by antiaristo » Sun Aug 28, 2005 10:34 am
Some of you will know that I have levelled many serious charges against members of the Windsor family. Some have read my voluminous correspondence in Data Dump. Even so, there's nothing in the papers. This guy must be nuts.<br>Here are the thoughts of an insider. As well as a columnist, Ms Odone is Deputy Editor of the New Statesman.<br><br><!--EZCODE ITALIC START--><em><!--EZCODE FONT START--><span style="font-size:x-small;">All the news they don't allow you to read</span><!--EZCODE FONT END--> <br><br>Cristina Odone<br>Sunday August 28, 2005<br>The Observer <br><br><br>At first sight, the Blairs' holiday in Barbados and the killing of a Brazilian electrician on the London underground have little in common. Yet the farcical attempts by No. 10 to impose a media blackout on the PM's holiday destination and joint efforts by police and the IPCC to withhold CCTV footage of the Stockwell Tube incident until Christmas betray a very British game of collusion and cover-ups.<br>It is a game played by the forces of the establishment - in this case, government, police, and media - in which elite speaks unto elite, closing ranks and keeping the public in the dark.<br><br>This system relies on the old boys' act rather than any law. Whenever the government feels the need to keep some piece of information secret, they send a note to editors asking for their co-operation in what is inevitably presented as a matter of national security. Editors comply, their journalists follow suit.<br><br>This sheds an unflattering light on all the players involved - from the government and police force that are equally obsessed with secrecy and obfuscation to a supine media pathetically grateful for any crumb of information tossed its way and any chance of being included at top table.<br><br>But who protects whom, in this game of secrecy? When Dave Hill, Blair's press spokesman, asked editors to keep the whereabouts of the Prime Minister secret 'for security reasons', he was clearly alluding to a potential terrorist attack. Yet George Bush could rely on no such pact of secrecy. Not only did every American (and jihadist) know that the Prezz was holidaying at the family ranch in Texas, anti-war protesters were allowed to gather within a Molotov cocktail's throw of the gates. Americans' democratic mindset requires everyone to be accountable - even when on a break.<br><br>When the Washington Post published an article this month entitled 'Where is Tony Blair?', poking fun at the Prime Minister's spurious invisibility (photographs of the 'first family' aboard a yacht filled whole pages in the tabloids), one Washington media man asked whether it was fitting that Blair on a yacht in Barbados should be accorded special protection while ordinary members of the public commuting to work were not.<br><br>Equally questionable is the reasoning that allows the Met and the IPCC to withhold the CCTV footage of police shooting Jean Charles de Menezes on 22 July. The authorities argue that crucial evidence should not be made public until December because it might prejudice the inquiry. Again, the British way means that <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>the authorities' wish is the media's command: the Fourth Estate has no legal recourse to challenge this directive.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--><br>Another much-used defence in gagging the media has been the authorities' fear of the 'potentially incendiary' nature of the information the media wants to release. It's a line of argument that gained credence in the wake of the 1992 Los Angeles race riots, which erupted when footage was broadcast showing white police beating Rodney King, a black youth.<br><br>Britain's draconian libel laws account for a great deal of the hacks' wariness when it comes to printing allegations about any individual. But the unspoken gagging order is particularly striking because it is so highly selective, as scores of celebrities have experienced: Naomi Campbell's visits to Narcotics Anonymous, for instance, or Tara Palmer-Tomkinson's trip to a rehab centre in Arizona, were not accorded the same privilege (though Campbell did sue the Mirror for its report, and won).<br><br>The French have always abstained from printing details of the private doings of public figures, but <!--EZCODE BOLD START--><strong>Paris Match has just published an article on Cecilia Sarkozy, wife of Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, and her friendship with a Moroccan businessman**.</strong><!--EZCODE BOLD END--> The six-page spread may prove the breaking point in the unspoken complicity between political and media circles.<br><br>This complicity was summed up by Guy Birenbaum in Our Inside Dealers, his 2003 exposé of the French establishment, as the attitude of an arrogant clique that believes 'We sort out what is good for you and what you need to know.'<br><br>Birenbaum could have been writing about Britain's cosy club of hacks and cops and politicians. Blair's Barbados hols and the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes show that, whether it is where the rich play or how the poor die, the club is determined to keep you in the dark.</em><!--EZCODE ITALIC END--><br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1557674,00.html">observer.guardian.co.uk/b...74,00.html</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>**I presume this is payback for Sarkozy revealing the links between British Intelligence and one of the "suicide bombers".<br> <p></p><i></i>