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As long as they don't pose as Asian Babes, sans...

Desmond appalled me - can you imagine Lord Beaverbrook bleating that the Mail was horrid to him, so he called it by a babyish name, so there take that?

Or bleating that he didn't think he was doing anything wrong cos the PCC didn't tell him?

I don't blame the Express journos for this - with such an amoral, weak, character in charge, they can't have had their problems to seek.

It was a very far cry from...


During the Second World War, his friend Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, appointed Beaverbrook as Minister of Aircraft Production and later Minister of Supply. Under Beaverbrook, fighter and bomber production increased so much so that Churchill declared: "His personal force and genius made this Aitken's finest hour".

What could you put Desmond in charge of? Production of Naughty Nurses uniforms?

This is an excellent piece:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9013579/A-close-up-of-Richard-Desmond-that-I-wasnt-ready-for.html

A close-up of Richard Desmond that I wasn’t ready for

There were worries for the mental welfare of one participant in the Leveson Inquiry.



Ethical...? If Desmond thought that owning newspapers would launder his reputation, he was wrong Photo: EDDIE MULHOLLAND

By Matthew Norman8:33PM GMT 13 Jan 201231 Comments

Now and again I find myself hunched over the computer in panic, the typing fingers paralysed by their awareness that they do not belong to a psychoanalyst. This is such a time. How in the name of sanity is the mental health layman expected to write about Richard Desmond?
No one who followed Thursday’s appearance before Lord Justice Leveson could doubt for an instant that he isn’t the full shilling. Should such a mythical-sounding entity actually exist, the pornography magnate’s best friend would not deny that he is, at best, a couple of nipples short of a girl-on-girl centre spread. But why? What is wrong with him? What drove him to become what he is, and what drives him now? Taxi to Vienna, for a Mr Richard Desmond…
Back in London, Thursday’s coup de théâtre raised the incredulity bar one naively assumed had peaked long ago. In 2000, for instance, it beggared belief when even as venally gruesome a twosome as Mr Tony Blair and Alastair Campbell allowed the Asian Babes proprietor to buy the Daily Express without any investigation. A kind donation of £100,000 was made shortly afterwards to Labour funds. If the Express had been in decline for decades, it remained a decent organ in its pedestrian way. Soon enough, it was accusing Kate and Gerry McCann of murdering Madeleine.
What was both repellent and pitiable about Desmond’s Leveson turn was the blitheness of his unrepentance. The context of a vanished child and her ever-grieving parents dictates caution in apportioning sympathy elsewhere, but his total inability to empathise with the McCanns about the pain he caused them seems cause for grudging pity. With an off-handedness verging on winsome jocoseness, he posited that if his titles published around 102 articles about Madeleine, and had to settle libel actions on about 38, this meant that 65 or so of them were “good”.
With the same demented disregard for the humblest demands of common decency, he argued that he was doing the McCanns a favour because these wicked allegations kept the hunt for their daughter in the public eye.

“I apologise again to the McCanns, etc, etc, etc…” he went on, that chillingly insouciant appropriation of Yul Brynner’s catchphrase as the King of Siam confirming that he was paying purest lip service to the notion that callous cruelty in the cause of profit demands at least the pretence of contrition.
A repulsive horror of the first order, you will say, and you would, of course, be right. But imagine what life must be like for someone to whom nothing but the bottom line (less the front bottom line now he has sold his porn mags, though he retains his saucy TV channels) has any meaning. Mr Desmond told Lord Justice Leveson that he doesn’t understand the meaning of “ethical”, but he is equally blind to the meaning of “moral”, and it seems to me there are few clearer indicators of a grave psychiatric disorder than that.
Now, admittedly, many of us take a guilty, vicarious thrill from observing the ways of human monsters. One needn’t approve of the Mafia, from whom Mr Desmond has received death threats, to adore The Sopranos. Yet there is something ineffably poignant about such a weeny, cut-price monster, and nothing thrilling about such a preposterous puffball of bilious braggadocio.
Twice each day, it is said, his butler brings him a banana on a silver salver. This seems apt. There is something about his desperation to impress a world this self-styled perpetual outsider affects to despise that brings to mind a psychotic version of the performing chimp.

People who pride themselves on behaving with appalling rudeness and arrogance are often over-compensating for a cripplingly thin skin. Once, during talks with the executives of this newspaper group, who were also in discussions with a German firm, he accused them of consorting with Nazis before Heil Hitlering and doing the goose-step. I wrote that he, of all publishers, could take no umbrage if I speculated about the rare but recognised fetish whereby Jewish men are aroused by Gestapo fantasies. He did take umbrage.
When I later teased him about something else, he rang the relevant title’s proprietor, then resisting a hostile takeover bid, and threatened that if I wrote another syllable about him, he would buy £20 million of the company’s stock and form an alliance with the corporate raider. Apparently, Desmond does have exquisitely refined sensibilities after all, if solely in regard to himself.
It hardly needs stating that it is an abundant disgrace that such a man is permitted to own newspapers, Channel 5 or anything else beyond a basement emporium beneath blacked-out Soho windows (not to mention that Mr Cameron once hosted him at Chequers on the taxpayer’s dime). The tragic irony for Desmond, if he thought that owning newspapers would launder a putrid reputation, is that it has done the reverse. Peddling porn may be an inelegant way to make a fortune, but next to cashing in on the grief of the McCanns, it assumes a patina of respectability of which he could barely dream now.

If regarding himself as a lovably fearless buccaneer comforts Richard Desmond, so be it. But if he raises £1 billion for charity and quintuples his wealth to £5 billion, he will never inspire anything but the unnerving combination of nausea and wintry mirth that is his dubious gift to us all. He is nothing more or less than a sick joke.


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Peddling porn may be an inelegant way to make a fortune, but next to cashing in on the grief of the McCanns, it assumes a patina of respectability of which he could barely dream now.

"callous cruelty in the cause of profit demands at least the pretence of contrition."

That is some piece of Journalism. Well done that man.

Another excellent piece:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jan/15/leveson-mccann-richard-desmond?CMP=twt_gu

Leveson must use the McCann test if he is to curb Richard Desmond's papers

Express and Star owner gave inquiry the real deal and showed how reluctant he is to return to a revamped PCC

Dan Sabbagh
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 15 January 2012 18.37 GMT
Article history

Say what you like about Richard Desmond, but in a week of uncommonly sharp suits and unexpectedly refined voices, Lord Justice Leveson got the real deal from the owner of the Express and Star newspapers, as he conceded he didn't understand ethics, voiced hatred of Paul Dacre, and proposed replacing the Press Complaints Commission with his own "RCD committee" (a play on his initials) of cronies. This is how Desmond thinks – a man convinced of his outsider status, who is instinctive not intellectual, and driven by a desire to make money and prove his critics wrong. But while Leveson saw the truth, he also saw the problem – how reluctant Desmond is to return to a revamped PCC, and how unclear it is what, if anything, would satisfy him.

Don't doubt then that Desmond's testimony, for all the entertaining sideswipes at the Mail, was a disaster. What did he think he was doing going before a public inquiry, offering gags as solutions, and being so dismissive of that oh-so-passé notion, ethics? So it is tempting to give up. Let the publishers that care set up their own body with improved mediation and regulation, and let Desmond's newspapers bear the brunt of the criminal law.

Leveson looked as if he was keen on that option, as Desmond's testimony ended abruptly with no questioning from the presiding judge. Even Sheryl Gascoigne got closing questions; it is normally the point where he likes to test a hypothesis. But while most of us need not worry too much about Desmond, this is not an option for the judge.

Leveson's problem is the McCann test. Gerry and Kate McCann were repeatedly libelled by the Desmond titles, and made the point before the judge (who showed he valued them by inviting them to give evidence) that nobody lost their job when the publisher agreed to pay out £550,000 and issue four front page apologies, as it admitted it was wrong to speculate, with no supporting evidence, that the couple had killed their daughter.

Leveson cannot credibly propose a reformed PCC that won't cover Desmond – because the McCanns won't be impressed by a system that leaves the possibility of something similar happening again.

This is not to say that Desmond is entirely wrong. He is right to criticise the PCC as a club too often chaired by Tory grandees, and to question whether serving editors should be involved, sitting in judgment on their rivals. He is right, too, to be upbeat about Ofcom, which does not suppress investigative journalism, as the authorities in Turkey (who hated the Duchess of York's ITV film about orphanages) might like to. But it is bizarre to suggest that the PCC, an organisation with no power of prior restraint, should have somehow intervened to save the Express and Star titles from themselves. Under self-regulation it is essentially the newspapers' job, after all.

Two options remain as a result of his intransigence. There's the much-hyped carrot, where club members keep the VAT reduction and membership of sales audit bodies, and perhaps benefit from access to cheaper mediation and lower libel payouts. Except even 20% VAT on a 30p Daily Star is an affordable 6p. There are ways of publishing audited sales numbers without being part of the ABC – the Times and Sunday Times publish independently audited figures for paywall subscribers. And it is not obvious that a two-tier payout system can be fair on litigants, who should be compensated in proportion to the wrong suffered.

That only leaves one solution – a statutory requirement for all newspapers to be part of the PCC-plus. Owners of major titles cannot be allowed to opt out; either that, or there is no point having a revamped PCC at all.


Don't doubt then that Desmond's testimony, for all the entertaining sideswipes at the Mail, was a disaster


I have to agree with that; I feel it is impossible to over-estimate the damage he has done to the Express.

For the first time ever, I didn't want to read the Sunday Express today, it felt somehow...dirty?

The damage Desmond did to Madeleine and her family is incalculable; the forker morons don't use the Sun, Mail or Mirror stories as their avatars, they use the Express.

Is that how Desmond wants to be remembered in the publishing world?

Not surprisingly, the ghouls are cackling away and amusing themselves with their favorite sick jokes today - because Clarence Mitchell is representing Costa Cruises.

Quote:

Clarence Mitchell, who is representing Costa Cruises, said: "Mr Foschi confirmed the captain had been approaching the island of Giglio to 'make a salute'.
"The company says this (incident) was caused by an attempt by the captain to show the ship to the port.
"But there's a criminal investigation going on and we're not going to say anything that's going to compromise that or the captain's case.

-------------

And? What do they expect anyone to say?

They truly are vile, callous apologies for human beings, that they will even use the sinking of a ship as a stick to beat the McCanns with.

Oh look, here's one:

xklamation Joana Morais
@
Bom dia dear @TeddyShepherd, brilliant!«company blameless as liner slams into Portuguese iceberg said a source close to the company» #McCann
1 hour ago

Sick ghoul - I wonder if the Portuguese citizens who were on the ship find it something to joke about?

The forkers won't like this:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/01/30/max-clifford-newspapers-stories-public-interest-leveson_n_1241664.html?ref=uk

Max Clifford: Newspapers Supressing Public Interest Stories

Public interest stories have been suppressed in the last six months because of the Leveson inquiry into media standards, PR guru Max Clifford has said.

Giving evidence to a parliamentary committee on privacy and injunctions, Clifford told MPs and peers that newspaper editors were "far more cautious" about all stories, adding "there definitely has been a change."

"Leveson has made a difference", he said. "I'm aware of many, many stories which would have made the tabloid front pages in the last six months that haven't been anywhere.

Asked by Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi if he believed that included public interest stories, Clifford said "yes."

Phil Hall, the former editor of the News of the World, giving evidence alongside Clifford, said papers were now "following live news stories rather than digging out their own."

Clifford also said he had never known the PCC to "help" anybody. Citing Robert Murat, the man falsely accused of kidnapping Madeleine McCann, Clifford said the press had printed "a load of lies" to sell papers.

"The Press Complaints Commission was nowhere to be seen," he claimed. "They're not independent."

"If one good thing comes out of all of this, it is if we have a press complaints body, truly independent, that is there for the British public... before anybody destroys them in the papers," Clifford added.