McAlpine Paedophilia Twitter Case Threatens To Expand UK Libel Law

November 24, 2012 By 513 Comments
By Erik Larson and Kristen Schweizer
Brisbane Times/Bloomberg

 A former UK politician wrongly named on Twitter as a paedophile after a false report by the BBC may expand the reach of libel law with his threat to sue thousands of people over online posts.

Alastair McAlpine, 70, a former Tory party treasurer, has said he’ll take legal action against about 10,000 people who he says tweeted or retweeted defamatory posts after the BBC wrongly implied he sexually abused a boy in the 1970s.

The cases may correct the view that libel on social media isn’t as bad as in print publications, said Ruth Collard, a media lawyer at Carter-Ruck in London.
“It’s no defence to say you had no idea.”
- Ruth Collard, media lawyer
“With Twitter and the internet generally, people think it’s not the same as publishing a newspaper, book or magazine, but if you are the author, then you take responsibility for it,” said Collard, who isn’t involved in the dispute. “It’s no defence to say you had no idea.”

The BBC, the world’s biggest broadcaster, agreed to pay McAlpine £185,000 pounds ($284,096) after the November 2 error on its Newsnight report, which gave hints about the ex-politician’s identity without naming him. Before the mistake was uncovered, Twitter postings accusing McAlpine were already spreading, setting the stage for the biggest case of its kind in Britain. McAlpine, who was deputy chairman of the UK Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher, wants Twitter users with fewer than 500 followers to apologise and donate to the BBC Children in Need charity, said Charlotte Offredi, a spokeswoman for McAlpine’s lawyers.

500 followers

 Twitter users with more than 500 followers, including a journalist at The Guardian newspaper and Sally Bercow, the wife of House of Commons Speaker John Bercow, should also apologise for naming him, she said, though McAlpine hasn’t decided what legal action to take against that group. McAlpine’s libel dispute has caught the attention of the Metropolitan Police Service in London. Officers are meeting with “interested parties” to determine whether a crime may have taken place, the service’s press office said. Until now, the highest-profile Twitter libel in Britain involved former New Zealand cricket captain Chris Cairns suing Lalit Modi, ex-chairman of an Indian league, for tweeting that he fixed matches. Modi failed to prove the claim in court and was ordered in March to pay £90,000 ($138,202) in damages.

As McAlpine brings the threat of such legal claims to average citizens, the former politician who now lives in Puglia, Italy, may create a “tipping point” in the public’s view of defamation, including libel, said Andrew Terry, a media lawyer at Eversheds in London, who isn’t involved in the cases.

Hard time

 “What the extreme nature of this situation shows is how easily reputations can be damaged by social media and why it is so important that there can be redress, whether those defamed are public figures or not,” said Terry.

While newspapers can defend mistaken reports by showing they tried to get it right, Twitter users don’t have the same standards and may have a hard time defending postings that are later proved wrong, Collard said. Twitter limits postings to 140 characters and users can share another person’s tweet with a few clicks. “At least if you’re writing an article you can ask the other party to comment and you can be balanced,” said Steven Heffer, a media lawyer at Collyer Bristow in London. “But in a short tweet you’re taking a risky step if you allege something, but you can’t prove it.”

Honest belief

 It doesn’t matter if the Twitter users believed they were spreading correct information at the time, because the “good intention or honest belief of the publisher doesn’t help”, said Eddie Parladorio, a media lawyer with PSB Law in London. Although tweets that name McAlpine and accuse him of crimes are clearly defamatory, Parladorio said, a tweet doesn’t even need to cite him or the word “paedophile” to give him a case if a “reasonable reader” of the post would link him to the BBC report. After the BBC report, Bercow tweeted, “Why is Lord McApline trending? *innocent face*”. She later tweeted that the tweet wasn’t libellous.

John Bercow’s office in Parliament declined to give out Sally Bercow’s phone number and said she could only be reached through standard mail delivery. She didn’t immediately reply to an email to her husband’s office and her Twitter account has been turned off.

English law

 If the threatened cases make it to court, the defendants may be helped by a provision of English law allowing judges to reduce damage awards based on how much money someone has already received from other sources, Heffer said.

McAlpine’s potential lawsuits are “an unusual approach, particularly when he’s received a large award from the BBC,” Heffer said. McAlpine may also have a hard time identifying users who don’t name themselves on their Twitter pages and may have to sue Twitter to do it, Heffer said. Twitter, based in San Francisco, is often resistant to requests for users’ personal information. Helen Prowse, a spokeswoman for the company, declined to comment on McAlpine.

The scandal started when Steve Messham, a victim of abuse at a children’s home in Wrexham, north Wales, alleged involvement by an unnamed senior figure in the Tory party. He said he was “sold” to men for sexual abuse at a nearby hotel. McAlpine issued a statement on November 9 denying subsequent internet rumours he had been part of a paedophile ring, complaining of a “media frenzy” and saying he “must publicly tackle these slurs and set the record straight.” “A lot of people who made the allegations were just repeating what had come to them,” Collard said. The McAlpine case “may make people think more cautiously about sending on rumours or gossip without really knowing anything about it”.

Read more at Brisbane Times

RELATED: McLibel 2.0 – Why Did ITV Hand Over 125K for ‘Schofield’s List’ and Can You Sue 10,000 Twitter Users?

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Filed Under: 2012, BBC, BREAKING NEWS, Child Abuse, London, Media, New World Order, NEWS, UK Politics, Uncategorized, WORLD NEWS Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

McLibel 2.0 – Why Did ITV Hand Over 125K for ‘Schofield’s List’ and Can You Sue 10,000 Twitter Users?

November 23, 2012 By 17 Comments
By Peter Sterry 21st Century Wire Senior Editor Extraordinary – another out of court settlement – this time by ITV over the notorious ‘Schofield’s List’. Is this getting out of hand? Notice the pattern emerging. All deep pockets, all settling out of court. It stands to reason though, if you’re going to sue, because lawyers need to be paid and paid a lot – so it makes perfect sense from the plaintiff’s point of view to go for the fattest targets. All very sensible, wouldn’t you say? What’s becoming very clear, very quickly here, is that this is no ordinary libel case and the media atmosphere surrounding the case is a labyrinth of smoke and mirrors, set on the background of a highly charged political and social debate involving this nation’s most prestigious and long-standing institutions. Yesterday afternoon on the UK Column Live daily show, 21st Century Wire colleague, Patrick Henningsen, effectively re-coined the term “McLibel” as a transplant on to Lord McAlpine’s current ‘litigatorial charge of the light brigade’. But the ‘Mc’ similarity in the name is not all that draws comparison here, as we’ll explain. Although McLibel 2.0 has been reported throughout the media, very few, if any, media moguls are challenging the technical basis of it. None seem to be able to state categorically who, and exactly how, and on which technical basis the BBC and ITV have libeled this seemingly powerful establishment figure. Act One: ‘The Case of the Missing Leak’ Nothing about this case makes much sense. We all watched the Newsnight broadcast that Friday night, with many viewers expecting that a ‘top Tory’ name would be revealed in relation to their investigation into the North Wales child rape and abuse scandal. The BBC’s lead investigator Iain Overton from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism(BIJ), and Channel 4′s Michael Crick – both tweeted earlier that day something to effect, ‘If all goes well…’ blah, blah etc, ‘a name will be revealed on the programme tonight..’. Wonderful. Only it wasn’t revealed on the programme. The BBC did not broadcast any name, and in the end Lord McAlpine’s name was never mentioned on Newsnight. The current party line is that the whole fiasco began with a cock-up by the police – Lord McAlpine was not the “McAlpine” apparently identified by the police to Steven Messham, we are told that it was probably Alastair McAlpine’s cousin the late ‘Jimmie’ McAlpine, who died in 1991. Another case of ‘mistaken identity’, as it were. So why not sue the police? Hmmm. The BBC Scotland have been asked to conduct another ‘internal investigation’ (the BBC are very adept at investigating themselves when there is any alleged wrong doing) into what actually took place, and naturally their chief snoop into this affair, a rather affable chap named Ken McQuarrie, seemed to come up with everything except the one thing the license paying public was actually interested in – who leaked McAlpine’s name? So let’s say it wasn’t the BBC, then was it the BIJ? If not, was it Michael Crick? If not, was it the police? Can anyone actually tell us plebs who done it?!? Apparently not – and that ladies and gentlemen, is the foremost, biggest problem with the BBC rushing to pay the McLibel 2.0. Conclusion: The BBC’s Newsnight programme in question was slapped together in just 5 days, in what has turned out to be a very elaborate smokescreen designed to externalise the issue of child abuse in high places and provide much-needed PR cover for their institutional cover-up of rancid asset Sir Jimmy Savile, and finally to distract the public from its willful failure to investigate itself properly – not that it should be ‘investigating itself’ anyway, it’s a public broadcaster. It appears here that the maligned actor in this drama, Lord McAlpine, was merely a tool used by establishment in order to save the BBC from hemorrhaging public confidence and to shield it from other emerging scandals of a similar nature. Look at the results – it worked. The BBC did the usual ritual of paying off an outgoing DG, and hired a new safe pair of hands. No one is talking about Savile, and no one is wanting to look for skeletons in the BBC’s basement. Job done. There is one aspect of this clever plan which will come back to bite the establishment, however. They used a child abuse victim, Steve Messham, in order to pacify their institutional desires. The public will never forgive them for that. Remember McLibel 1.0, when McDonalds dragged that poor English couple through the courts for 20 years? We’ll get back to that in a minute… Act Two: Scholfield’s List This is more or less, a repeat of Act One, where the nation’s second largest British broadcaster, ITV, has agreed to pay Lord McAlpine £125,000 in damages, plus legal costs, in another out of court settlement over This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield’s alleged onscreen stunt confronting David Cameron, a stunt we are told, had linked several Conservative politicians with allegations of child sex abuse. The only problem here is that this writer, nor anyone else I know, saw any name on ‘Schofield’s List’. Who was actually linked to child abuse? It is alleged that some could see – by freeze framing the show’s recording, names on the list handed to PM David Cameron. I still don’t know who the names were. Does anyone? I did a ‘Schofield 5 minute’ super search on the internet for those names – and I cannot find them! So how did ITV libel McAlpine then? Are we getting ridiculous? On another legal caveat, it’s also worth pointing out that if a member of the public passes information to an elected representative listing people who may possibly be involved in serious crime – then that official, in this case David Cameron, is responsibly to then pass on this information to the police. Did this happen? I believe it did not. What are the implications of that? Still there is not a court in the land that has ruled yet on whether or not Lord McAlpine was libeled by both the BBC and ITV. In the end, it really does not matter whether he was, or wasn’t, because that’s how things work in the injury lawyer. Indeed, decisions were made behind closed doors in both broadcasting institutions to pay out – most likely in order to avoid a drawn out court battle that might sully the broadcasters’ media reputation somewhat, but would it really? After all these things happen in our society every day. Conclusion: In case of ‘Schofield’s List’, again like the BBC, the public was not aware of Lord McAlpine’s name being mentioned on ITV’s This Morning program. On both counts, the public was only made aware of the name after someone within those media houses, the government, or the police – had leaked them. If a libel case is to be decided on its proper legal merits, then the police and the courts need to begin with finding out those individuals who actually leaked them. This makes the threat to sue 10,000 Twitter users who McAlpine’s law firm RMPI believe had ‘linked’ their client’s name to the scandal, something built on a house of cards. Find out who is responsible for the leaks first. That would be the proper way to go about this. Chasing ghosts on Twitter does nothing to find out how his name was leaked in the first place – which started that chain of events, propagating information online. There we can achieve an accurate trail of accountability. ‘Trial By Twitter’, or echoes on Twitter? Lord McAlpine and his legal attack team were seen to some out swinging last week, with cries of ‘Trial by Twitter‘. But before we dissect what did or didn’t happen on Twitter, it’s important to understand the nature of this particular social networking tool. It’s amazing how few people in the media and government actually do. When it comes to news, Twitter is a long way away from a newspaper or magazine of record - it’s a hyper active forum – a 21st century digital echo chamber. In IT terms, it’s a crowd-sourced, information and headline aggregator. For members of the public who aren’t aux fait with the social networking tool, Twitter also allows users to use ‘hash tags’ or #tags in order to group conversations which are taking place within the Twitter information cloud community. Phrases on Twitter are the lowest common denominator there is when it comes to information. Twitter functions as the online equivalent of a social info-feed, complete with zero depth, zero analysis and as is the case so often – zero credibility when it comes to any reports. Even a headline from CNN on Twitter must be clicked through to a substantial article if one is to believe the headline. It’s highly limited. After the alleged Newsnight leak took place, and Lord McAlpine’s name was entered into the tertiary conversation surrounding the show, his name began to trend massively on Twitter. This is how Twitter works. Twitter is only limited to 160 characters, and doesn’t really quite qualify as a news publisher - more like a rumour mill. The other peculiar aspect about Twitter which separates  from the others is how it works on highly a linear timeline, where users are almost exclusively attentive to Tweets which are less than 24 hrs old, and many users with large ‘follow’ lists only see what is less than 1 hr old. After this, it’s almost ancient history for Twitter users, because users are only reading and responding to happening, what is breaking, or is trending – in short, what is happening now. Old news, and opinion is constantly being overwritten by the cloud community of over 500 million active users, which ironically, gives very little weight in terms of public impact as to what ideas actually churn on that platform. Sadly, it pales in comparison to a major website, newspaper, a well distributed book, or a large TV broadcaster. For any serious opinion forming information on issues, news or op-ed, all Twitter users are forced to migrate over to larger news websites who can display more than 160 characters at a time in order to test the public perception of any said news report or rumour – sites like the Independent, The Times, or even The Drudge Report. A Tweet by a high enough profile person with many followers, like a celebrity for instance, would be picked up by many readers within a short space of time, so if a celebrity slanders another celebrity, it would move up the media tree very quickly and into the Corporate Mainstream Media sphere – here a public impact could be measured because it was large enough. Should other Twitter users actually commenting on what is actually happening in real-time be considered libel then? For banal subjects such as pop gossip, it’s taken very seriously by adolescents and teenagers who are following the movements of pop artists, Paris Hilton, and who want to know where Kim Kardashian is shopping that afternoon, or what Ronaldo did after Wednesday evening’s match. Can a personal be slandered or libeled on Twitter? Absolutely. But what constitutes a libel with the narrow margins of Twitterland versus, let’s say, the front page of the Sun newspaper – are two very different things indeed. Firstly, there is the issue of intent. If a publication runs an article saying that Mr X is perpetrating a serious crime – like paedophilia or child abuse, going on to describe the allegations in detail, along with claims of evidence, then Mr X has the right to challenge the both the author of the article, and the publication on the veracity of the allegations in question. In this instance, the intent of publication was clear – to expose the crimes of Mr X. But if the publication does not have the evidence to support such allegations, then Mr X’s libel claim is likely to succeed, and the newspaper’s subsequent claims would then be deemed malicious and defamatory by the courts of justice. The issue of intent is much murkier with regard to mentioning someone’s name on Twitter – especially if Mr X’s guilt or innocence in relation to the media expose was inconclusive at the time. Twitter users were simply commenting in real-time on what they were seeing, without any premeditated malicious intent. Other recent reports regarding ‘Twitter libel’ cases can be found here, here and here. Conclusion: How information is presented and distributed on Twitter – and how society defines this, is a conversation which certainly goes hand in hand with McLibel 2.0. To equate Tweeting and ReTweeting with libeling McAlpine, not only over-rates the significance of Twitter in terms of public opinion forming, but sets a rather dangerous and slippery precedent, where we have a law firm issuing a blanket threat over the public, while the basis of the entire chain of events involving Lord McAlpine – has been hidden from public view via a series of out-of-court agreements, namely, the BBC and ITV thus far. Again, we come back to the fundamental question in all of this - who leaked the name? Remember ‘McLibel’ 1.0? Ahhh, those were the good old days – pre-internet, when the strong preyed upon the weak and under-resourced. It was known as the “McLibel case”,  where a lawsuit was filed in English courts by the humble McDonald’s Corp against environmental activists Helen Steel and David Morris (“The McLibel Two”) over a pamphlet critical of the company’s environmentally destructive footprints overseas. The original case lasted ten years, plus another 10 for ECHR Appeal – making it the longest-running case in English history, subsequently made famous in McLibel, by filmmaker Franny Armstrong. Although the goliath character in this case, McDonald’s, won two hearings of the case in English courts, the drawn-out public nature of the litigation embarrassed the company. In short, it backfired in the long run. For McDonalds execs, seemed like a good idea at the time. After Goliath’s lawyers had collected all their fees and were hence finished destroying David’s life, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) then ruled in Steel & Morris v United Kingdom - that the pair had been denied a fair trial, in breach of Article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights and that their conduct should have been protected by Article 10 of the Convention. The court awarded a judgment of £57,000 – against the UK government. In the end, McDonald’s itself was not involved in, or a party to, this verdict. Conclusion: After the state’s own corrupt justice system was finished protecting the rich and powerful McDonalds, and abusing the poor free speech activist, the state ended up paying the victim in the end. The left wing of the establishment used Leveson in order the hijack free press and speech. Now we have the right wing of the establishment using the Savile and Newsnight incident to curtail free speech and to cover-up the disgusting problem on organised institutional paedophilia, not only in the BBC, but in government, and especially within in the child care industry itself. Shame on our leadership for allowing this issue to be reversed back into the shadows through their clever spin and cover. Wikileaks is being shut down for publishing public interest information, and it’s founder put under permanent house arrest, and now Twitter is in danger of being nothing more than a shopping guide for commercial news, shoes, and handbags – because users are being intimidated for doing nothing more than commenting. What’s next, ‘Trial by #HashTag’? The establishment don’t like, and never have liked, the horrid internet, because of what it represents – an affordable, endless community of open source networks and information. A vulgar concept for those who have successfully monopolised and controlled media for hundreds of years. A local carpenter named Paul, whom I often share the odd pint with at me local in Crouch End, said to me yesterday, “I think that Lord McAlpine is over cooking the pie, and that’s not on, son.” That is the crux of the matter, as we see it.

RELATED: The Prince and the Pedophile: What Are Charles’ Connections to Jimmy Savile OBE?

RELATED: Are Secretive Cabals Keeping Us in the Dark Over UK Child Abuse?

RELATED: The BBC, Lord McAlpine and ‘The New Machiavelli’ Book

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Filed Under: 2012, BBC, BREAKING NEWS, Child Abuse, Democracy, Free Speech, Journalism, Media, Trends, UK Politics, Uncategorized, WORLD NEWS Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,

More Public Funds: Lord McAlpine Wants Police To Open Special ‘Twitter Investigation’

November 21, 2012 By 635 Comments

Lord McAlpine, the former Conservative Party treasurer wrongly named as a paedophile by people on Twitter, has made a formal complaint to Scotland Yard

By Steven Swinford This morning the peer asked police to investigate potentially thousands of people who used the website to make “malicious communications” against him but have failed to apologise.
The police complaint could lead to mass prosecution, fines and criminal records for people who wrote about him online.
Scotland Yard said that officers will begin “scoping” whether any offence has taken place but said it is “too early” to say whether a criminal investigation will take place.
Lord McAlpine has promised to take on the “Twittering fraternity” and to force people to “start thinking about what they are saying” before posting messages.
Last week the BBC, which wrongly linked him to allegations of sex abuse on Newsnight, settled with the peer for £185,000.

‘McLibel’ Tweets: Tory Lord wants Scotland Yard to get involved.

He is also seeking up to £500,000 in damages from ITV after This Morning presenter Philip Schofield showed a list of alleged Tory paedophiles to David Cameron Lord McAlpine’s lawyers have hired a team of experts to collate the offending Twitter messages, including those that have been deleted, as well as “re-tweets” in which one user republishes a message posted by someone else. They have identified more than 1,000 people who sent their own tweets implying or directly saying he was a paedophile, and a further 9,0-00 who “retweeted” the claims of others. Last week, Lord McAlpine said he was left “terrified” after becoming a figure of public hatred” because of people naming him as the subject of a BBC Newsnight report wrongly claiming a senior Tory was a paedophile… Read more at The Telegraph

RELATED: The BBC, Lord McAlpine and ‘The New Machiavelli’ Book

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Filed Under: 2012, BBC, BREAKING NEWS, Child Abuse, UK Politics, Uncategorized, WORLD NEWS Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Another Out-Of-Court Bailout? McAlpine to seek larger ITV payout, possibly 500K

November 20, 2012 By 335 Comments
21st Century Wire says: Too scared to Tweet for fear of another McLibel? First the license paying public get slapped with a snap payout to McAlpine – even though the BBC never actually libeled the man – so what is the technical basis for the payout again? Will we ever know? Tip of the cap, eh. Now ITV are queuing up to make a contribute to the cause, say GBP 500,000? What? Did ITV also libel McAlpine? It’s highly debatable and the public will be interested to see what happens here. Is this just another out-of-court bailout – for the those who don’t need bailing out? This is eerily similar to another recent payout (what will be the total damages collected by the time it’s all said and done?) for a certain set of topless photos published in French magazine CLOSER  - arguably a PR stunt which some folks out there have said bares all the hallmarks of a ‘set-up’ right from the beginning. Keep and eye on this one – and that other one…

‘Scholfield’s List’ – did anyone actually see it?

The Sun LAWYERS for Lord McAlpine are seeking a larger payout from ITV than the £185,000 they received from the BBC last week, they have confirmed. The former Tory’s legal team said today it is looking to get a bigger figure from This Morning, which is thought to have until this afternoon to respond to demands. The channel sparked fury after presenter Phillip Schofield brandished a list of names of alleged abusers which he had found on the internet and handed it to the Prime Minister during a live interview, asking if he would investigate them. Ofcom has also launched an investigation into the incident, while ITV said that disciplinary action had been taken. The broadcaster has been contacted by Lord McAlpine’s lawyers, and is expected to have to respond by the end of today. Reports today claimed that ITV could be forced to pay out up to £500,000 in damages. An ITV spokesman said: “We have received correspondence from Lord McAlpine’s representatives and we will be responding in due course.” ITV is the second name in a long list of organisations and individuals who wrongly linked Lord McAlpine to a paedophile ring. Action is also being prepared against a large number of Twitter users – including Sally Bercow, the wife of the Commons Speaker – who identified the peer in connection with the false sex abuse claims… Read morefacebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest
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BEN FELLOWS: TORY GAME OF THRONES – KENNETH CLARKE INTRODUCED NICK BOLES AT BILDERBERG – IS HE THE NEXT TORY PARTY LEADER?

November 9, 2012 By 16 Comments

Ben Fellows 21st Century Wire Guest Columnist

Here’s how it’s played out: David Cameron got ‘carried away’ with ‘fluffy’ issues after becoming Tory leader, neglecting voters’ key concerns, one of his closest advisers said last night after getting the phone call from his Bilderberg masters. It might be a surprise to members of the public why Planning Minister Nick Boles is suddenly coming out – in a bid to oust David Cameron as party leader; as Mr Cameron struggles to get to grips with the complex issue of paedophiles within politics. The Planning Minister said the modernisers who seized control of the party in 2005 had become ‘overly obsessed’ with impressing Oxbridge-educated professionals while neglecting Britain’s ‘hard-working strivers’. Isn’t that just what the doctor ordered, someone who appears to speak utter sense making the British public feel that at least this guy gets it, but does he? Or was he told what to say in a private conversation with Bilderbergers last night and given the green light to begin the coup on the Tory Party leadership after Cameron’s latest “gay” paedophile gaffe with Philip Schofield on live national TV? And by the way, Mr Cameron, what exactly did you mean by a “gay” witch-hunt in Whitehall? Just for the record – being gay does not mean you are a paedophile. You cannot equate that depraved behaviour with homosexuality. Perhaps someone should tell this to the Cabinet Office and Prime Minister David Cameron after the Cabinet Office wrote to blogs in the past couple of weeks threatening to sue over my allegations. My accusations involving an incident where *********************(redacted) Ian Greer’s office – are matter of fact, as far as I’m concerned. Yet, the Cabinet Office saw fit to send emails to blogs protesting that ********(redacted)  ‘wasn’t gay, so therefore he couldn’t be a paedophile’. To be clear, I have never accused any government minister of being gay – I could not care less about his or any other person’s sexuality. But I did make accusations of gross misconduct. This just demonstrates the government’s general ignorant belief that to be a paedophile you have to be gay, which of course, simply diluting the debate by introducing the gay card – in order to escape the reality that paedphilia is a social disease which afflicts all sectors – as well as straight men and women. Shame on you all! What’s coming for David Cameron, as if he didn’t know, and sooner than he could have imagined is a vote of “No Confidence” within the Tory Party. David Cameron like Margaret Thatcher before him will be replaced  – but by whom? Clearly it’s now time for Nick Boles to come forward as the next government leader after attending the Bilderberg Meeting this year introduced by Minister Without Portfolio Kenneth Clarke. Kenneth Clarke is a senior Bilderberg member and attends on a regular basis introducing the next Prime Minister or party leader. Reports from within Bilderberg say that new leaders are introduced to the cartel by having to serve high profile members drinks, as well as open doors etc. Both Bill Clinton and Tony Blair were summoned to attend in this capacity before they were anointed by their respective parties to lead. David Cameron attended before his premiership as it seems to be part of the grooming process. To be accepted you need to demonstrate that you are willing to humiliate yourself in front of people like luminaries like Henry Kissenger et al. The Jimmy Savile paedophile abuse scandal, the Lord McAlpine incident, and the rest, seems to be proving too much for David Cameron – and after his latest ‘all paedophiles are gay’ gaffe on ITV yesterday - it looks like enter stage left… for Nick Boles, right on cue. Question: do we really want to be led by anyone who attends clandestine meetings with the world’s power brokers who decide ours and the world’s fate each year – laid out in the annual Bilderberg agenda? From orchestrating the economic global collapse, to the depopulation – in order to save the planet (of course), or inching the west towards a World War 3 situation.  Bilderberg does it all, in the name of progress, moving us ever closer towards a global, One World Government, which they themselves often refer to as, The New World Order. What is all this Bilderberg nonsense about? Bilderberg takes its name from the hotel in Holland where the first meeting took place in May 1954. That pioneering meeting grew out of the concern expressed by leading citizens on both sides of the Atlantic that Western Europe and North America were not working together as closely as they should on common problems of critical importance. It was felt that regular, off-the-record discussions would help create a better understanding of the complex forces and major trends affecting western nations in the difficult post-war period. Sounds good right? No, for example it is illegal for American politicians to attend as it violates what is called the Logan Act. The Logan Act is a United States federal law that forbids unauthorised citizens from negotiating with foreign governments. It was passed in 1799 and last amended in 1994. Violation of the Logan Act is a felony punishable under federal law with imprisonment of up to three years. However, no one who attends from the United States government ever gets arrested; just journalists and protesters who stand in the cold attempting to hold to account world’s politicians and expose this most vile of world institutions. The Bilderbergers are people who say they are helping humanity just so they can make billions. They appear in the shadows, as arrogant as Lucifer and no more sympathetic than he is towards mankind. They live under the “golden rule” – whoever has the gold makes the rules. Rockefeller himself admitted they are conspiring against the best interests of the Unites States to form a one world government. A surveillance led global totalitarian regime which is a mixture of fascism and communism rolled into one. The Bilderberg Group is much more than just a social club. It has played a major role in shaping the direction of the world since it was created in 1954. The Bilderberg Group created the European Union and the euro. This year efforts to save the euro are rumoured to be high on the agenda. Past Bilderberg attendees have included Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, Prince Charles, David Cameron, Tony Blair, Henry Kissinger, Bill Gates, Angela Merkel, Ben Bernanke, Timothy Geithner, Rick Perry, David Rockefeller, Herman van Rompuy, Jean-Claude Trichet, Jeff Bezos, Chris R. Hughes, Eric Schmidt, Craig J. Mundie, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Richard Perle, Paul Volcker, Lawrence Summers, Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. This year they welcomed all the way from the United Kingdom to Chantilly Virginia, where this Lord Peter Mandelson, John Micklethwait – editor and chief of the Economist, Gideon Rachman from the Financial Times, Martin H. Wolf from the Financial Times, Peter Voser – CEO Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Marcus Agius – Chairman Barclays Plc and former BBC Trust Board of Directors, Kenneth Clarke – Cabinet Minister without portfolio and, drum role please… future Tory Party leader Nick Boles. David Cameron could well do an IDS, and be ousted very soon for Nick Boles to take over the Tory party leadership. Will it be Boles?? Just remember, you heard it here first. …. RELATED: THE BBC: ‘IT’S THE VATICAN AND THE MAFIA ALL ROLLED INTO ONE’ RELATED: BEN FELLOWS FULL INTERVIEW ON LIVE – EXPOSING BBC CHILD ABUSE RELATED: BEN FELLOWS: ‘THEY ASKED ME TO NAME NAMES, BUT DIDN’T LIKE THE ONES I GAVE!’ RELATED: ‘I RAN THE GAUNTLET OF PEDOPHILES IN THE ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY’ RELATED: ‘HE’LL FIX IT!’ SIR JIMMY WAS A CHILD ‘FIXER’ FOR THE ELITEfacebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest
Filed Under: 2012, America, BBC, BREAKING NEWS, Child Abuse, Democracy, Journalism, Oil, Politics, Trends, UK, UK Politics, Uncategorized, US Politics, WORLD NEWS Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

David Cameron just doesn’t get it – the police and judiciary are part of UK abuse problem

November 9, 2012 By 547 Comments

Full public inquiry and special commission must happen now

Peter Sterry 21st Century Wire As the rippling waves emanating from the cesspool that is Sir Jimmy Savile’s legacy break on the shores of the British establishment, it is becoming increasingly clear how the establishment is attempting once again to protect its own. In response both to Tom Watson’s questioning in the House of Commons – and the fabulous impromptu exposure by Philip Schofield (an event surely set to become legendary in television history) British Prime Minister David Cameron’s singular response is that anyone with any evidence should go to the Police, regardless of how powerful the accused may be. Is Cameron aware that multiple victims in the North Wales inquiry names the same high ranking Tory politician, and in at least one case, the police deemed their testimony as “fantasy”? For a Prime Minister, it is a breathtakingly, though probably deliberately naive approach. It feels like a government’s greasy denial that paedophiles are operating in positions of power. North Wales abuse victim Steve Messham testified that his life was threatened by his abuser, which is a common intimidation tactic seen in many abuse cases. Death threats change the playing field considerably.

Cameron: confused, or just waiting to pass the buck on?

So where exactly is David Cameron suggesting survivors take their evidence ? The serving police officers referred to by some of those abuse at the hellish Bryn Estin in North Wales? Or is the Prime Minister proposing just walking in to your local cop shop ( if you can still find one of course, given the aggressive programme of police station closure now being implemented by Cameron’s government) and saying “Hey! I was raped by ********* twenty years ago”? Sensitive matters such as child rape require sensitive solutions. Cameron’s response is not only inadequate, it is simultaneously ignorant, insulting and ludicrous. Lest anyone has missed it, serving police officers and members of the judiciary are among those named by Bryn Estyn victims. It is increasingly clear that the original inquiry was a cover-up, and let us not forget the Masonic connection. The Waterhouse Tribunal set the tone for its approach to freemasonry right from day one. In the very first session the barrister for one of the groups of former residents of care homes made an application about masonry. The barrister, Nick Booth, asked that “the Tribunal should keep a register of the masonic membership amongst its staff, the members, its representatives and witnesses who appear before it”. He explained: “The duty of loyalty to a brother mason and his duty of impartiality if he is involved in the administration of justice is not a new one and it’s one that’s very much in the public eye, particularly at the moment.” “The Tribunal will be aware of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee which is investigating the issue,” he added. “Sir, I stress, if I have not stressed it before, that I am not making any suggestion of disreputable conduct, merely to put the matter beyond the reach of any possible public comment which might undermine the public confidence in the Inquiry.”

Sir Ronald Waterhouse, who chaired the Tribunal, felt that the application was a slur on the integrity of the Tribunal’s staff.

The chairman of the Tribunal, Sir Ronald Waterhouse, and the two other members of the Tribunal, retired for a brief adjournment. “It will not surprise you that the application is refused,” said Sir Ronald on their return. “As far as the staff are concerned,” Sir Ronald said, “in so far as the application carries any reflection upon the integrity of the staff of the Tribunal it’s repudiated, wholly unwarranted; there is no evidence whatsoever to support any suggestion that they have not acted with complete integrity… ” “The members of the Tribunal are in this position: the Tribunal was set up by Parliament and the members of it were appointed by the Secretary of State for Wales and the [criticism of the composition] should be addressed through the proper channels.” He said that the Tribunal’s own Counsel, Gerard Elias QC, was appointed by the Attorney General. “Any criticism … should be addressed through the usual Parliamentary channels,” he suggested. Gerard Elias said nothing during Booth’s application and he remained silent after Sir Ronald had made the Tribunal’s ruling.

Gerard Elias QC. Leading counsel to Tribunal kept silent on discussion about a register of freemasons. He himself is a freemason…

Yet both Sir Ronald and Gerard Elias knew something that journalists reporting on the Tribunal would have wanted to know. Gerard Elias is a mason. He’s a member of perhaps the most powerful masonic lodge in Wales, Dinas Llandaf. The lodge, which meets in Cardiff, is made up mainly of legal professionals and members of the Conservative party, although there are members from other political groups. This in and of itself is not a problem, but there is a problem if fellow members have an oath of loyalty to each other which supersedes their oath to uphold law and conduct due diligence in any proper investigation into organised crime. British ‘Justice’ done in the dark Imagine a mafia trial where the prosecution and the defense had members of the mafia embedded in key positions. What would be the chances of full disclosure? We have to ask ourselves, is it possible to have an investigation free from private allegiances stemming from Masonic interference? The British people will demand both a full public enquiry  into the extent of child abuse , rape and murder in Britain both past and present, and a new independent Police investigation with a remit to arrest and prosecute, headed by officers prepared to DECLARE PUBLICLY that they are members of any secret society. David Cameron can do this now, and retain some personal integrity, or wait until his hand is forced, and retain none. …. RELATED STORY: THE BBC: ‘IT’S THE VATICAN AND THE MAFIA ALL ROLLED INTO ONE’facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest
Filed Under: 2012, 2012 Election, America, BBC Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

‘COMING OUT OF THE CABINET’: PM CAMERON IN A PANIC OVER ‘GAY’ GAFFE ON NATIONAL TV

November 9, 2012 By 58 Comments
21st Century Wire says: Politicians normally don’t like surprises, or having to answer tough questions off the cuff. Even Question Time is a staged routine where party leaders pretend bite back for the camera – pure Punch ‘n Judy. But ITV’s This Morning Show turned out to be an unlikely arena for this prime ministerial showdown… but was it real? PANIC STATIONS? PM David Cameron appeared to get the shock of life Thursday morning when a seemingly harmless character, host Philip Schofield, challenged the PM about the government’s policy of denial regarding any paedophiles, past, present or future, in No.10, or anywhere else in Westminster  for that matter. Question: Was this whole incident staged by Whitehall and ITV producers? If it was, Schofield had to have been put up to it, possibly coerced into it. Schofield is last guy you’d expect to go for the PM like this, but now thousands are Tweeting and Facebooking support for Schofield, and his ‘street cred’ index for 18-35′s has just shot into orbit. The only line Schofield crossed, was to rightly challenge a public politician on a serious issue. If the incident was genuine, it was a rare display of balls in the mainstream media – which has made him a sort of people’s presenter. No doubt, and all too predictably, ITV will be pressured by Downing Street and Ofcom to sack Schofield for his challenge to the PM – let’s see if ITV have got some of the family jewels that the BBC clearly lack. But if they cave in, ITV will have cut loose what appears to be its coolest asset in years. What did Cameron mean about a ‘witch-hunt’? Last time we checked, no one is looking for witches, we were just hoping the Tory government might be kind enough to assist in hunting down delinquent paedophiles who have been allowed to roam freely in British public institutions. Call it a gaffe, but what Cameron said in this interview was very revealing, however, because host Schofield at no time mentioned anything about ‘gays’ in Tory government, but there it is. Westminster’s ‘Gay’ Secret?

Cameron has somehow injected bizarre ‘gay’ talking point into No.10 paedophile debate.

Cameron may have inadvertently revealed a commonly known secret within the halls of Parliament and something the public are mostly unaware of,  gay members of the government who are still ‘in the closet’, as it were. Is this what Cameron was referring to? Cameron has raised a few important questions here. Firstly, are there gay MP’s who are in the closet? Of course there are. Secondly, if you were a gay MP and still in the closet, would you wanted to be ‘outed’? Of course not. So, could MP’s or politicos threaten to ‘out’ a gay MP, in order to gain some political leverage? That’s an important question, because the same logic would apply to any paedophile working within government. Hmmm, that could be a problem if that were to happen. Bottom line: Britain, and not just the BBC, has an institutional child abuse problem, and it appears like the establishment are only interested in sweeping it back under the rug. Maybe someone should be asking Cameron exactly what he meant when he referred to ‘gays’… …. RELATED STORY: THE BBC: ‘IT’S THE VATICAN AND THE MAFIA ALL ROLLED INTO ONE’facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest
Filed Under: 2012, BBC, Child Abuse, NEWS, Trends, UK Politics, WORLD NEWS Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Cameron: ‘It’s a gay witchhunt!’ after Philip Schofield ambushes PM on live TV with list of alleged Tory Paedos found online

November 8, 2012 By 16 Comments
  • Prime Minister stunned by This Morning presenter who hands him card with names he found after a ‘cursory glance’ at the internet.
  • No. 10 condemned the ‘trial by Twitter’ saying those named on the list will want to defend themselves
  • Mr Cameron accused the ITV programme of fuelling a ‘witch-hunt, particularly against people who are gay’
  • Tory MP Rob Wilson condemned the ‘celebrity ambush’ and asked Ocfom to investigate if ITV has broken broadcasting rules
  • Mr Schofield issued an apology for a ‘mis-judged camera angle’
BY MATT CHORLEY POLITICAL EDITOR (Oh Dear)… Downing Street tonight condemned ‘trial by Twitter’ after David Cameron was sensationally handed a list of alleged Tory paedophiles on live television. This Morning presenter Phillip Schofield said he had compiled the list of names after a three-minute ‘cursory glance’ at the internet, and gave it to the Prime Minister live on ITV1. But the presenter later admitted a ‘misjudged camera angle’ meant some of the names could have been seen by the programme’s millions of viewers, as a Tory MP wrote to Ofcom claiming ITV may have broken broadcasting rules. Watch this amazing clip… Read more at Mail Online RELATED: THE BBC: ‘IT’S THE VATICAN AND THE MAFIA ALL ROLLED INTO ONE’facebooktwittergoogle_plusredditpinterest
Filed Under: 2012, BBC, BREAKING NEWS, Child Abuse, UK Politics, Uncategorized, WORLD NEWS Tagged With: , , , , ,

THE BBC: IT’S THE VATICAN AND THE MAFIA ALL ROLLED INTO ONE

November 8, 2012 By 1,765 Comments
By Peter Sterry
 21st Century Wire

 Ivory towers have never been built so high, and the public kept so removed, as it has with the BBC.

Explaining things to the public is, theoretically, one of the BBC’s principal tasks, but its principle executives have found it impossible to do so when it comes to issue of institutional paedophilia.

 While the focus of media attention has rightly moved to the widening investigations into child abuse in government and public institutions, and away from Sir Jimmy Savile, the national broadcaster still remains at the forefront of the issue. Few are in any doubt that their handling of the subject has been an abject failure, and still refuses to grasp the enormity of the issues.

Even former Director General Greg Dyke called the BBC’s handling of the past four weeks as “pretty disastrous”. Dyke adds, “They let the speculation go on for too long. And then, of course, more and more came out, so it got harder to deal with. The idea that they didn’t show Newsnight’s investigation because of [he affects a sneering tone] ‘editorial reasons’ is very weak. Explain your reasons to the public. That’s important.”

You’d be smug too if you were paid a fortune to do nothing.

At the time of the Newsnight investigation into Sir Jimmy Savile’s activities, the man in the top job at the Beeb was Mark Thompson, now CEO of The New York Times. In common with many of his erstwhile senior BBC colleagues and even his successor in the top job, George Entwistle, Thompson has struggled to get his own story straight.

What Thompson Knew

 In the BBC’s grand structure, the director general is both the CEO and editor-in-chief, so editorially controversial matters eventually find their way to him (yes, up to now it has always been a ‘him’). Firstly, Thompson said he knew nothing at all about Newsnight’s Savile story. Then he admitted he might have been generally aware of it, and that it involved allegations of child abuse. Then he agreed that he’d been told of it specifically by a BBC journalist at a drinks party and had subsequently asked senior news managers about it. By then, he says, they told him the investigation had been called off for ‘editorial reasons’. This is not over yet – since the full story of what actually happened and who knew what – has yet to be told, but already the reader’s editor is wondering out loud whether Thompson is fit for any such job. Not only has he changed his story three times already, but is openly intent on avoiding responsibility and passing this most unwelcome buck as quickly and as far as possible. Were he still at the BBC helm, he would surely be under enormous pressure to resign.

Was Entwistle promoted to the BBC’s top job as a result of his own aiding and abetting in the Savile Newsnight cover-up as Director of Programming, while Thompson is swiftly moved safely off shore? We are constantly told that corrupt executives are often promoted to their own level of incompetence, but could this be an actual case of top dogs being promoted for loyally playing a role in a cover-up?

Sir Jimmy was a BBC asset, and was protected throughout his career by men like Thompson.

The crisis is not confined to Mark Thompson’s career as a highly paid media executive. The BBC initially maintained in advance of the ITV documentary – and knowing the thrust of its allegations about Savile’s activities – that it had searched its archives and found no evidence of complaints about Savile and therefore that there was no case for further action. However, once the scale of alleged abuse started to become clear, that line simply couldn’t hold, and the BBC said it would hold its own Savile enquiry as soon as police enquiries were complete.

As for the Newsnight decision, the BBC said there was simply no case for questioning the editor’s original decision to drop the investigation. That line didn’t hold either and within two weeks the BBC had been forced to announce two major internal inquiries – into Savile, and the Newsnight decision – and a third into sexual harassment more generally at the corporation. We’re getting the picture that there could be an institutional disease at the Beeb.

The Casting Couch

 Though I never worked at the BBC, I was at the other side of television, at ITV, in younger days where sexual harassment was a standing dish and the casting couch was very much in operation. Unfortunately for me, the casting couch of a gay nature, and it was made quite clear to me and colleagues, that rapid advancement up one greasy pole was entirely dependent on embracing another. I would be very surprised if it was any different at the BBC (many staff including senior management flit between the two), where promotion has always been based on who you know – in the biblical sense.

Former child actor Ben Fellows went a long way to detail the depths to which older BBC employee regularly sink in order to secure sexual relationships with younger employees or actors. Savile was merely the very filthy end of that particular professional pole. For the time being, it looks as though by announcing these inquiries, the BBC has skillfully kicked this and all other issues into the high weeds, to be retrieved at any unspecified time in the future. When these inquiries finally report, senior managers will have calculated that the furore will have died down considerably and there will be much wringing of hands and perhaps a sacrificial lamb, most likely an ex-BBC employee, or even better, one which is already deceased.

 The BBC, the Vatican and the Mafia

Sir Jimmy was the BBC’s envoy to the Vatican, two very similar organisations.

Such is the self-regarding nature of the BBC, which reminds one of the Vatican announcing its own ‘internal inquiry’ into protecting its child abusing priests. Come to think of it, there are numerous parallels between the BBC and the Vatican – both are rich, haughty, sanctimonious monoliths, presided over by self-elected elites, and both are institutional protectors of child abuse masquerading as venerable bastions of decency. In fact, both these institutions celebrated and honoured Sir Jimmy Savile. It seems that the myths of their own infallibility have blinded them  to their own failings and the reality of the world they live in. But though the Vatican does like to enrich itself at the expense of the congregation, the BBC’s business model is much closer to that of that other infamous Italian racket, the mafia. Above all, the Savile affair has reminded us once again that like the mafia, the BBC serves itself above all others.

As it goes, the British public are still mostly unaware that the BBC had flogged its TV license collection business to a private company called Capita Ltd. Like the mafia, the BBC see the general public as a resource to be extorted, they are there to pay for whatever the BBC decides it wants. Currently, the BBC’s level of public accountability is represented by us writing to ‘Feedback on Radio 4’, or their illustrious Board of Governors. If we are lucky, someone may deign to tell us why we are wrong. Just like mafia, non-payers are dealt with severely, Godfathers and Director Generals alike send heavies round to the front door of anyone daring to challenge their racket to threaten them that if they don’t pay now, they will have to pay a great deal more very soon. The BBC sold off their TV License business years ago, but kept it a rather hush hush affair, for fear that the public would eventually realize that the man coming to your door, insisting to come into your home to look around, and then threatening you with a fine or imprisonment if you cannot pay him a £160 license fee. British citizens should note here that when a private limited company comes to your door and demands money, that’s solicitation, which is technically illegal.

 The flagrant disregard for Savile’s activities shown by the BBC is the same sheer arrogance that allows the corporation to extort its so called “licence fee” regardless of one’s income or our desire to consume a relatively mediocre product (with an exception of their nature and gardening programmes, still top notch). Where the Mafia offer violence, the BBC threaten jail. Both have the solemn code of Omerta, silence in the face of accusation or criticism. It is the very same arrogance that pulled the Newsnight story about their protected asset Savile, in favour of broadcasting more gushing, hagiographic tributes to Britain’s most prolific paedophile and a serial rapist.

It is the same arrogance that in spite of being a so called public broadcaster, means it is a closed shop, with no public access to its airwaves and all programming handed down from on high. Given its topicality, a real public service broadcaster should have enough backbone to screen a piece like “Sun, Sea and Satan”, British filmmaker Bill Maloney’s gruesome investigation into the appalling goings on at one of Savile’s favourite haunts, the notorious Haut La Garenne children’s home in Jersey, but not the BBC. There is not a cat in hell’s chance anything remotely controversial will ever appear on its screens, or anything that isn’t produced by one of its own perfectly groomed team. It is the same arrogance, in this case with its extorted loot, that means Beeb thinks its perfectly okay to stuff great chunks of that same loot into the pockets of its cosy club of senior management, and often rude presenters and retired soccer players.

Alan Hansen: another over-inflated BBC celebrity, and not even smarter on footy than any bloke at your local pub.

The soccer pundits are a case in point. The lumpen salaries paid to football players still playing the game are justified by their unique skill on the pitch and the role they play securing the club honours and are paid largely by the huge television fees generated by the game worldwide. But once they have left the field of play, these men are no more skilled than the next man in the queue for a mug of Bovril and a meat pie. So why exactly is Alan Hansen paid £20K a week to say “shocking defending” and “unbelievable” every Saturday night? Why should impoverished pensioners, or any of us for that matter, be forced by law to make involuntary contributions to the BBC and Capita Ltd, in order to pad his and other millionaires’ pension funds ? There are hundreds of former soccer players, and I have no doubt I could find many who would give equally incisive and probably far whittier commentaries than the ex-Liverpool centre half at a tiny fraction of the cost, but the BBC likes to keep the self-inflated balloon of its own hyperbole afloat at all costs, particularly where jaw dropping salaries are concerned.

The BBC maintains a view of itself and its “stars” entirely divorced from reality, and nothing must be allowed to puncture this mythos, lest some of the hot air that keeps it afloat should seep out. The Savile affair has punctured their zeppelin sized balloon of hubris from which the good ship BBC is suspended, and now its heading back to earth.

Auntie, as she likes to be known, is fact a hideous old crone whose final demise is long overdue. ….

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Filed Under: 2012, 2012 Election, America, BBC, BREAKING NEWS, Business, Child Abuse, Media, money, NEWS, UK Politics, Uncategorized, United Nations, WORLD NEWS Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,