Scotland Yard forced into abrupt climbdown over attempt to make Guardian reporters reveal phone hacking sources The Metropolitan police dropped its attempt to order the Guardian to reveal confidential sources for stories relating to the phone-hacking scandal. After an intervention by the Crown Prosecution Service, Scotland Yard was forced into an abrupt climbdown following a wave of outrage over the Met’s attempt to make Guardian reporters reveal confidential sources for articles disclosing that the murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked on behalf of the News of the World. They claimed that the paper’s reporter, Amelia Hill, could have incited a source to break the Official Secrets Act and broken the act herself. At an Old Bailey hearing scheduled for this Friday, the Met had been due to apply for a production order to obtain all the material which the Guardian holds that would disclose sources for the newspaper’s coverage of the phone-hacking inquiry this year. The statement put out by the Met announcing its retreat left open the possibility that the production order could be applied for again, but the Guardian’s lawyers have been told that the police have dropped the application. A senior Yard source said: “It’s off the agenda.” The police application was formally being made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act but with an assertion that Hill had committed an offence under the Official Secrets Act by inciting an officer from Operation Weeting – the Met’s investigation into phone hacking – to reveal information. The Yard source said: “There will be some hard reflection. This was a decision made in good faith, but with no appreciation for the wider consequences. Obviously the last thing we want to do is to get into a big fight with the media. We do not want to interfere with journalists. In hindsight the view is that certain things that should have been done, were not done, and that is regrettable.” The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, said: “We greatly welcome the Met’s decision to withdraw this ill-judged order. Threatening reporters with the Official Secrets Act was a sinister new device to get round the protection of journalists’ confidential sources. We would have fought this assault on public interest journalism all the way. We’re happy that good sense has prevailed.” Many lawyers had expressed astonishment at the police resorting to the Official Secret Act. Their surprise was reinforced on Monday when the director of public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, revealed that the Crown Prosecution Service had not been contacted by officers before the application was made. Neil O’May, the Guardian’s solicitor, said: “This was always a misconceived application for source material. Journalists’ sources are protected in law. For the Metropolitan police to turn on the very newspaper which exposed the failings of the previous police inquiries and reported on hacking by the News of the World was always doomed to failure. The Metropolitan police need to control the officers who are involved in these sensitive areas.” In a statement , the CPS said: “[On] Monday the Metropolitan police asked the CPS for advice in relation to seeking a production order against Guardian Newspapers. “The CPS has asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and has said that more time will be needed fully to consider the matter. As a result the scheduled court hearing will not go ahead on Friday. The [Metropolitan Police] will consider what application, if any, it will make in due course, once it has received advice from the CPS.” The Met said in a statement: “The Metropolitan police’s directorate of professional standards consulted the Crown Prosecution Service about the alleged leaking of information by a police officer from Operation Weeting. “The CPS has today asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and for appropriate time to consider the matter. In addition the MPS has taken further legal advice this afternoon and as a result has decided not to pursue, at this time, the application for production orders scheduled for hearing on Friday 23 September. We have agreed with the CPS that we will work jointly with them in considering the next steps. “This decision does not mean that the investigation has been concluded. This investigation, led by the DPS – not Operation Weeting, has always been about establishing whether a police officer has leaked information, and gathering any evidence that proves or disproves that. Despite recent media reports there was no intention to target journalists or disregard journalists’ obligations to protect their sources. “It is not acceptable for police officers to leak information about any investigation, let alone one as sensitive and high profile as Operation Weeting. “Notwithstanding the decision made this afternoon it should be noted that the application for production orders was made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), NOT the Official Secrets Act (OSA). “The Official Secrets Act was only mentioned in the application in relation to possible offences in connection with the officer from Operation Weeting, who was arrested on August 18 2011 on suspicion of misconduct in a public office relating to unauthorised disclosure of information. He remains on bail and is suspended. “Separately, the MPS remains committed to the phone hacking investigation under Operation Weeting.”The picture painted by insiders in the Met is that a relatively junior officer took the decision to take on the Guardian without consulting his superiors, setting off a calamitous chain of events that saw the Met condemned for an attempted assault on press freedom. Police sources said the senior investigating officer who was inquiring into whether a member of the Weeting team had leaked information, had on his own, taken the decision to seek the production order. The senior source said that not even Deputy Assistant Commissioner Mark Simmons had been told about the decision in advance. Simmons is the head of professionalism issues at Scotland Yard and is seen as a rising star within the force. The senior source said: “There was not a lot of happy people at our place over the weekend because it was a decision made by the SIO. There was no referral upwards, and you would have thought on something as sensitive as this there would have been.” Simmons and the incoming commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, did discuss the issue, as the criticism grew, but the source said the commissioner had left it to Simmons to take the decision, and that there was no instruction or directive. The Met stressed that Hogan-Howe, despite being in charge of professional standards as deputy commissioner, was not involved in the original decision to seek a production order. Simmons took the decision to review the application by the SIO. Geoffrey Robertson QC said: “This is a victory for common sense and freedom of speech. Had the police continued with this ill-considered action journalists might have been forced to disobey a court order so as to protect their source. “Putting journalists into that dilemma and possibly in jail would only bring discredit on police and the law. It should now be accepted that journalists are entitled to protect their sources of information otherwise that information will dry up and there will be less public interest information such as the hacking of Milly Dowler’s phone.” The Met’s move had been condemned by all Britain’s major newspapers, including the Times and Sunday Times, and the Daily Mail’s columnist Richard Littlejohn. The Yard pursued its action against the Guardian without consulting the CPS, until Monday, or the attorney-general Dominic Grieve. Phone hacking The Guardian Metropolitan police Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers Police Owen Bowcott Vikram Dodd guardian.co.uk
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Suicide bomber with hidden explosives has killed Hamid Karzai’s chief peace envoy in the heart of Kabul Hopes for a peaceful end to the 10-year war in Afghanistan were in tatters after a suicide bomber with explosives concealed in his turban killed Hamid Karzai’s chief peace envoy. The assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani by men posing as leading Taliban envoys looked certain to tip the country even deeper into crisis. Rabbani was a former president of Afghanistan, respected religious scholar and chairman of the country’s high peace council. The explosion in the heart of Kabul’s diplomatic district kills off a peace process that was already on life support. It also deprives President Karzai of an important ally who had flown into Kabul specifically to meet the men claiming to be Taliban envoys and emboldens his enemies who are implacably opposed to the idea of powersharing with armed insurgents. “This absolutely shows that peace with the Taliban is dead,” said Ahmed Wali Massoud, the brother of a famous anti-Taliban guerrilla leader who was killed by suicide bombers days before the terrorist attacks of September 11. “It doesn’t work, it won’t work,” he added. The high peace council, a body set up last year by Karzai, has been trying to get talks off the ground against an increasingly inauspicious background. Insurgent groups have stepped up their attacks, not least launching spectacular assaults in the Afghan capital and assassinating key Karzai allies. And a set of secret talks mediated by the German government with a senior Taliban official has already collapsed. Last week Rabbani led a conference of provincial governors and officials in the southern city of Kandahar to develop policies for reintegrating insurgents who want to give up the fight. Not surprisingly a meeting with two men claiming to be senior Taliban officials was the first thing on Rabbani’s agenda after flying back to Kabul from a subsequent trip to Dubai. According to an aide to Rabbani they said they represented the Quetta Shura, the Taliban’s governing body, and had an important message to deliver. Not only were the visitors deemed too important to search thoroughly, inspecting a turban is still generally seen as disrespectful, even though there have been three other cases this year of the headgear used to conceal bombs. The aide said that when Rabbani entered the room one of them approached him, hugging him tight and placing his head on his victim’s chest. Shopkeepers nearby heard a muffled bang from inside the building, which was still loud enough to set off the “duck and cover” alarms at the US embassy a short distance away. The former president was killed instantly while four others in the room were injured, including Masoom Stanekzai, a highly-regarded technocrat who runs the day-to-day operations of the peace council and had brought the men to Rabbani’s house. The second man was also seriously injured. His turban was burning when he was found, according to an official from the country’s interior ministry. He was taken to hospital, where strenuous efforts were made to keep him alive in the hope he would help investigators with their enquiries. On hearing the news Karzai scrapped plans to participate at the United Nations general assembly and announced that he would immediately return from New York to Kabul. Rabbani’s killing is also looks set to exacerbate already acute ethnic tensions in the country. A Tajik and former warlord from northern Afghanistan who fought against the Taliban, Rabbani was a controversial choice as a point man on reconciliation issues. But although many observers argued that the Taliban would never take a man with his background seriously, his appointment was also designed to appease northern, non-Pashtun Afghans who were deeply suspicious of any peace deals. Haroun Mir, a political analyst with a background in northern mujahideen groups, said the death would “increase the ethnic and geographic divide” in Afghanistan. “There were voices in the north that were critical of the peace process, but because of Rabbani’s involvement, and because he was so respected, they kept quiet. These more critical voices will not now remain quiet.” Abdullah Abdullah, the country’s leading opposition figure, said the death of Rabbani showed the insurgents were trying to wipe out the political figures who ruled the country before the emergence of the Taliban in the 1990s. “We should recognise and know our enemy from lower ranks up to the top officials of the country because by any means, by any way, they are trying to kill us and eliminate all high ranking officials and jihadi leaders.” Former intelligence chief Amrullah Saleh, a northerner who has warned in the past that the north might be forced to rearm if a Karzai cut a “deal” with the Taliban, once again warned of the risk of “civil unrest”. “The killing of Rabbani who had devoted his life to serving Afghanistan and to peace once again reminds us that reconciliation cannot be possible from a position of weakness but strength only,” he said. “It is time for us to unite for change and for defeat of the Taliban.” Afghanistan Taliban Global terrorism Middle East Jon Boone guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …Sex Toys, Lies and Videotape: The Continuing Saga of My Unlawful Arrest
September 20, 2011 No Comment
Previously on The Jersey Shore my C&L blog, the Situation ate a steroid-infused meatball sub I recalled the events of my unlawful arrest at a National Organization for Marriage anti-gay marriage rally. And now the stunning continuation… To say that I sweated through the night is no metaphor. The air conditioning was on the fritz and, although there was a temporary system pumping in air from a semitrailer outside, the cells were hot enough to give Sheriff Joe Arpaio a spring in his step. I did some metaphorical sweating, too. This was the Erie County Holding Center. Although it’s a relatively quaint 680-cell facility, its “suicide” rate is five times the national average. And although it’s recently been dropped, the ECHC was the focus of a two-year DOJ investigation, which alleged such constitutional violations as “elevator rides” (guards taking inmates to a floor without cameras and beating them senseless) and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome -style inmate-on-inmate combat – done, apparently, for the guards’ amusement. “Who run Bartertown?” I softly whispered to myself throughout the night. “Master Blaster.” Rachel Maddow even did a segment on this place a while back. While Erie County Sheriff Tim Howard refused to let the Feds inspect the jail, he had no problem opening up the door to Keanu Reeves. He was researching a role – like he wasn’t just going to play Keanu Reeves. I’m not kidding: Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News , World News , and News about the Economy It’s been widely speculated – by me alone – that his visit was the true origin of the Sad Keanu meme. Aww. Sad Keanu is sad. Anyway, a couple guards came to my cell before…I’d call it “lights out,” but the lights never did go out, and I presumed I’d been chosen in some sadistic lottery to fight another inmate to the death. In reality they just wanted to chuckle and say things, like, “So, uh, you the dildo guy?” “Yeah,” I said. “I ran for Congress, too, you know!” They didn’t care. “I pranked Scott Walker!” They didn’t care. They just wanted to know about the dildo. The lesson I took away from this is that the next time I run for public office I’ll do it with a dildo (Murphy and Dildo for President 2016!). Sleep wasn’t happening, so I kept myself busy by reading my prisoner rights. I was the only one being processed that day who accepted the booklet offered. All prisoners are to be issued a pillow! I didn’t get a pillow. Things could be worse. I could be black in Georgia . “Wake-up” call at 5 am. Handful of generic Cinnamon Toast Crunch on a Styrofoam plate, with bad orange juice, milk and bread. Yum. Then the confounding movement from one locked room to another, each smaller than the next, until many of the 18 detainees were forced to sit on the filthy floor. Eventually, some of the other prisoners wanted to know if I was, in fact, “The Dildo Guy.” “I ran for Congress!” I yelled, indignant, like that was somehow better than being The Dildo Guy. After explaining the purpose of the prop, and suffering a solid ten minutes of expected mockery, I was treated to the jail house rock version of how people become gay. Bad parenting, lack of religion in early childhood, and…Justin Beiber. I didn’t ask. The motley crew also agreed that if I was tough enough to “take a fat d— in the a–,” I was likely strong enough to hold my own in a fight. I didn’t understand how they made this logical leap, but I did not disabuse them of the useful notion that was a hardened queer. Arraignment hearing at 9:30. Paul Fallon, BEAST publisher and lawyer, was there waiting with the arrest report and I got my first look at the charges against me (the red annotations are, obviously, mine): I’d like to wait to thoroughly rebut these charges, for a later post, but I would like to mention one thing: The person that I reportedly shoved, which would be the “complainant,” is listed as “Sony”. Sony. What is that, I don’t even. A Freudian slip? Baffling. List of confiscated property: Wallet Watch Digital voice recorder Blue notebook Bible Dildo Cell phone Aside from being likely the funniest list of confiscated property in the history of Erie County, there was one very big omission: my video camera – Mr. Sony: race unknown. Fallon and I were told that the camera was “too big” to be held at the Holding Center, which is utter nonsense, and that it was taken to a precinct downtown. This was obvious done so that officer Donovan could erase the footage of the unlawful arrest–or to disappear the camera entirely. After getting the runaround, we eventually did get the camera back and, yes, all the footage from the rally was gone. Fortunately, they failed to completely wipe the hard drive, so we may be able to recover the data. In fact, I shipped the camera off to LA earlier today for forensic analysis. John Amato “knows a guy.” [Personal note to Amato's tech geek: there's a lot of deleted footage on that camera. Focus on files _0061 through _0082. Yup. Nothing to see before that. Nothing at all. Nothing. Seriously. No sexy business or anything like that. Nothing. OK! ] *Another issue I’d like to tease right now is the Buffalo News report of my arrest: Buffalo police made one arrest, charging Ian Murphy, the Green Party candidate for the Congressional seat that Democrat Kathleen C. Hochul won in a special election in May, with disorderly conduct. Police said in a report that Murphy, 35, of Amherst, was using abusive, obscene language and shoved a person in the crowd. Officers asked Murphy several times to stop, according to the report. Instead, Murphy directed a sex toy toward officers and told them that it was a microphone, the report said. Murphy also was charged with harassment and disruption of a religious service. Notice the discrepancy between the police report and the Buffalo News account. Maybe it’s not a huge deal, but the difference between “having a dildo in [my] possession” and “direct[ing]” it “toward officers” seems like trivia worth mentioning on the police report. These things are supposed to be as detailed as possible. But it’s late, I’m already blowing deadline here, and I’m kind of (very) scared of Tina Dupuy (she looks sweet, but you don’t know her!), so the rebuttal of charges and the incredibly — like, really, really — strange story of how learned about the discrepancy between the accounts will have to wait. But I assure you, as a dude who’s done some exceptionally weird things, this is absolutely bizarre. —- Murphy is the editor of The BEAST .
Continue reading …Twenty-four injured in suspected terrorist attack in downtown area of Ankara A car bomb which exploded outside a secondary school in Ankara has killed at least three people and injured 24. The blast on Tuesday, near government buildings, including the prime minister’s office in the Turkish capital, was a terrorist attack, the prosecutor’s office said. “The explosion occurred in a place where car and people traffic is intense. It looks like the intention was to inflict as much harm to people as possible,” said the interior minister, Idris Naim Sahin. He said the bodies of three people were found in a building near the car in central Ankara and five of the injured were in a critical condition. The deputy prime minister, Bulent Arinc, blamed the blast on a bomb planted on a vehicle. Bulent Tanik, a local mayor, said a witness told him someone threw a burning gas canister on to the vehicles from a nearby building. “If true, that canister might have triggered the blast of a liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) tank on a vehicle,” he said. Witnesses said vehicles were thrown through the air by the force of the blast and shops were destroyed beyond recognition. The parked car that triggered the blast was purchased a week ago but had not been registered. There was no claim of responsibility but Kurdish rebels, Islamists and leftist militants have all carried out bombings on Turkish soil. Turkey analyst at Chatham House, Fadi Hakura, said if it was confirmed to be a bomb, the method and targets of the attack suggested it was the work of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK). “The PKK is the only group in Turkey with the capacity and wherewithal to carry out such an attack,” said Hakura. He added that Islamists have tended to attack high-profile foreign targets in the Nato-member country, while the PKK had past form of striking against civilians, although he said the Kurdish rebels tended to claim attacks only when they were against foreign targets. Reyhan Altintas, a neighbourhood administrator, said she rushed outside after hearing a loud blast. It was followed by three other blasts, apparently caused by cars catching fire. “I had never heard anything like it in my life,” witness Adnan Yavuz said of the initial blast. “Then came another explosion and parts of a car dropped from the tree.” The wounded were initially treated in the schoolyard before medics arrived at the scene and took them to hospitals, NTV television said. Authorities evacuated the school as parents rushed to pick up their children. Police detained a woman at the scene who shouted “long live our struggle” as she was escorted away by officers, Dogan news agency video showed. The PKK, which is fighting for autonomy in the south-east, has stepped up attacks on Turkish targets since July. In response, Turkey launched a series of cross-border airstrikes last month, which it said killed up to 100 Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq. Just days later, Kurdish rebels were blamed for a small bomb attack in the Mediterranean resort town of Kemer that wounded 10 people, including four Swedes. While most PKK operations target the military, police and state employees in the largely Kurdish south-east, the group has previous form of striking at the capital. In 2004, four bombs exploded at branches of British bank HSBC bank in Ankara and Istanbul. Three years later, the PKK was blamed – but denied responsibility for – a suicide bombing in Ankara that killed six people . Turkey Middle East Europe Global terrorism Haroon Siddique guardian.co.uk
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George Osborne warned that slower pace of deficit reduction will have to be adopted if economy continues to struggle The International Monetary Fund has cut its growth forecast for Britain for the third time in nine months and warned George Osborne that further underperformance would warrant a policy U-turn. The fund said the UK continued to struggle and advised that a slower pace of deficit reduction would be necessary were the economy to continue to expand less rapidly than expected. While sparing Osborne the embarrassment of a call for an immediate change of course, the IMF pulled no punches in criticising European policymakers for failing to sort out the eurozone’s problems. Following the credit downgrade of Italy by the ratings agency S&P, the IMF’s economic counsellor, Olivier Blanchard, urged Europe to “get its act together” and the fund issued a “call to arms” to prevent Europe’s leaders losing control of the crisis. “There is a wide perception that policymakers are one step behind the action in markets,” said Blanchard. “It is a major source of worry.” The IMF’s half-yearly World Economic Outlook said low borrowing costs meant Britain had the scope to cut its deficit more slowly but that it should not do so yet. Jorg Decressin, an IMF economist, said: “Policy should only be loosened if growth threatens to slow down substantially relative to what we are forecasting.” The IMF said it was cutting its growth forecast for the UK to 1.1% this year – down from 1.5% in June, 1.7% in April and 2% at the start of the year. It also predicted a more sluggish recovery in 2012, with activity expanding by 1.6% against the 2.3% it was predicting just three months ago. Fund economists believe that only an improvement in Britain’s trade performance will prevent the economy returning to recession this year. Domestic demand is expected to contract by 0.5%, the weakest of any country in the G7. Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor said: “These are deeply concerning forecasts for both the UK and world economy. Our chancellor and political leaders in Europe need to wake up to the scale of the problem and finally realise that we need economic growth and more people in work to really get deficits down.” A Treasury spokesman said: “It is welcome that the IMF have forecast that the UK will grow more strongly than Germany, France and the eurozone next year, but it is clear that the UK is not immune to what is going on in our biggest export markets, with every major economy seeing lower forecasts for growth this year and next.” He stressed that the government had no intention of backtracking on a deficit-reduction plan that had delivered stability for the UK. The IMF cut its forecast for global growth to 4% for both 2011 and 2012 but said risks were heavily skewed to the downside. It warned that a failure to tackle Europe’s sovereign debt crisis and a continued policy impasse between Democrats and Republicans in the US could result in a double recession for the developed world, which it said was already projected to grow at an anaemic pace in 2011 and 2012. The fund said the US Federal Reserve should “stand ready” to provide more stimulus to the world’s biggest economy through “unconventional support”, and financial markets rallied in anticipation that the central bank will signal fresh action when it concludes a two-day meeting on Wednesday. The Fed has already provided two doses of quantitative easing, the creation of electronic money through the purchase of financial assets, and Wall Street was hopeful on Tuesday night that the recent softening of demand will lead to a third boost in the coming months. Shares in the City rose on Tuesday, with the FTSE 100 Index closing more than 100 points higher. Shares on Wall Street were also higher in early trading. IMF Economics Global economy George Osborne Economic policy Economic growth (GDP) Public finance Larry Elliott guardian.co.uk
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Scotland Yard has dropped bid to force the Guardian to reveal confidential sources behind phone hacking stories Scotland Yard has dropped its forthcoming attempt to force the Guardian to reveal confidential sources for stories relating to the phone-hacking scandal. The police wanted a court order to force Guardian reporters to reveal confidential sources for articles disclosing that the murdered teenager Milly Dowler’s phone was hacked on behalf of the News of the World. They claimed that the paper’s reporter Amelia Hill could have “incited” a source to break the Official Secrets Act. The Yard said it would not go to the high court on Friday to demand the information. A police spokesman said: “The Metropolitan Police’s Directorate of Professional Standards consulted the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) about the alleged leaking of information by a police officer from Operation Weeting. “The CPS has today asked that more information be provided to its lawyers and for appropriate time to consider the matter. “In addition the MPS has taken further legal advice this afternoon and as a result has decided not to pursue, at this time, the application for production orders scheduled for hearing on Friday 23 September. We have agreed with the CPS that we will work jointly with them in considering the next steps.” The Met’s attempt to identify potential police leaks was widely condemned. The statement put out by the Met announcing its retreat left open the possibility that the production order could be applied for again, but a senior Yard source said: “It’s off the agenda. There will be some hard reflection. This was a decision made in good faith, but with no appreciation for the wider consequences. “Obviously the last thing we want to do is to get into a big fight with the media. We do not want to interfere with journalists. “In hindsight the view is that certain things that should have been done, were not done, and that is regrettable.” The Guardian’s editor-in-chief, Alan Rusbridger, said: “We greatly welcome the Met’s decision to withdraw this ill-judged order. Threatening reporters with the Official Secrets Act was a sinister new device to get round the protection of journalists’ confidential sources. We would have fought this assault on public interest journalism all the way. We’re happy that good sense has prevailed.” The police force applied for production orders as part of Operation Weeting, its investigation into phone hacking. An officer working on the operation was arrested last month on suspicion of misconduct in public office relating to the unauthorised disclosure of information. He has been suspended from the Met and is on bail. Scotland Yard said the investigation into the alleged leaks had not concluded however, and stressed their investigation was “about establishing whether a police officer has leaked information, and gathering any evidence that proves or disproves that”. The Met added: “Despite recent media reports, there was no intention to target journalists or disregard journalists’ obligations to protect their sources. “It is not acceptable for police officers to leak information about any investigation, let alone one as sensitive and high profile as Operation Weeting.” They said the application for production orders had been made under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act rather than the Official Secrets Act. Senior Scotland Yard sources last night said the force “regretted” the attempt to get the Guardian to hand over its notes and reveal sources. The picture painted by the Metropolitan Police is that a relatively junior officer took the decision, without consulting his superiors, setting off a calamitous chain of events that saw the Metropolitan Police roundly condemned for an attempted assault on press freedom. Sources said that the senior investigating officer who was inquiring into whether a member of the Weeting team had leaked information, had on his own, taken the decision to seek the production order. The senior source said that even deputy assistant commissioner Mark Simmons had not been told about the decision in advance. Simmons is the head of professionalism issues at Scotland Yard and is seen as a rising star within the force. The senior source said: “There was not a lot of happy people at our place over the weekend because it was a decision made by the SIO. There was no referral upwards, and you would have thought on something as sensitive as this there would have been.” The decision for the Met to end its attempt to get the Guardian to hand over its notes and reveal sources, said the source, came after the force finally consulted the CPS and consulted again with its own lawyers. Simmons and the incoming new Commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, did discuss the issue, as the chorus of criticism grew, but the source said the commissioner had left it to Simmons to take the decision, and that there was no instruction or directive. he Met stressed that Hogan-Howe, despite as Deputy Commissioner being in charge of professional standards, was not involved in the original decision to seek a production order, and that Simmons had taken the decision, after the firestorm of criticism to review the application by the SIO. Phone hacking Metropolitan police Police Newspapers & magazines National newspapers Newspapers guardian.co.uk
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• Click here for all tonight’s latest scores • Email simon.burnton@guardian.co.uk • Hit F5 or turn on autorefresh for updates 26 mins: Fabio is booked, and then commits another foul moments later but without further sanction. And then Diouf is booked for fouling White. 24 mins: Paul Taylor has fairly accurately pointed out that the photo currently at the top of this page looks quite a bit like the alien landing in Close Encounters of the Third Kind . If you’re reading this MBM later, after I’ve changed the picture, don’t worry – aliens haven’t landed in Leeds (though questions have been asked about Ken Bates). 22 mins: Clayton hammers a 25-yard shot at goal, but it’s straight into Amos’s arms. It already looks like LUFC are most likely to score from a set-piece, but it’s a fairly bright opening from them, goal excepted. 20 mins: “What about my home town team FC Groningen in The Netherlands,” ponders Machiel Akkerman, taking the discussion away from the League Cup and towards knockout tie comebacks in general, but let’s go with it. “Last year we were challenging for a place in the Europa League in two legged play-off vs ADO den Haag. The first leg was away and we lost 5-1. The return seemed to be a foregone conclusion but we beat them 5-1 as well, only to loose in the penalty-shoot. Are there more agonising defeats out there?” Probably not, though if you ask me it’s better than losing both legs 5-1. 18 mins: Unpromisingly for LUFC, Leigh Bromby was having a real, genuinely angry go at Snodgrass after the goal. GOAL! Leeds United 0 Manchester United 1! (Owen, 15 mins) Michael Owen breaks the deadlock with a scuffed shot after a very fine MUFC move. Park played the ball to Berbatov in midfield and then got on his bike, Berbatov returned it to the Korean – now totally unmarked – and he squared to Owen, who shifted the ball onto his left foot and then produced a shot which bobbled into the corner. 11 mins: 10 minutes and 31 seconds. For the record, that’s how long it took for a commentator to mention Eric Cantona. 10 mins: Michael Owen goes down on the edge of the penalty area, but the referee is unimpressed. Ben Amos is in goal for MUFC. It’s three years this week since he made his debut for the club in this competition, and this is the third match he’s played for them since. 7 mins: Down to the other end, where Dimitar Berbatov passes to Federico Macheda in the penalty area, but he dallies long enough for Leeds to regroup and crowd him out. 6 mins: Goal-line scramble/melee/clearance! LUFC win a corner, and the header beats the goalkeeper and is heading in only for Dimitar Berbatov to get a foot to it. Two further shots are blocked before the ball is finally cleared. 5 mins: Diouf scoots from the centre of the pitch into the left side of LUFC’s penalty area, lines up a left-footed shot and then … totally misses his kick and falls over. 4 mins: “Hardly a ‘heroic’ comeback,” pooh-poohs Ian Williams of Aston Villa v Tranmere circa 1994. “We (Tranmere) hit the inside of the angle in the final minute, and Mark Bosnich (who starred in the subsequent penalty shootout) should have been sent off. Everyone knows that!” More dissent from Joseph Harden. “Surely, if you’re talking about great league cup games & tranmere, the 4-3 game against Southampton is a better example – 0-3 at half time, 4-3 at the end, Paul Rideout, John Aldridge going crazy … good times.” 2 mins: Fryers gets the third touch of the game, Michael Owen passing it straight to him. He’s bouncing around like an overexcited lamb. Bless. 1 min: Peeeeep! And they’re off! I’m hoping to avoid furious emails tonight, and will therefore refer to the teams as LUFC and MUFC, and won’t call either of them simply “United”, unless by accident. 7.41pm: The teams are out, kick off is moments away. Gird those loins, folks… 7.37pm: Elliot Carr-Barnsley proposes Aston Villa’s 1994 semi-final, second leg fightback against Tranmere as the all-time League Cup greatest match ever. Only vague recollections at this end I’m afraid… 7.26pm: Manchester United’s official website profile of Ezekiel “Zeki” Fryers describes him as “a tall and athletic left-sided full-back”. So he should have no problem making his first-team debut at centre-half alongside Michael Carrick, then. 7.25pm: Here are some proper teams, with substitutes and everything: Leeds United: Lonergan, Lees, Bromby, O’Dea, White, Snodgrass, Howson, Clayton, McCormack, Keogh, Becchio. Subs: Rachubka, O’Brien, Vayrynen, Brown, Forssell, Nunez, Tayor. Manchester United: Amos, Da Silva, Valencia, Diouf, Fryars, Carrick, Park, Giggs, Owen, Berbatov, Macheda. Subs: D’Gea, Wellbeck, Brown, Keane, Thorpe, Pogba, Cole. Referee: M Jones. 7.22pm: “I’m a Leeds fan, on my way in to Manchester town centre to watch the game alone in a pub, just so I can go to a gig afterwards as well,” writes Matthew Briton. “The worst part? I’m at the bottom of my overdraft and only have £6.47 to drink the pain away after the inevitable loss.” Don’t do your team a disservice, M, defeat isn’t inevitable. Likely, sure, but not inevitable. Particularly with United lining up with a flat front five. 7.19pm: “Has Fergie been reading Jonathan Wilson’s column today and the comments below the line?” ponders David Wall. “Surely setting out that formation as 4-4-2 is a ruse and he’s really going to play 2-3-5 just to show that it can still be done, with Fryers and Fabio at the back, Carrick, Giggs, and Park in midfield, and five forwards in Valencia, Macheda, Diouf, Owen, and Berbatov. Takes being bloody-minded to an extreme…” 7.10pm: And Leeds’s line-up looks like this: Lonergan; Lees, O’Dea, Bromby, White; Snodgrass, Clayton, Howson; Keogh, McCormack, Becchio. 7.09pm: Manchester United’s team is in! And it looks like this: Amos; Valencia, Fryers, Carrick, Fabio; Giggs, Park, Macheda, Diouf; Owen, Berbatov. Er, so that’s Michael Carrick at centre-back, then? And Valencia at right-back? Are you sure ? 7.04pm: Hello world! Well, while excitement builds at Elland Road I welcome you with two very special treats of varying relevance to the game in hand. Item 1: some early team news. This, you’ll probably agree, is pretty relevant. Anyway, United include Fabio, Michael Owen, Michael Carrick, Dimitar Berbatov and Ezekiel Fryers are in United’s squad. Nope, I’m not sure who that Fryers chap is either. Leeds will name as good a team as they’ve got. “Man U could run all over us,” says Simon Grayson, unpromisingly. “This is an opportunity for our players and it’s a game where we have nothing to lose at all.” Item 2: Highlights of the single most ridiculous and memorable Carling Cup (or whatever it was then) fixture I have ever seen or probably ever will, a match so energising and enthralling that, having watched my side ship six at home, I came out absolutely buzzing . First-minute goals, missed penalties, unbelievably good performances by Jürgen Klinsmann, it had the lot. I did, on the negative side, emerge from that night with a hatred of Ian Walker that remained with me for the rest of his career. Did you know that he’s now managing Bishop’s Stortford? They’re currently 21st in the Blue Square Bet North, so he’s got a way to go before he’s emulating his dad. Anyway, if you know of any games that beat this I’d like to hear about them. Simon will be here from 7pm. In the meantime, here’s an excerpt from Rob Bagchi’s preview on why the festering rivalry between these two clubs should guarantee that this match is an experience to remember … Manchester United return to Elland Road in the Carling Cup on Tuesday night for the first time in eight years to renew a rivalry that remains among the fiercest in Europe. Following Leeds United’s relegation in 2004, the two sides have met only once, in an FA Cup tie at Old Trafford in January 2010 when the visitors, then of League One, incongruously registered their first away victory against Manchester United since 1981, at the 18th attempt. Before that match, Sir Alex Ferguson spoke wistfully about the long absence of Leeds from his side’s fixture list. “I don’t have to spell out what Leeds have meant to Manchester United over the years,” he said. “It would be a fantastic, feisty occasion every time we met. It always carried a degree of hostility. I used to enjoy the games. The atmosphere was always electric.” You can read the full article here . Carling Cup 2011-12 Carling Cup Leeds United Manchester United Simon Burnton guardian.co.uk
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UBS chief Oswald Grübel understood to be seeking vote of confidence after trader Kweku Adoboli charged with fraud Oswald Grübel, head of the Swiss bank at the centre of a £1.45bn alleged rogue trading scandal, will ask directors to back him or sack him at a UBS board meeting in Singapore on Wednesday and Thursday. The 67-year-old German, who was brought in as chief executive by UBS in 2009, is understood to be seeking a vote of confidence following losses which came to light in the City last week. Directors will also look at the future of Carsten Kengeter, head of UBS’s investment banking operations, which lie at the heart of the scandal that has rocked the Swiss establishment. English boarding school-educated Kweku Adoboli, a 31-year-old derivatives trader, was charged with fraud and false accounting when he appeared before London magistrates on Friday. He faces allegations of misdemeanours that go back as far as 2008, and was remanded in custody. Adoboli worked in the bank’s so-called delta-one trading section which invests in exchange traded funds, allowing speculators to bet on price rises in a range of commodities and stock market indices. The UBS board meeting, arranged prior to disclosure of the trading scandal, is being held in Singapore, home of the bank’s biggest shareholder, GIC, a sovereign wealth fund that acquired a 6.4% stake three years ago. In a rare public statement, GIC expressed regret at the failure of the bank’s risk management controls to detect the losses, and urged UBS “to take firm action to restore confidence in the bank”. UBS’s top brass will also decide over the whether to accelerate plans that could lead to a contraction of UBS’s investment bank, which employs several thousand staff in London. The fixed income desk, which is smaller than most of the bank’s international rivals’, is viewed as particularly vulnerable, but other activities, such as equities trading, could also be reined in following the scandal. Another option is for the bank to outlaw proprietary trading, where an institution makes financial bets by using its own money. The bank is anxious to protect the reputation of its core business: the wealth management division that looks after the financial interests of the global rich. Grübel was quoted by Swiss newspapers as saying he would “bear the consequences” of the scandal, although he didn’t want to quit. During the financial crisis, it emerged UBS had lost billions by investing in sub-prime mortgages. At the same time it was the target of a lengthy US investigation into claims it helped American clients avoid taxes. Grübel, who had restored the fortunes of Credit Suisse, was recruited to do the same at UBS, founded in 1854. City sources said the magnitude of the rogue trading scandal had been concealed by elaborate hedging of the bank’s exposure that led to delays in winding down huge positions in equity futures. UBS has set up an independent committee under David Sidwell, the bank’s senior non-executive director, to conduct a review of the affair, but critics say Sidwell cannot be viewed as independent. UBS Kweku Adoboli Banking European banks Switzerland Richard Wachman guardian.co.uk
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Ministers consider penalising property firms who fail to build as they aim to take coalition lead on providing stimulus Senior Liberal Democrat economic ministers desperate to inject a stimulus into Britain’s stalling economy are looking at boosting housebuilding by penalising property firms that fail to build on land that has long-term planning permission. They also want the Bank of England to undertake further quantitative easing within weeks by buying the debt of small businesses. They say it is for the Bank to work through the scale and precise timing, but argue the need to act is growing ever more urgent, and a public debate is needed. Ministers are aware that the Bank must retain its constitutional independence in setting interest rates, but believe the use of quantitative easing as a means of stimulating the economy has broken down the distinctions between it and government. The ministers recognise that the government cannot be seen to be straying openly from the deficit reduction strategy, and if it did so it would only lead to a self-defeating reaction in the bond markets. “We cannot be seen to do anything dodgy or use bogus Labour schemes like the private finance initiative,” one said. But they are starting to argue in private that it may be possible to bring forward capital spending from the timetable set out in the initial spending review in 2010, or that the overall level of capital spending could be increased by a couple of billion to keep the economy from sliding back into recession and unemployment rising. Explaining the government’s dilemma, Vince Cable, the Lib Dem business secretary, said: “We have built up a lot of credibility in international markets. We don’t want to lose that position. “There is flexibility built into our fiscal plans, we have that. There are other ways of maintaining stimulus to the economy. There is monetary policy and we can use imaginative infrastructure development to push the economy forward domestically.” Accused by some of depressing confidence by sounding gloomy, Cable added that the IMF downgraded forecast was an “objective independent assessment” which sounded “broadly plausible”. “It is very difficult to get our own economy growing again – financial markets, recession problems. Getting that going is difficult and is even more so when our main markets in Europe in North America are seizing up.” Ministers have already set out proposals to speed up the process of gaining housebuilding planning permission, a move backed by both wings of the coalition, but they now say that land banks and hoarding by housebuilders need to be addressed. A housebuilding programme is seen as central. The National Trust has estimated the total land bank with planning permission at around 330,000 plots. That figure is based on research by the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE) which found that the biggest developers last year held land with planning permission for 281,993 homes. Companies have added tens of thousands more plots to their stocks over the course of this year. Bovis, one of the biggest developers, said this month it had bought 1,571 “consented plots”, and was acquiring another 2,500. Ministers say England needs 230,000 extra homes a year to meet demand. They are looking at fining companies that hoard land with planning permission. More broadly, Lib Dem strategists are pleased they have been seen to be taking the lead in a more activist fiscal and monetary stance, even if this was partly because their conference came first in the season of party gatherings. Lib Dems have been happy to juxtapose their stimulus stance with the deregulatory supply-side reforms pushed by Conservatives. Lib Dems do not oppose supply-side reforms, but say urgency requires action on the demand side. In practice the differences between the two parties on economic policy has some substance, but is also one of tone. Liberal Democrat ministers believe the chancellor, George Osborne, is taking a pragmatic approach, and the positions are similar, although David Cameron is said to be more worried by anything that smacks of a stimulus. Lib Dem ministers are nervous of institutional restructuring, and believe the £3bn Green Investment Bank can lever in a further £15bn of private investment over the parliament. They admit that locating shovel-ready infrastructure projects is painfully slow inside Whitehall. Liberal Democrat conference Liberal Democrats Vince Cable Economic growth (GDP) Economics Economic policy Construction industry Housing market Housing Rural affairs Bank of England Patrick Wintour guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …It’s no secret that over the last few years the Democratic base has been fuming at President Obama’s strategic tactics of governing. He had a vision of leading which was one of compromise and bipartisanship, the type of governance which might have worked in the 50′s, 60′s, ’70s or ’80s, but certainly not after Clinton became President and the office was demeaned and defaced by conservative pundits, AM hate talk radio and the beltway media like never before. And if they held out hope that the way things worked would be different in DC after the many failures of Bush and Conservatism they should have received a clue how things were going to go after Fox created the tea party. That being said Ezra Klein writes : Why the White House changed course The White House could have been hammering that message since the day the House Republican Conference passed Ryan’s budget. They didn’t. The truth is, they didn’t want to. The president doesn’t think of himself as that kind of Democrat. He believes that there are sensible cuts that can be made to both Medicare and Social Security. He would like to win by governing effectively, by cutting deals with the other party, by making Washington work. He doesn’t want to run a generic Democratic campaign hammering Republicans for being willing to cut Medicare even as they cut taxes on the rich. And for the last few months, he gave what Sarah Palin might call “the hopey-changey thing” a shot. But it failed. The choice, it turned out, wasn’t between winning by making tough choices and hard compromises and winning by running as a populist. It was between losing because he was unable to get Washington to make tough choices and hard compromises and trying something else. So now the White House is trying something else. Ronald Reagan, who was despised by the young conservatives for being a squish , He cut deals with Democrats to save Social Security and raised taxes numerous times which did not make them happy. However, the political landscape has changed so much so since the New Right began to sprout their corrosive roots after Reagan took office that President Obama’s vision never had a chance to succeed. The new breed of hard core conservative activists, who were looked upon as the tea party of their day were composed of actors like Jack Abramoff (right wing street theater), Ralph Reed (religious right) Grover Norquist (defunding the left and strangling the federal government), Bill Kristol ( neoconservatism ) Edwin Meese and Clint Bolick (federalist Society) Roger Ailes and Rush Limbaugh (conservative thought transmitters through the media) Homer Ferguson (attacking public servants) just to name a few. It’s taken the Conservative movement 50 years to develop into what we now see as the “tea party.” They are as far right as a person can go without falling into the ocean and are as much a part of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson (social conservatives) as they are Barry Goldwater. This bridging the gap of all the extreme elements of the right makes Grover Norquist proud these days because through all those decades of watering extremist seeds, Conservative finally rule the GOP. I believe the constant criticisms from the base (bloggers, Dem Party members and activists), who have been hammering home that our social safety nets must be protected have helped sway the administration away from their original intentions. Though the tea party’s actions have also finally sunk in. Obama’s speech yesterday was much more confrontational and drew real lines that define the differences between the two parties. As Greg Sargent noted, this new posture is one to get back his base, but also to win back the independents . His threat of a veto has been cited often today and maybe he’ll use it. I’ve been writing that it was a mistake for the president to jump into the deficit hysteria that the right-wing was fermenting because deficits only matter when a Democratic politician occupies the Oval Office. I also despised it because we are in a bad economy and as history has taught us, government spending is needed to dig us out of this hole, not cuts. Austerity only buries us deeper. I believe if not for our push, the president would have talked more about his desire of cutting a grand deal which would have included cuts to medicare than they were Monday. It still upsets me that they continue to discuss reforms because first, it’s bad policy and second, it can be manipulated against him and the entire party in an election year. The new theory goes something like this: The first-bes t outcome is still striking a grand bargain with the Republicans, and it’s more likely to happen if the Republicans worry that Democrats have found a clear, popular message that might win them the election. The better Obama looks in the polls, the more interested Republicans will become in a compromise that takes some of the Democrats’ most potent attacks off the table. But the second-best outcome isn’t necessarily looking like the most reasonable guy in the room. It’s looking like the strongest leader in the room. That’s why Obama, somewhat unusually for him, attached a veto threat to his deficit plan: If the supercommittee sends him a package that cuts benefits for Medicare beneficiaries but leaves the rich untouched, he says he’ll kick the plan back to Congress. Rather than emphasizing his willingness to meet Boehner’s bottom lines, which was the communications strategy during the debt ceiling showdown, he’s emphasizing his unwillingness to bend on his bottom lines. Even after all that’s transpired, the president still would rather have his grand bargain passed. It’s mind numbing and the idea that they hope him appearing to be stronger will help him accomplish this goal is ludicrous. And to the second-best point. He should have always looked like the strongest leader in the room. He’s the PRESIDENT. Again, strategy matters. We all understand that each one of us live in our own bubbles. You have yours, I have mine and the White House has theirs, but it’s certainly taken an exorbitant amount of abuse from the GOP for the administration to break out of their cocoon and come to the same conclusions the DFH bloggers drew a long time. Digby writes a nice recap: My first thought is that it appears the administration has finally decided that there’s nothing to be gained with exclusively delivering post-partisan pablum. It certainly sounds as though he’s thrown down the gauntlet. Unfortunately, the President appears to want to have two fights going into this election, one over job creation and one over whose plan to cut the deficit is better, which I think is a confusing waste of time. (Focus like a laser beam on jobs and tell the Republicans they’ll have to go through you to get to the safety net and I think people would instinctively understand that he’s on their side.) But that isn’t this president’s style and perhaps it wouldn’t be believable if he did it. So, this is at least a change of tactics, more confrontational in tone, which is his best hope for reelection since it turns out people aren’t really all that impressed that he’s the most reasonable guy in the room if it appears that he gets punk’d every time. Unfortunately, I think the decision to include Medicare cuts (even though they seem to be provider based and means tested) is a big mistake politically. The Democrats needed to run against Ryan, and it was clean and simple before, now it’s muddled and incoherent. Those provider cuts, if they were absolutely necessary, could certainly have waited until after the election. (And opening up the can of worms of military retirement benefits is daft. I don’t know why anyone would dream of doing such a thing in an election year.)But the president is in a tough position having bought into austerity a long time ago and now it’s hung around his neck, impeding his available solutions. Still, he shouldn’t have touched one of the best arguments the Democrats have. I’m fairly surprised they did it. Threatening a veto is good stuff. He should do more of it. But he frames it as a “shared sacrifice” so that people still believe it’s right to trade essential middle class benefits for millionaire chump change. I hate that formulation and I think it’s a mistake to perpetuate it. However, just making any threat is a good thing — sounds like he’s drawing lines in the sand and considering the political dynamics in the congress I think it makes it less likely that any of these cuts will actually happen. I do hope as Digby does that cuts will not happen. Let’s keep our fingers crossed.
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