Just watched the Hugh Grant piece.
I'd never though of him as much more than a plank who plays the same part (stammering Englishman) in every rom-com.
I now hold him in high esteem.
That piece had an air of leadership.
I love the way he elegantly divides the factions and offers the carrot of being a good, brave and honest journalist/politician.

Agreed.

I've always felt it was partly Hugh Grant's fault that Americans view the English with such contempt. Now, after all these years, I've found out what he is good for.

I see on the Guardian list of hackees there are 6 unnamed Mail journos. In light of that, I'm curious as to why The Mail isn't making more fuss about this story.

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That subtle admixture of the absurd and the surreally plausible...

The very fact that Brooks has still got a job would suggest there is a lot more shit to come, if they sack her too soon they would then have to find some more fal guys further down the road.

Her argument that 'it is inconceivable' she would be involved in phone tapping doesn't really cut the mustard, after all this is the woman who went storming round to the Independent during the election campaign when she disagreed with a story that had been printed in the paper. Anyone stupid enough to do that is capable of anything.

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www.newshuddlines.blogspot.com

The Sun story has impressed me in that several of the women attack cameron on left-wing areas like cuts and teacher's pensions

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There never was a golden age Mike, it's all an illusion

The Third Doctor Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974)

After a brief surge of bravery last night the Mail has put this down the page again and stopped taking comments on it since last night. The lead story is now that massively important sadface epic about the woman allegedly locked into a room by her bank manager.

Brooks can't possibly stay in her job. If she knew, she's a liar and she's in line for criminal charges. If she didn't know and didn't even think to find out where the info was coming from, she's incompetent and shouldn't be running a multinational news organisation if things like that happen on her watch.

If she genuinely didn't know (which I don't buy for a second) there simply is no middle ground of her being stupid enough to not realise what was going on but not stupid enough to be good at her job.

Which was exactly her own standpoint when calling for Sharon Shoesmith to be tarred and feathered

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Soppy anti-British, pro-crime, anti-education, pro-immigration, anti-family nonentity

The public have got it in their power to put this despicable rag out of business, this transcends any politics. Everyone should hate what they've done. But no. On Sunday millions will still be be trotting off to the newsagents, handing over their cash and in a few weeks it'll be all forgotten with barely a dent in their sales, as well as falling down the news agenda. So what if one or two people get jailed like in the past for similar. The NOTW itself has never been hurt where it matters.

Precisely.

This is all starting to remind me of the end of Robocop 2 of all things. Female exec pushes things to the delight of the elderly boss, then when it all comes back to bite them in the arse he supports her right up to the moment he turns on her and makes out it was all her own agenda and he never sanctioned any of it.

That could be a subtle reminder to Cameron - and Milliband - that News International still think they pull all the strings. Certainly a lot Blairs early success was due to their favourable press angle

But the recent election results where News International went all out in their endorsement of Cameron - including the 'accidental' left the mike on episode and Cameron could only achieve power through a coalition is signs that the Murdoch empire is slipping and they are starting to misread the public

Just leave it on your own answering machine and I'm sure News International will hear it in a matter of days.

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"The first casualty on your Facebook wall is always facts..."

#rightwingpoliticalcorrectness - for when some "Tell it like it is" bullshitter plays the political correctness card, often without irony!

And that is the cultural reference to end all cultural references.

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"Even when you're a super-computer with an IQ of 2000 it's brown trousers time."

Reclaiming "methinks" for the nation

Latest blog post - 2011 - a review (updated 07/10)

It seems clear to me that there are only three possibilities:

1) They knew about the hacking and condoned it
2) They knew about the hacking and ignored it
3) They didn't know about the hacking and are therefore incompetent

The only question in my mind is who does "they" include?

Coulson?
Wade?
The Murdochs?
Cameron?

Edit: PMQs. In response to Milliband's accusation that appointing Coulson was an error of judgement, Cameron has just said that he takes full responsibility for the actions of his government and everyone in it.

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That subtle admixture of the absurd and the surreally plausible...

Gideon looks a bit twitchy and distracted at PMQT, I wonder he's a bit worried about what dirt the NOTW has got on him.

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www.newshuddlines.blogspot.com

May's circulation figures for NotW were 2,657,232. June's figures should be out in the next few days, so it will be a while before we'll be able to see if this has made much difference.

Source:

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/story.asp ... =47273&c=1