Old News, Shocking News, Good News and Billy Bragg.

You probably could not fail to notice, that last week here in the UK, attention was focused on some of the reporters, and the editors/ex-editors of the News of the World newspaper, and on other papers owned by News International, namely The Sun and Sunday Times.

Evidence of the use of phone hacking, so that tabloid newspapers could boost their sales with gossipy stories about celebrities and the royal family, had previously come to light in 2006. At that time, other than one reporter(the royal correspondent) receiving a short custodial sentence, nothing was done to regulate the actions of the press in their shameless drive to sell newspapers at any cost.

The shocking news came over the past few weeks; firstly that the phone of the murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler had been hacked, next that the phones of members of the families of dead soldiers had been hacked, and then yesterday, that the phones of families of the victims of the London and New York terrorist attacks, were also possibly targeted. There were also wider revelations about the likelihood of police involvement in the illegal activities of the press; about the ability of press investigators to get hold of the medical records of one of the children of Gordon Brown, and about their ease of access to information only known by medical staff who were nursing the Brown's very sick baby just before she died. It goes on, and on.....

What is very old news to us of course, is the absolute lack of morals and of any traces of human compassion, by many of those who own and who report for the tabloid press. There are many examples of behaviour which demonstrates this that I could point to. For instance when Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of the band Queen, was dying, reporters from the News of the World were said by Brian May, to have been climbing up to see through his toilet window to try to get a photograph. The "hunting down" of celebrities and any kiss and tell ex-lovers prepared to sell a story and embellish it when reporter's tell them that their story is not worth as much money as they had throught, has long been the sport of the tabloids. Their justification being that the public want to read about the low points of people's lives or that celebrities court publicity.They talked about the freedom of the press and how we should be proud of our free press. Well I'm not proud of these aspects of our press.

The distrust many of us have, having witnessed the lack of objectivity in the reporting of politics stories, and the power grabbing by News International, is another old story. As is our repulsion at the fear spreading and blaming the tabloids love to do, with regard to the reporting of crime or immigration, benefit "scroungers" or single Mums. I could go on......

It's very old news....... Billy Bragg, a singer-songwriter(modern day poet) and long time activist was singing about it back when I was a young adult. I remember seeing him on the Red Wedge tour leading up to the general election in 1987.

I suppose that the good news is, that the illegal activities have been exposed(again) and an full investigation is to take place(finally). More good news is that today, News International withdrew it's bid for the take over of the TV company BskyB. This take over has long been opposed by the public and is now also opposed by all main political parties, who had also started to put pressure on the Murdochs and their Corporation.

Last Friday night Billy Bragg wrote this song(see clip below) in response to what is happening, he performed it on Saturday and it is available as a free download from his website. There is also some comment from him there about why he wrote this so quickly, and the story behind the lyrics.



Hopefully you can make sense of my post. I'm feeling so tired tonight but had to have my rant and enjoy some passionate words from Billy, as inspiring as ever and a consistant voice throughout the years, always questioning and presenting an alternative view - my hero ;).