Rennie: Salmond would dine out with Devil to further independence cause

I've been watching the love in between Alex Salmond and Rupert Murdoch with an increasing sense of foreboding. And it appears I might have good reason.

Have a look at this succession of tweets from Andrew Neil:

Especially the one where he says:

Murdoch never much liked UK but post-hacking he hates it. His revenge is to campaign for its break up. Scot Sun will back independence.

Apparently there's also a plot afoot to move the whole of BSkyB to Edinburgh.

The First Minister seems to be delighted to have such a backer for his cause that he's prepared to overlook the Murdoch empire's shameful record on phone hacking. Writing in the Sun on Sunday he said:

 "But the questions the probe is looking at relate to the industry, not one newspaper or company.

Aye, so it will, but why exactly was it set up in the first place? Because it emerged that the News of the World (prop that Murdoch man who was getting all cosy in Brute House last week) had hacked murdered Milly Dowler's phone. Does journalistic practice actually get more despicable than that?

You have to wonder what sort of media regulation there will be in an independent Scotland if Rupert and Alex  have their way. 

It's almost as if Salmond just doesn't care any more. He knows he's popular and quite clearly feels that he can do what he likes, even if that means sucking up to someone whose company has shown exceptionally poor ethical standards in its journalistic practices in order to secure media backing for independence.

I'm thrilled to see that Willie Rennie has challenged him on this. Many people will be glad that someone is standing up to the First Minister's increasingly ill-judged dalliances with the rich and powerful. 

“By seeking to exploit Rupert Murdoch's spiteful revenge for phone hacking the First Minister has confirmed that he will dine out with the devil to get his way on independence.

“The First Minister has already defended News International in his recent Sun on Sunday column and now he's seeking a grubby deal with the media tycoon to support splitting Scotland from the rest of the UK.

"This is a cynical attempt to exploit Rupert Murdoch's personal grudge and grievance against UK politicians who rightly criticised the News of the World and the Sun over phone hacking.

“The real substance of last week’s cosy fire-side chat with Rupert wasn't jobs but his revenge over Leveson. Has the First Minister no shame?"

If you are as outraged as Willie that Salmond has "traded defence of Murdoch over phone hacking for Murdoch's support for independence, why not get regular updates from him on his Facebook page?

Note that we're not hearing much on this from either Ruth Davidson or Johann Lamont, whose parties have heavily courted the Murdoch empire over the years.

All that schmoozing with Rupert Murdoch pays off for Alex Salmond

Up until last August, Alex Salmond had met senior figures in Rupert Murdoch's now toxic empire some 25 times. His power schmoozing clearly had an effect.

 In 2007, Ian McWhirter rightly had a right go at the Sun for its Holyrood polling day front page of a noose and the words "Vote SNP today and you put Scotland's head in the noose". A charming bunch, they are, down at Wapping.

In 2011, the delighted chuckles of SNP activists as the Sun endorsed Alex Salmond as first minister (although not independence) could be heard for miles around.

And now Eck seems to have got the full house with the head of the Murdoch empire seemingly endorsing independence.

The Murdoch press endorsing independence would not be insurmountable by any means, especially these days, but it certainly doesn't help those of us who want to see the UK continue, albeit in a different form.

Willie Rennie said that this was the endorsement that any politician dreads, but I can't imagine there will be too many glum faces in the SNP,  High Command or grassroots. In fact, I know there isn't. Social networking sites are full of their glee.

This just highlights the need for those of us who want a future for the UK, in whatever form, to get our acts together on a positive, exciting, enthusiastic and passionate campaign, the better. There's been more signs of cohesive joint working recently, and Willie Rennie the other day offered to share the preliminary thoughts of Ming Campbell's Home Rule Commission with the other parties.

He said:

“As the debate around Scotland’s constitutional future gather’s pace, I believe it is the right time to discuss what further powers Scotland should have whilst at the same time remaining a strong and influential part of the United Kingdom family.

“The Prime Minister and Johann Lamont have signalled that they believe Scotland should have further powers and we need to have a debate about what those extra powers might look like.

“As a Liberal Democrat, I believe in Home Rule for Scotland. That’s why I have set up the Home Rule Commission chaired by Sir Menzies Campbell to debate and discuss what Home Rule would mean for Scotland.

“I want to make sure that our Home Rule proposals include contributions from for many different sections of society. That’s why I am asking the other political parties in Scotland, including members of the SNP opposed to independence, to join us in discussing Scotland’s future.

“In order to make sure we get the best deal for Scotland, we need to look beyond party lines and make a positive case for stronger devolution for Scotland but within a strong United Kingdom.

"I want to see a Parliament that raises what it spends so Scotland can determine our own destiny on the domestic agenda. That would give us more autonomy whilst retaining the benefits of sharing risk and opportunity with the rest of the UK.

“We must not leave Scotland’s future to be dictated by one political party who want us to opt out. I look forward to working with colleagues across the board to get the best deal for Scotland.”

It's typical of the consensual, engaging, constructive manner he's always had in politics and a clear effort to take the lead in setting the scene for a positive pro-union campaign. We can't allow a mega rich tycoon who's presided over questionable practices at his UK tabloids, to make the running.

Back from holiday. Have I missed anything............?

So, I'm back from my week's break in the highlands refreshed and  relaxed. It's normally quite quiet this time of year so I expect nothing much to have happened.  Just off out to buy a News of the World to check out what's been going on in the world.

Ok, ok, I may have had slow to rubbish to non existent internet access for the last week, but I haven't had my head completely in the sand. I have been itching to write about the scandals which have led to the closure of the News of the World newspaper which publishes its final edition today. 

I watched the nightly news bulletins last week horrified at every passing revelation. People should feel confident that messages left on their voicemail are to be heard only by them. In very rare cases, sanctioned by a judge, the State may have the right to intercept or listen to stuff, but the circumstances in which that power is used must be very limited, exceptional and regulated within an inch of its life. This is not a practice which should ever be carried out in the name of journalism, to give a newspaper competitive advantage in a crowded marketplace. What's become clear over the last few years is that there was a time early in this century when the News of the World were using agents to hack people's voicemails.  Quality journalism, as carried out by most members of that profession, is rooted in ethical behaviour. To tarnish every reporter, even every tabloid reporter, as a result of what we've seen over the past week would be wrong. Those who were involved in such activity were not journalists. They were criminals, pure and simple.

Within the truly sickening revelations this week that those criminals had hacked into the voicemails of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler and the families of those murdered in terrorist attacks or service personnel killed in Afghanistan lay another unpalatable insult. The evidence on which they were based is not brand new. A proper investigation in early 2007 when the then NOTW royal correspondent Clive Goodman was jailed should have elicited most of these facts and the people responsible should then have been identified and brought to justice. We should not have had to wait another 4 years to for this information to be dragged to light.

This week has shone a very strong light into the murky world of inter-relationships between police, press and politician. There are suggestions of payments to the police for information, authorised at senior levels. We all know that virtually every senior Labour and Conservative politician over the past couple of decades  has worshipped at the altar of News International, desperate for the electoral endorsement of its powerful tabloids.

Way back in the eighties, every self respecting Labour politician took to the picket lines at Wapping, urging us all to boycott the Murdoch publications. When Tony Blair took over, he decided on a different strategy - that of, to put it bluntly, what Carville and Begala would call "kissing ass". He went after, and won, the endorsement of the Murdoch Empire in 1997 and held it until the General Election last year. 

At News International Chief Executive Rebekah Brooks' wedding in 2009 saw Labour and Tory frontbenchers mingle with the Murdoch family and other Murdoch high fliers.  David Cameron even employed Andy Coulson after his resignation as editor of the NOTW, a decision which always highlighted flawed judgement to me. His subsequent resignation as Downing Street Director of Communications earlier this year was almost inevitable.

It's worth pointing out that the Murdoch publications and broadcasts rarely if ever have a good word to say about Liberal Democrats. But then you've never seen Liberal Democrats chase after crumbs from their tables. You get an idea of why from Vince Cable's unguarded comments to the undercover Telegraph journalists last Christmas.  At around the same time, David Cameron was socialising with Rebekah Brooks over Christmas and brushing off criticism about it. Was it really right for a serving PM to be seen to be so close to somebody who not only represented a company involved in a media takeover, but about which there were continuing suspicions relating to the phone hacking practices when she was editor of the NOTW?  I don't think so.

And for all Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman telling whoever will listen that they want to see a robust enquiry - as Paul at Liberal Burblings has pointed out often to a ridiculous degree, they need to be accountable for the little they did in Government to ensure that the phone hacking affair was properly investigated.

I think it's clear that Vince Cable would have referred the takeover of B Sky B to the Competition Commission. To me that was the right course of action on principle. To have one company with so much media power across broadcast and print media does raise questions and they should be thoroughly investigated.  He's no longer in charge of the case, because of his comments. Jeremy Hunt, who is in the driving seat and who was known for a much more Murdoch friendly attitude, should now put a stop to the deal that he has looked set to approve.

The fact that Rebekah Brooks remains on the News International payroll after all that's gone on is the chief, but far from the only, sign that even after all that's happened this week, Murdoch continues to stick two fingers up to the British people. He's powerful and he knows it. There's no real humility from him or his son James. How on earth can they have confidence in someone who supposedly had no clue about what was going on at her own paper? I'd certainly think twice about promoting someone like that.  Appointing her to lead an internal investigation in to things she supposedly knew nothing about was a sign of contemptuous attitude to us all. Does Murdoch really think we're stupid?

Even if it transpires that Brooks and Andy Coulson have no legal case to answer, surely the climate they presided over, one in which intense pressure was put on staff to deliver that competitive edge delivered by means of an agressive and abrasive management style, was a contributing factor in what transpired. Yes, people are accountable for their own personal actions, but the environment in which they work, the stress which they suffer as a result of toxic management style has to have some relevance.

My initial reaction when I heard about the closure of the News of the World on Thursday was summed up in this tweet: 

"Just checking the news headlines - I see they've got the cosmetics out at News International & Mrs Brooks appears to still have a job."

You can't just airbrush years of routine criminal behaviour by shutting down the paper and leaving the same people pulling the strings in the organisation. The people with least power as usual suffer most by the loss of their jobs - although, it may well be that they'll be absorbed into a new Murdoch tabloid venture, a Sunday Sun, perhaps?

In terms of political leadership on this, I'm glad to see that traditional liberal instincts of transparency and fairness have led to Nick Clegg pushing within the Coalition for a meaningful public enquiry into this. Left to David Cameron alone, the scrutiny would have been much weaker. This isn't about political advantage - but I do think it is important that people know that all the way through this, my party has kept Murdoch and his companies at an appropriate length and has behaved entirely properly.

In Scotland, our leader Willie Rennie has got his wooden spoon out and brought Alex Salmond into the mix - questioning whether the First Minister, who enjoyed the endorsement of the Murdoch stable in Scotland, had ever raised phone hacking with them. Willie said:

'Alex Salmond is right to say that the full weight of the law must be used to prosecute those responsible for  these dreadful events.

'But Alex Salmond must also come clean about the content of his discussions with News International before he secured the support of the Sun and News of World for the elections in May.

'People will want to know if he raised any concerns about phone hacking when he was negotiating their support.

'Was it a case of no questions asked please just support me? Was he prepared to sacrifice anything to get the endorsement?'

Severin Carrell of the Guardian took a look back in April at the potential reasons for the Murdoch stable's about face on Salmond and the SNP, detailing reports of a closer relationship between the First Minister and News International:

Salmond's advisers deny that the first minister and Murdoch have recently met, but do not deny that conversations have taken place at a senior level between Salmond and senior NI officers. NI executives in Scotland have seen Salmond in private, and were apparently handed internal SNP polling results – documents rarely offered to the media.

I haven't looked very far into this, but I can't find any evidence that Salmond has been particularly bothered by the phone hacking issue prior to this week - when he predictably used the scandal to pick a fight with Westminster on press regulation. Opportunism, much?

For me the best thing that could come out of this scandal is that ordinary people wake up to themselves and take more of an interest in the inter-relationships between the people who  hold power in this country, big business, media and politicians and start to realise the dangerous world we're slipping into. We need to question things more, and not just accept what we're told by major corporations and powerful leaders. And we need to understand that even if the phone being hacked belongs to some non entity of a celebrity as an attempt to find out who they may or may not be sleeping with, it matters. We can take a stand on the ethics of our journalists - by refusing to buy what they produce.  At the heart of this story is a very human element. People at the worst time of their lives having their privacy violated, having some disreputable character listening in to try to find a unique angle on their grief to profit from.

A free press is an essential part of our democracy - but we as citizens have to play our part in keeping them honest and ethical too.  The same with everyone else who holds power.  There's talk of politicians having to engage with or connect with people - and that's important. But it's also vital that people properly scrutinise the  sort of government, the sort of press, the sort of businesses available to them - and use the power they have to good effect to improve quality and standards within them.

If it's Cable v Murdoch, I'm on Vince's side in the politician being honest shocker

To be fair, there aren't very many people I'd back if they were in a war against Vince Cable. This is the guy who gave this party economic credibility. His message wasn't so different to our long standing principles of delivering a sustainable, green economy, but he was able to articulate a credible, professional response to the economic turmoil of the credit crunch, that was absolutely right for its time. When he was acting leader, I respected his decision not to attend any events surrounding the state visit of the Saudi King on human rights grounds. He is a good man. End of.

I wrote earlier of my annoyance at the way he was duped by two Telegraph reporters posing as constituents who then reported his comments on life in the coalition told to them in confidence to the world.

This afternoon, the plot thickened when Robert Peston, the voice of economic doom at the BBC, announced that the bit the Torygraph hadn't published had been leaked to him. This involved Vince Cable making some rather inflammatory comments about Rupert Murdoch and his various companies:

"I am picking my fights, some of which you may have seen, some of which you may haven't seen.

"And I don't know if you have been following what has been happening with the Murdoch press, where I have declared war on Mr Murdoch and I think we are going to win."

This, apparently is scandalous because Vince, in his role as Business Secretary had responsibility for the decision on whether to allow Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation to take over BSkyB giving the same company unprecedented control over print and broadcast media. Vince had already referred this to OFCOM. Now, to me, that was a total no-brainer. Any Minister with a shred of integrity was going to do that - and refer the whole thing to the Competition Commission as well regardless of what OFCOM said. Murdoch's Fox News in the US presents not so much news, but Tea Party/Republican/big business propaganda from morning until night. Sky News here has shown signs of going the same way. Anyone remember when they were the only news outlet to think Cameron had won the first debate when every single other one had Nick in the lead.


The big shock in all of this is that so few of us are angry about the potential dangers of any one rich, powerful organisation controlling a big chunk of the media. In my view, the very act of wanting to have that sort of domination should disallow you. Such an organisation will only print what they believe in. We are spoiled by having the BBC as a genuine public service impartial broadcaster. It's maybe a bit narrow minded and simplistic about our politics, but it's a million miles away from the iniquities of Fox News. 


A tweet which seemed to sum it up rather perfectly came from Toby Hadoke, about whom, you may remember, I raved when I saw him twice in a week at  the Edinburgh Festival this Summer. He said:

BBC, being impartial (as it is obliged to be) breaks story advantageous to Murdoch (a threat to the BBC). Would he do the same? I think not.

There was a time this afternoon when I was worried that the Government was going to lose this good man but thankfully, he was allowed to stay. Unfortunately, and here's the rub, he loses all power over broadcasting decisions to Tory Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt. It'll be interesting to see if the Today programme has managed to get his name right, at least. Sad thing is, though, he's generally tended to be fairly pro the sort of deregulation that Murdoch wants. And speaking after he took office, he took Sky's side against the BBC.  This is not a good thing.


What was absolutely incredible, though, was the way the Labour Party queued up to prostrate themselves to present Murdoch's case. In the olden days, when the Party had principles of sorts, they were all demonstrating against them and boycotting his publications. One might be forgiven for drawing the conclusion that they were trying to win back the support of the Murdoch tabloids that they lost last year.


The irony is that the Liberal Democrats never either wanted, or had any chance of getting the favour of the Murdoch press and the removal of those powers from Cable takes a minister, who is genuinely not beholden to Murdoch's quest for domination, out of the frame.


Sure, Vince should have toned it down a bit. His remarks had an odour of indiscreet pomposity, but they were also honest. There's little chance of the media giving him an easy ride, but perhaps the public will see that he was acting in their interest and was on their side. He's also on the side of ordinary people and businesses when he takes on the banks - and that's not the instinctive position of the Tories.  That is the reason he is an asset to this Government and needs to stay there.