BS: Coulson re areested for perjury

Subject: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 May 12 - 08:45 AM

well done cops. what with Blair and Cameron in the witness box, I'd totally forgotten about that little scamp.

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 May 12 - 09:57 AM

Not forgotten - but I hope he goes down.

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 May 12 - 10:09 AM

Does ANYONE have ANY trust with News International now ?

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: ollaimh
Date: 30 May 12 - 01:03 PM

murdock's fox news has been a terrible infuence in american politics. way beyond anything they did in the uk. the far right nonsense aired on fox news has been in believable.

it appears murdock is a rAnting cook, but a ranting cook with more money than god. i remember the days when some of the rich used to feels some social responsibility

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 May 12 - 01:18 PM

ollaimh ~~ Do you mean he is a ranting 'cock', or a ranting 'crook'? 'Cook' doesn't seem to make mush sense.

~M~

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: MGM·Lion
Date: 30 May 12 - 01:19 PM

... or even much sense...

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Musket
Date: 30 May 12 - 01:28 PM

I'm sure justice will be done, assuming legal bods can unpick Sheridan's case, which has more than a few blind alleys according to reports at the time of the original trial.

Of course, under Scottish law, he has not technically been arrested. (I know I'm being pedantic there Al, but I'm sure a clever bloke like Bridge can explain the difference North of the border better than I can.)

Coulson did what Coulson felt he could get away with, based on where he felt his loyalties lay, and from what we can glean from Levenson to date, high ranking employees of the dirty digger felt their corporate loyalties won if they clashed with legal obligations. Or to put it another way, we have established he was a prostitute, we just need to know what he charges for a blow job. The cynical person in me could be persuaded of the argument that he still felt his loyalties were to News International when he worked at No.10.

if so, this case could be his "Al Capone" moment, and an excellent forum for him to answer the many serious allegations made against him. Scottish courts tend to have a lower acquittal rate than English ones where criminal proceedings are concerned. Especially if the charge is duping a court into giving a wrong verdict in the first place, i.e.., perjury.

Luckily, ollaimh, some of the rich do feel social responsibility, in the same way not all poor people are chavs. Coulson feels his role is to exploit the one side to the benefit of the other. hence where we are today.

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 May 12 - 03:23 PM

I am not qualified in Scottish law.

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Desert Dancer
Date: 30 May 12 - 05:15 PM

kook?

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 30 May 12 - 05:38 PM

Very weird shit! How come a relatively minor player like this guy is in the dock. Minor compared to Murdoch, Blair, Cameron......

These are the guys playing with our lives and the lives of our children and the economy of our country.    Whatever the country the law is a tricky customer. The obvious beneficiaries of all this corruption are Murdoch and the top politicians. Murdoch enabled them to pass laws that were against the interests of the British people. For that he got a virtual monopoly of satellite tv and newspaper ownership.

They may be smoking guns in London, but the guns are still firing with deadly intent over in Afghanistan.

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Musket
Date: 31 May 12 - 04:04 AM

If this were not such a serious thread, I may point out Bridge left himself wide open there....

Coulson does appear to have been charged now, and Sheridan, (I'm just waiting for the first person to portray him as a saint) feels he may end up vindicated. Maybe, if the Coulson evidence convicted him. Coulson perjured himself by his insistence of no knowledge of phone tapping, and like a Parisian old hag knitting at the guillotine site, I too will get puerile pleasure of seeing him go down.

Just weighing up in my own mind if Sheridan coming out of the this as a saint is worth the price?

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 31 May 12 - 04:17 AM

I get no pleasure from it. Just as I got no pleasure from finding out that Blair had lied to me about WMD's.

young men full of promise and no doubt good intentions when first seeking high office.

I still can't work out how someone who takes the trouble to become a catholic, and presumably believes in an immortal could ever contemplate the sin of getting our country and its young soldiers embroiled in those bloody pointless wars. (Blair, i'm talking about here).

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Musket
Date: 31 May 12 - 08:48 AM

I too don't know the answer to that one.

I have in the past had cause to meet with him as Prime Minister when I held public office, and discuss how The NHS was faring. All I can say is that he knew a hell of a lot more than I expected, (although I had been "warned" that he did.) If he knew the defence brief to the same level, his naivety now leads me to question his integrity.

Or in other words, if there were alternatives to staging war abroad, he would have known about them, considered them and presumably rejected them. I think he made a conscious decision to go to war, and history will judge him accordingly.

Anyway, back to Coulson. He has been charged with a crime and we await the outcome. Regarding pleasure from seeing it. Pleasure and satisfaction are not easy words to use, but whatever else I am, I am not a hypocrite. We all get a sense of glee at the downfall of others. If we didn't then human nature has been formed on a misunderstanding....

Al made a link between Coulson and Bliar. I would make a further link that also encapsulates my comments about puerile satisfaction. Successive governments have formed a society where those richer or poorer than you are viewed with misgivings and mistrust. Every time I read or hear of "us versus them" I feel more sad. Listening to some commentators, people should be ashamed of having got off their arses and done well. The more people are programmed to despise success, the further we collectively fall. Coulson and Co know this and have exploited it to catastrophic effect. So yes, I shall get pleasure in seeing divide and conquer merchants get their comeuppance.

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Leadfingers
Date: 31 May 12 - 09:09 AM

Nothing that has come out over the last few years has given me any confidence in ANY of our major politicians !!

OR their Sycophantic Hangers On !

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Musket
Date: 31 May 12 - 10:55 AM

Oh, I don't know. There is food in the shops still, the cash machines work, police, healthcare, social care and all the other government ministries still work, electricity still flows, water comes out of the taps and when you use your keyboard, it still appears on Mudcat.

I reckon peoples' disdain of politicians, however justified, stems from them thinking politicians are the ones that actually make the country tick.

If they did, we might care more when selecting them to serve.

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: kendall
Date: 01 Jun 12 - 03:10 AM

Well said, Leadfingers. They are all tarred with the same brush.

Subject: RE: BS: Coulson re areested for perjury
From: Musket
Date: 01 Jun 12 - 03:30 AM

So we shouldn't be surprised if "they" tar us with the same brush too and disregard us?

Power corrupts and absolute power etc. The whole phone hacking debacle illustrates this. But instead of listening to tripe and diatribe and bending to accommodate everybody, politicians should start clearing the stables by making less promises they can't keep rather than being so ruddy reactive. Fear of public opinion as formed by the press and "focus groups" to "engage with the disaffected" sounds good over coffee and chocolate biscuits in a committee room at Portcullis House, (I know, I have the shirt and tie.)

But the trick isn't to try and please everybody all the time. If they thought that way, the likes of Coulson wouldn't have the power they wielded, and when the huff & puff dies down, will continue to wield. Because, unless we forget, the only alternative to the press doing what they damn well like is state controlled media, which in the internet age is not only impossible, but not desirable either.

I would have thought the ideal is to encourage clever people into politics? The analogy is here in the folk circuit. Good talented musicians and singers. But who drives the Rolls Royce? Somebody whose smile, good looks and naivety impresses Simon Cowell. We have the same with politicians. Constituency shortlisting is based on appearance, diversity quota and inability to think beyond the whips' thoughts.

Dismissing politicians is the easy way out. Encouraging better ones is the challenge.