As I mentioned earlier today, Chris Huhne went somewhat further in his Independent on Sunday profile in making critical comments about Andy Coulson and the phone hacking allegations than the party’s rather bland official statement. He’s now gone further, as the FT reports:
A cabinet minister has sharply criticised Scotland Yard for accepting what he called News International’s “implausible” account of phone hacking at one of its tabloids, as it emerged that Gordon Brown had acted on fears that he was targeted.
Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, raised the political stakes in the illegal surveillance scandal by claiming the police failed to pursue fully the investigation even though the News of the World account was allegedly “not consistent” with the evidence…
Mr Huhne, a former journalist and the Liberal Democrats’ home affairs spokesman in opposition, said it was clear “the number of people being hacked was not consistent with it being one rogue reporter who happened to be the royal correspondent”. He added in a BBC interview: “It seemed to me totally implausible that this was limited to one journalist. And I was surprised that the police seem to have accepted that story.”
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
The Joy of Six 1528
Endometriosis and acetylation
Reform makes first gain from Conservatives in this by-election cycle
How Chancellor Reeves torpedoed the economy
Michael Meadowcroft: A Liberal of Intellectual Rigour and Uncommon Integrity
Tom Bailey
Leonora Scipio
Kira Collins
Daniel Walker
Tristan Ward
9 Comments
This is appearing in a strange format on google reader reminding us all of the copyrighted material on the FT website unfortunately.
More importantly why is Huhne suddenly making himself Lab flavour of the month?
John Ward has more on this at: http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/the-bskyb-takeover-will-miliband-now-ask-a-pmq/
‘ . . The country’s most powerful politician finds himself embroiled in what looks like a grubby deal (with the help of top security cop Andy Hayman) to get support from a mass media Group – in return for covering up an open and shut case of criminal privacy invasion and abuse of press power.
You’re the Opposition Leader under attack for being a wimp. And you decide to stick with ‘it’s a question of the Prime Minister’s judgement’? It doesn’t make sense without further explanation. I don’t know the full explanation; like others on the case, I have only gossip. But one comment – “the previous lot were up to their necks in it as well” – might serve as a summation of the general view.
Another perhaps more scurrilous observation involved the historical closeness of Lord Mandleson, newly installed City investment strategist, to the Newscorp camp….and the large amount of money he received for the serialisation of his memoirs in The Sunday Times. But I can’t comment on that at all.
Stay tuned.’
Let us wait and see what more there is to come out.
“More importantly why is Huhne suddenly making himself Lab flavour of the month?”
Oh, for heaven’s sake! It would be more pertinent to ask why Lib Dems have kept so deathly quiet about this up until now.
I wonder if Coulsongate will eventually explain why Nick Clegg changed his mind after the elections. He seems to be keeping pretty stumm on the subject . So much for the more honest politics promised by Clegg.
“More importantly why is Huhne suddenly making himself Lab flavour of the month?”
Actually, more importantly why has he taken until now to ask this question so publically? There was great uproar in Lib Dem ranks regarding the Torygraph sting which was less of an intrusion than hacking peoples voice mails and mobile phone records. Even if it breached the PCC code the sting was not illegal whereas the hacking certainly was.
I don’t think this is a boost to Labour so much as a foil to Cleggs wholehearted support of Cameron and Coulson at the weekend. If anything it restores my faith that not all Ministers are aitomotrons who will promote the Tory party line at the expense of liberal values.
Matthew D’Ancona’s piece in today’s Torygraph is also a laughable defence of the indefensible.
The ramifications of this scandal are mind-boggling….
http://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2011/01/23/the-bskyb-takeover-will-miliband-now-ask-a-pmq/
Perhaps this has something to do with the problem of how to look different from the Tories. We are desperate to appear different from them, but we (cabinet ministers anyway) aren’t actually allowed to disagree with them. So hey, how about if we have a go at the police, given that the Tories haven’t done that? While we’re about it, they wear black shoes, perhaps if we were to wear brown ones…
Ask what question? And by “now”, do you mean July 2009?
This seems to be an effective demonstration of the complete ignorance of the Labour hacks and the embarrassingly low level of accuracy in their attacks.
New police investigation to be launched into NoW phone hacking after cops receive significant new evidence