly removed from the Telegraph website, even though there were no legal problems. When I asked HSBC whether the bank had complained about Wilson's article, or played any role in the decision to remove it, the bank declined to comment. Mr Wilson’s contemporaneous tweets referring to the story can be found here. The story itself, however, is no longer available on the website, as anybody trying to follow through the link can discover. Mr Wilson rather bravely raised this issue publicly at the ‘town hall meeting’ when Jason Seiken introduced himself to staff. He has since left the paper.

Then, on 4 November 2014, a number of papers reported a blow to HSBC profits as the bank set aside more than £1 billion for customer compensation and an investigation into the rigging of currency markets. This story was the city splash in the Times, Guardian and Mail, making a page lead in the Independent. I inspected the Telegraph coverage. It generated five paragraphs in total on page 5 of the business section.

The reporting of HSBC is part of a wider problem. On 10 May last year the Telegraph ran a long feature on Cunard’s Queen Mary II liner on the news review page. This episode looked to many like a plug for an advertiser on a page normally dedicated to serious news analysis. I again checked and certainly Telegraph competitors did not view Cunard’s liner as a major news story. Cunard is an important Telegraph advertiser.

The paper’s comment on last year’s protests in Hong Kong was bizarre. One would have expected the Telegraph of all papers to have taken a keen interest and adopted a robust position. Yet (in sharp contrast to competitors like the Times) I could not find a single leader on the subject.

At the start of December the Financial Times, the Times and the Guardian all wrote powerful leaders on the refusal by the Chinese government to allow a committee of British MPs into Hong Kong. The Telegraph remained silent. I can think of few subjects which anger and concern Telegraph readers more.

On 15 September the Telegraph published a commentary by the Chinese ambassador, just before the lucrative China Watch supplement. The headline of the ambassador’s article was beyond parody: ‘Let’s not allow Hong Kong to come between us’. On 17 September there was a four-page fashion pull-out in the middle of the news run, granted more coverage than the Scottish referendum. The Tesco false accounting story on 23 September was covered only in the business section. By contrast it was the splash, inside spread and leader in the Mail. Not that the Telegraph is short of Tesco coverage. Tesco pledging £10m to fight cancer, an inside peak at Tesco’s £35m jet and ‘Meet the cat that has lived in Tesco for 4 years’ were all deemed newsworthy.

There are other very troubling cases, many of them set out in Private Eye, which has been a major source of information for Telegraph journalists wanting to understand what is happening on their paper. There was no avoiding the impression that something had gone awry with the Telegraph’s news judgment. At this point I wrote a long letter to Murdoch MacLennan setting out all my concerns about the newspaper, and handing in my notice. I copied this letter to the Telegraph chairman, Aidan Barclay.

I received a cursory response from Mr Barclay. He wrote that he hoped I could resolve my differences with Murdoch MacLennan. I duly went to see the chief executive in mid-December. He was civil, served me tea and asked me to take off my jacket. He said that I was a valued writer, and said that he wanted me to stay.

I expressed all of my concerns about the direction of the paper. I told him that I was not leaving to join another paper. I was resigning as a matter of conscience. Mr MacLennan agreed that advertising was allowed to affect editorial, but was unapologetic, saying that “it was not as bad as all that” and adding that there was a long history of this sort of thing at the Telegraph.

I have since consulted Charles Moore, the last editor of the Telegraph before the Barclays bought the paper in 2004. Mr Moore confessed that the published accounts of Hollinger Inc, then the holding company for the Telegraph, did not receive the scrutiny they deserved. But no newspaper in history has ever given an unfavourable gloss on its owner’s accounts. Beyond that, Mr Moore told me, there had been no advertising influence on the paper’s news coverage.

After my meeting with Mr MacLennan I received a letter from the Telegraph saying that the paper had accepted my letter of resignation, but welcomed my offer to work out my six-month notice period. However in mid January I was asked to meet a Telegraph executive, this time over tea at the Goring Hotel. He told me that my weekly column would be discontinued and there had been a "parting of the ways".

He stressed, however, that the Telegraph would continue to honour my contract until it ran out in May. For my part I said that I would leave quietly. I had no desire to damage the newspaper. For all its problems it continues to employ a large number of very fine writers. They have mortgages and families. They are doing a fine job in very trying circumstances. I prepared myself mentally for the alluring prospect of several months paid gardening leave.

Story, what story?
That was how matters stood when, on Monday of last week, BBC Panorama ran its story about HSBC and its Swiss banking arm, alleging a wide-scale tax evasion scheme, while the Guardian and the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists published their 'HSBC files'. All newspapers realised at once that this was a major event. The FT splashed on it for two days in a row, while the Times and the Mail gave it solid coverage spread over several pages.

You needed a microscope to find the Telegraph coverage: nothing on Monday, six slim paragraphs at the bottom left of page two on Tuesday, seven paragraphs deep in the business pages on Wednesday. The Telegraph’s reporting only looked up when the story turned into claims that there might be questions about the tax affairs of people connected to the Labour party.

After a lot of agony I have come to the conclusion that I have a duty to make all this public. There are two powerful reasons. The first concerns the future of the Telegraph under the Barclay Brothers. It might sound a pompous thing to say, but I believe the newspaper is a significant part of Britain’s civic architecture. It is the most important public voice of civilised, sceptical conservatism.

Telegraph readers are intelligent, sensible, well-informed people. They buy the newspaper because they feel that they can trust it. If advertising priorities are allowed to determine editorial judgments, how can readers continue to feel this trust? The Telegraph’s recent coverage of HSBC amounts to a form of fraud on its readers. It has been placing what it perceives to be the interests of a major international bank above its duty to bring the news to Telegraph readers. There is only one word to describe this situation: terrible. Imagine if the BBC—so often the object of Telegraph attack—had conducted itself in this way. The Telegraph would have been contemptuous. It would have insisted that heads should roll, and rightly so.

This brings me to a second and even more important point that bears not just on the fate of one newspaper but on public life as a whole. A free press is essential to a healthy democracy. There is a purpose to journalism, and it is not just to entertain. It is not to pander to political power, big corporations and rich men. Newspapers have what amounts in the end to a constitutional duty to tell their readers the truth.

It is not only the Telegraph that is at fault here. The past few years have seen the rise of shadowy executives who determine what truths can and what truths can’t be conveyed across the mainstream media. The criminality of News International newspapers during the phone hacking years was a particularly grotesque example of this wholly malign phenomenon. All the newspaper groups, bar the magnificent exception of the Guardian, maintained a culture of omerta around phone-hacking, even if (like the Telegraph) they had not themselves been involved. One of the consequences of this conspiracy of silence was the appointment of Andy Coulson, who has since been jailed and now faces further charges of perjury, as director of communications in 10 Downing Street.

Urgent questions to answer
Last week I made another discovery. Three years ago the Telegraph investigations team—the same lot who carried out the superb MPs’ expenses investigation—received a tip off about accounts held with HSBC in Jersey. Essentially this investigation was similar to the Panorama investigation into the Swiss banking arm of HSBC. After three months research the Telegraph resolved to publish. Six articles on this subject can now be found online, between 8 and 15 November 2012, although three are not available to view.

Thereafter no fresh reports appeared. Reporters were ordered to destroy all emails, reports and documents related to the HSBC investigation. I have now learnt, in a remarkable departure from normal practice, that at this stage lawyers for the Barclay brothers became closely involved. When I asked the Telegraph why the Barclay brothers were involved, it declined to comment.

This was the pivotal moment. From the start of 2013 onwards stories critical of HSBC were discouraged. HSBC suspended its advertising with the Telegraph. Its account, I have been told by an extremely well informed insider, was extremely valuable. HSBC, as one former Telegraph executive told me, is “the advertiser you literally cannot afford to offend”. HSBC today refused to comment when I asked whether the bank's decision to stop advertising with the Telegraph was connected in any way with the paper's investigation into the Jersey accounts.

Winning back the HSBC advertising account became an urgent priority. It was eventually restored after approximately 12 months. Executives say that Murdoch MacLennan was determined not to allow any criticism of the international bank. “He would express concern about headlines even on minor stories,” says one former Telegraph journalist. “Anything that mentioned money-laundering was just banned, even though the bank was on a final warning from the US authorities. This interference was happening on an industrial scale.

“An editorial operation that is clearly influenced by advertising is classic appeasement. Once a very powerful body know they can exert influence they know they can come back and threaten you. It totally changes the relationship you have with them. You know that even if you are robust you won’t be supported and will be undermined.”

When I sent detailed questions to the Telegraph this afternoon about its connections with advertisers, the paper gave the following response. "Your questions are full of inaccuracies, and we do not therefore intend to respond to them. More generally, like any other business, we never comment on individual commercial relationships, but our policy is absolutely clear. We aim to provide all our commercial partners with a range of advertising solutions, but the distinction between advertising and our award-winning editorial operation has always been fundamental to our business. We utterly refute any allegation to the contrary."

The evidence suggests otherwise, and the consequences of the Telegraph’s recent soft coverage of HSBC may have been profound. Would Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs have been much more energetic in its own recent investigations into wide-scale tax avoidance, had the Telegraph continued to hold HSBC to account after its 2012 investigation? There are great issues here. They go to the heart of our democracy, and can no longer be ignored.


I dunno if there is a spoiler function on this forum? usually [spoiler] text [/spoiler] works?

I hate to be a wet blanket, but this piece was marked copyright Peter Oborne and Open Democracy, and it does stipulate that you need to contact them before republishing. Did you get consent?

[yahyah]

Huff have it now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02 ... _hp_ref=uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[rebeccariots2]

Michael McCann MP ‏@MichaelMcCannMP 6m6 minutes ago
So the SNP voted with the Tories today to stop the introduction of a 50p tax rate for high earners to fund schools in Scotland.

[TheGrimSqueaker]

Wow, Oborne was the one decent thing about the Telegraph.

And that is an earth shattering set of revelations. Now I don't hold much truck with Torygraph readers, but they do believe in tradition.

It is very hard to see how the paper can survive this. Political bias not because of opinion but because of cold hard cash.

The UKIP tendency of the Tory Party will go to war.

I once worked for a call centre that handled subscription matters for the Telegraph, had done for years. Then some bright spark manager decided it would be a cracking idea to transfer the work down to our sister company in Cape Town (lower costs, more profits etc) ..... we lost the account within weeks!! Telegraph readers want traditional, they want English, they want ....well, reactionary I guess.

[FuriousGeorge]

I dont think putting the text on a message board is considered publishing, but I will remove it if the mods decide.

[rebeccariots2]

Huff have it now.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02 ... _hp_ref=uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I see the 'powers' that be at the Telegraph are calling it an 'unfounded attack'.

[yahyah]

Unfounded ? Did they think no one would notice they ignored the HSBC story, and that's without the other stuff.

[rebeccariots2]

Sunny Hundal ‏@sunny_hundal 30m30 minutes ago
I can't think of a more principled and fair-minded conservative writer than Peter Oborne. Telegraph owners are idiots (& misleading readers)

[rebeccariots2]

Unfounded ? Did they think no one would notice they ignored the HSBC story, and that's without the other stuff.

It's breathtaking isn't it. They really must think their readers are fools - utter fewls.

[giselle97]

The next ONS Public Sector Finances release is in three days 20 Feb 2015.

That's the really important one since it'll have income tax receipts from self-assessment and will indicate whether the deficit will be lower than last year or not.

I would hazard a guess that if receipts are disappointing then they'll be looking for a quick fire sale of something prior to April 5th.

There goes all the NHS property. Gone.

That's a shrewd statement!

And just to answer your earlier question about when the meeting is, I haven't a clue as am waiting for a response to my e-mail. On past performance though, I expect it won't be soon! Will keep prodding via Twitter though a they hate that!

[citizenJA]

Wow, y'all, this is exciting information.
Democracy.
Can't have it if we don't know the truth.

[Spacedone]

The arrival of Mr Seiken coincided with the arrival of the click culture. Stories seemed no longer judged by their importance, accuracy or appeal to those who actually bought the paper. The more important measure appeared to be the number of online visits.

Sound like any other newspaper website we could name?

[TheGrimSqueaker]

Hello Paul Dacre, can you spell "unravel"?

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/02 ... mg00000067" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[rebeccariots2]

LabourList ‏@LabourList 26m26 minutes ago
Update: Former NEC Chair Harriet Yeo who quit Labour Party today had been deselected as a council candidate yesterday http://labli.st/1vCugyw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Conor Pope ‏@Conorpope 25m25 minutes ago
@LabourList hahahahahahaha

Alex White ‏@AlexWhiteUK 13m13 minutes ago
@Conorpope @LabourList At least she will find support in her new home for her bonkers petition: https://www.change.org/p/bbc-respectful ... custom_msg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; …

Mark Ferguson ‏@Markfergusonuk 9m9 minutes ago
@AlexWhiteUK @Conorpope @LabourList blimey. Is that definitely her?

Mark Ferguson ‏@Markfergusonuk
@AlexWhiteUK @Conorpope @LabourList An hour ago I thought this was bad news for Labour. Now? Lets just say my view has altered

Having followed the link to her petition .... I agree with him.

[ohsocynical]

Me neither but they are not all as bad as they are made out to be. The bad ones are unacceptable but it's rather like the narrative that surrounds Mid Staffs, as if all care homes are bad because of a few in the same way as all NHS hospitals must be bed because of Mid Staffs.

You wouldn't have enjoyed the bit of You & Yours I heard earlier today PK. It was on paying for care .... I just heard the tail end as I was driving home. Their last phone call was from a bloke who owns 7 care homes. He said he wasn't bothered by people who had the means being able to pay for better care than those who didn't who were being paid for by the council. And he ended up by saying that anyone can get good care if they are prepared to pay £18 or £19 p hour for a really good nurse ... but with the rates they are able to pay for staff from council contracts they can only attract the dregs (can't remember if that was the exact word but definitely the sentiment) and that's why you get mistakes and poor care. The presenter ended the conversation PDQ. It left a very nasty insecure feeling. I really hope he's not right in many respects ... and then part of me thought if that is the case more times than it should be, someone has to say so ... and it has to be put right. The rates paid for care staff have to improve.

I've had personal experience with four and Mr Ohso has worked in two day centres and occasionally at a home connected to a day centre. [still does, he does a sing song every week at one] And so far I haven't changed my mind about a bottle of pills if I get to that state.

Just working at a day centre involved cleaning people up when they'd had an accident, feeding them, and counselling they and their families [yes he was trained]. He had to learn to watch out for family neglect, family violence, to spot signs of starvation or depression. It's not a job for the fainthearted and I take my hat off to those who can bring comfort both physically and mentally to those that need it. As I have said, I couldn't do it.

He's had to work beside agency staff and while some aren't too bad, many of them are sadly lacking in even basic training. Some can barely speak English. It's not their fault, but makes it very hard when dealing with old people who sometimes have a job getting across what they need, and whose hearing isn't so good.
He's caught staff yanking disabled people out of chairs by their arms and various other no-nos. Quickly reported and action taken I hasten to add.
He's watched meals being served that you wouldn't feed to your dog, the supposed 'chefs' again from an agency.
They are things that have been quickly put right because the homes were run by the local council, but that set up is rapidly disappearing.

At the last home uncle was in it was all youngsters; there for six months then gone and no qualified nursing staff. The best workers were all moved to the private facility next door [owned by the same people].
He was very sharp mentally, just lost the use of his legs. He was left in the only attic room all day and only saw staff at mealtimes and to bring his medication. He went dotty just before Christmas and spent six weeks in hospital being reassessed. He has no recollection of that six weeks. The staff were kind, but just didn't have the time or experience to see what was happening to him.
He's been moved to a home that has qualified nursing staff, has partially regained his senses and we're hoping he does better. He's clean and it [the home] smells okay. Nothing masked by plug in air fresheners. That's always a sign to me that the cleaning isn't up to scratch.

But like I said. Not for me.

[rebeccariots2]

The arrival of Mr Seiken coincided with the arrival of the click culture. Stories seemed no longer judged by their importance, accuracy or appeal to those who actually bought the paper. The more important measure appeared to be the number of online visits.

Sound like any other newspaper website we could name?

Well quite. But I didn't want to be the one to say it. Thank you Spacedone. I'm going to be trying to spot advertorial stories from now on ....

[citizenJA]

Yessir, advertising is a great big deal. I do what I can to minimize it. Ad blocks & no television. Read PMQs, don't watch them. Read investigative committee transcripts, don't watch them. And most importantly, keep a trade union Labour party member at your side whenever possible.

[rebeccariots2]

Iain Dale @IainDale · 26m 26 minutes ago
I'm hearing of yet another big name departure from the Telegraph is imminent. Not quite on the scale of Oborne, but near.

Editing to add: Somehow I don't think it will be Hodges. Nowhere near the scale of Oborne ... and never mind the principles.

[Toby Latimer]

The arrival of Mr Seiken coincided with the arrival of the click culture. Stories seemed no longer judged by their importance, accuracy or appeal to those who actually bought the paper. The more important measure appeared to be the number of online visits.

Sound like any other newspaper website we could name?

Quite,
I just came across this passage

Oborne says this change led to the introduction of a "click culture", which he argued caused "incalculable damage on the reputation of the paper",

It's a bit rich of Rusbridger tweeting about Oborne's departure when his comic is no better nowadays.