For a genuine free press

While many will still be reading various editions of our printed press and think the recent article by Laurie Penny or Owen Jones is of the cutting edge radical form of our printed press we just have to remember who actually owns these papers and who’s interests do they ultimately serve. As I say you may well read a radical left wing piece from the fore mentioned authors but be under no illusions we do not have a free press at all. Notice how many stories were anti N30 last year and how much in favour. I do not have to bring up the statistics to show you workers interests are not represented fairly in our media at all. You may think like I once did the BBC a fine establishment a cornerstone of media ethics. Yes the BBC likes to hold a line of impartiality and in some respects they are but be under no illusion if the state was ever under threat or if workers were taking up their class position against the government of the day of which they did last year on numerous occasions including the biggest strike day for many years on November the 30th. It can be under no doubt who the BBC and others who claim to be independent who’s side they are on. They will line up with the boss’s 9 times out of 10. We must never forget who owns these media outlets and who ultimately controls what they publish and produce at the end of the day. With the recent uncovering of phone hacking within the news of the world and deeper into News international the idea of a free press has remerged. As socialists we do not accept that there can be a free press under capitalism as we live today. Even with a Levison style enquiry the results and recommendations will not be enough to bring a bout a fair and open free press. AS Trotsky said way back in 1938 in the free press and the working class Theory, as well as historic experience, testifies that any restriction to democracy in bourgeois society is eventually directed against the proletariat, just as taxes eventually fall on the shoulders of the proletariat. Bourgeois democracy is usable by the proletariat only insofar as it opens the way for the development of the class struggle. Consequently, any workers “leader” who arms the bourgeois state with special means to control public opinion in general, and the press in particular, is a traitor. In the last analysis, the accentuation of class struggle will force bourgeois of all shades, to conclude a pact: to accept special legislation, and every kind of restrictive measures, and measures of “democratic” censorship against the working class. Those who have not yet realised this should leave the ranks of the working class. Trotsky went on to detail that only under socialism can a free press truly become free, democratic and fair to all The real tasks of the workers’ state do not consist in policing public opinion, but in freeing it from the yoke of capital. This can only be done by placing the means of production – which includes the production of information – in the hands of society in its entirety. Once this essential step towards socialism has been taken, all currents of opinion which have not taken arms against the dictatorship of the proletariat must be able to express themselves freely. It is the duty of the workers’ state to put in their hands, to all according to their numeric importance, the technical means necessary for this, printing presses, paper, and means of transportation. One of the principal causes of the degeneration of the state machine is the monopolisation of the press by the Stalinist bureaucracy which risks transforming all the gains of the October revolution to a pile of ruins. Trotsky concludes that workers need their own press and only a truly independent democratic form of a communication press can succeed and bring the news other day to the mass’s democratically and fairly. It is essential to wage an unrelenting battle against the reactionary press. But the workers cannot leave a task they have to fulfil themselves through their own organisations and their own press, to the repressive fist of the bourgeois state. Today the government may seem well disposed towards workers’ organisations. Tomorrow it may fall, and it inevitably will, into the hands of the most reactionary elements of the bourgeoisie. In this case the existing repressive laws will be used against the workers. Only adventurisms who think of nothing but the moment’s needs can fail to guard themselves against such a danger. The most efficient way to fight the bourgeois press is for the workers’ press to develop. Of course, yellow papers like El Popular, are unable to undertake such a task. Such papers have no place among the workers’ press, the revolutionary press, or even the bourgeois press of good reputation. El Popular serves the personal ambitions of Mr. Tolerant, who himself is in fact in the service of the Stalinist bureaucracy. Its methods: lies, calumnies, witch hunts, are methods a la Tolerant. His paper has neither program nor ideas. It is evident that such a sheet can never strike a resonant chord in the working class, nor win them over from the bourgeois press. So we arrive at the inevitable conclusion that the struggle between the bourgeois presses starts with the eviction of the degenerate leaders from workers’ organisations and in particular from the liberation of the workers’ press from the tutelage of Tolerant and other bourgeois careerists. The Mexican proletariat needs an honest press to express its needs, defend its interests, broaden its horizon and pave the way for the socialist revolution in Mexico. This is what CLAVE intends to do. So, we start by declaring an unrelenting war against the Bonaparte’s pretensions of Tolerant. In this effort, we hope for the support of all advanced workers, as well as Marxists and authentic democrats. Last updated on: 20.4.2007 Under socialism the press would be shared out to those who win the most in elections and beyond if you win a low turn out in elections as pro capitalist leaders would under socialism as their ideas being bankrupt we wouldn’t exclude them we would give them as much as their vote suggests and a section of the press to put their views across. Of course we would be well on our way towards socialism by this point but the freedom of the press goes hand in hand with democratic reforms and rights of the people to present an alternative at any opportunity, even if it is wrong and would throw us back. Exposing this and showing we are open to democracy will shine through and show eared on the correct path to true democratic socialist society. To benefit the many not just the few. Which means the working class needs its own press a weekly socialist paper which we produce known as the Socialist is key to transforming ideas and building a alternative toe the so called free press which is not free at all. Only if it was held in the workers hands the hands of the many could it be democratically free to all.

Andy Coulson arrested and charged, time for Tommy Sheridan’s conviction to be quashed

With the excellent news of Andy Coulson being arrested and charged on suspicion of purgery during the former Scottish socialist party leader Tommy Sheridan’s trial.
Prime Minister David Cameron's former director of communications Andy Coulson has been arrested by police and charged with perjury.
Mr Coulson, 44, has now been released, after being detained at his London home at 06:30 BST by Strathclyde Police.
He arrived at a police station in Glasgow shortly before 15:30 BST.
Mr Coulson was formally arrested on Wednesday evening as part of an investigation into evidence at the trial of former MSP Tommy Sheridan.
He left the police station at 21.30 BST on Wednesday evening.
A Crown Office spokesman said there was no legal obligation for Coulson to stay in Scotland, and he was free to return to his home in London.
The spokesman said no date had been set for any court appearance.
Earlier, a police spokeswoman said: "Officers from Strathclyde Police's Operation Rubicon team detained a 44-year-old man in London this morning under section 14 of the Criminal Procedure Scotland Act 1995 on suspicion of committing perjury before the High Court in Glasgow."
Mr Coulson gave evidence at the perjury trial of former Scottish Socialist MSP Tommy Sheridan in 2010.
Mr Coulson was called to give evidence at Sheridan's trial as he was editor of the News of the World between 2003 and 2007.

This was posted earlier from the defend Tommy Sheridan campaign
The Defend Tommy Sheridan Campaign is delighted at the arrest of Andy Coulson in London today, for committing perjury in the High Court in Glasgow during the trial of Tommy & Gail Sheridan in 2010.

This is a hugely significant development, given that it comes after an exhaustive investigation by Officers of Strathclyde Police’s ‘Operation Rubicon’.

Mr Sheridan has been regularly briefed by Strathclyde Police Officers over the past 10 months, as the primary complainant in Operation Rubicon, which was instigated after a dossier of evidence, was furnished to them in July 2011, by his then solicitor Aamer A war and Tom Watson MP.

Throughout his trial, Mr Sheridan consistently argued that he was being hacked by the News of the World and that senior executives at News International were conspiring against him. This was denied by Andy Coulson.

It now appears that Strathclyde Police have evidence that lead them to believe him to be lying.

Fiona MacDonald, Secretary of the Defend Tommy Sheridan Campaign said: “It now appears that Mr Coulson’s evidence was nothing but bare-faced lies. Tommy, his family, his friends and his supporters have consistently said that this was the case. Mr Coulson’s arrest has vindicated all of us. We look forward now to seeing justice prevail and for Tommy’s conviction to be overturned.

Ken Ross, Chair of the Defend Tommy Sheridan Campaign said: “The offence of perjury has a very high bar. To be charged with this offence means that the lies told under oath must be seen as being pertinent to the outcome of the case. Given that Strathclyde Police appear now to have taken this view, by the sheer fact that they have arrested Mr Coulson for Perjury, this must surely mean that Tommy now has substantial grounds to appeal his conviction.

“Mr Coulson and his colleagues have wrecked peoples’ lives for years. The net is now closing in on them. We await with relish his conviction and that of others at News International.

**ENDS**

Murdoch, the real capitalist media barron

As the Murdoch empire lurch's from one crisis to the next Rupert Murdoch and his cronies invlved at the top of news corp and news international have not learnt their lessons and continue to plague ordinary working people.


The fall-out from the Murdochgate scandal has continued following the arrests of ten top editors and journalists who currently work for or have worked for the Sun newspaper.

These arrests are part of the police investigation "Elveden" into suspected bribery and corruption of police officers. It will come as no surprise to anyone aware of the methods of News International that journalists routinely paid police officers for information. Bribing a public official is a criminal offence, but that never stopped the Sun or the News of the World in the past.

Trevor Kavanagh, the associate editor of the Sun has claimed there is a witch-hunt against the paper and News International. He blames elements of News Corp, who owns News International, for handing over a portion of the 300 million internal company emails to the police that led to the arrests.

There is growing evidence that some within News Corp, who are involved in a power battle with Rupert Murdoch, are looking to get rid of large parts, if not all of the toxic News International.

Kavanagh complained that Sun employees had been subject to dawn raids by up to 20 police officers who went through children's clothes drawers looking for evidence. No doubt the Met police, who lost a police commissioner and deputy commissioner already due to the scandal, are trying to prove their independence from the Murdoch Empire.

However, Kavanagh was not so forthcoming in his criticisms of police methods when socialist Tommy Sheridan was the subject of a widely condemned police and state vendetta. This included having his home raided and young child traumatised. He was arrested outside his place of work and faced years of persecution, not least by the Scottish Sun and the now defunct News of the World, who he defeated in a defamation case in 2006.


The Socialist party continues to call for a genuine democratic public inquiry, involving representatives of the trade union and labour movement, into the actions of the Murdoch empire. This must include the handing over of all documents, emails and other information to allow a full expose of the relationship between News International, the police and the political establishment.



There is no doubt the political elite, the metropolitan police and our cosy media barrons have got far to close in recent years. This is no surprise to me as as a socialsit it is clear to me that the capitalist currently own all of the media, control and influence the police and have a strangelhold over all 3 major political parties. This is no coincidence that Murdochgate flared up to me as there was always dodgy going's on in the media world and the political elite including Tony Blair who chased after Rupert Murdoch for years practically begging him to support his party in their rise to power in the late 90's.

The hypocrisy of Ed Milibanda nd the Labour party to now try to distance themselves from the Murdochs is frankly sickening considering the sucking up they did in their time in government and after. Even untill recently Ed Miliband met with senior representitives of News international. He only opposed and jumped on the phone hacking scandel bandwagon when there was public support for it. Not before. Confirming my thought that the political elite media and police are all in it together with eachother covering eachothers backs whenever there is the need.

It is simply the capitalist world playing its hand.

Capitalism stuck in a blind alley

This excellent article below is from this weeks socialist, the socialist paper from the socialist party of England and Wales. It is by Peter Taaffe the general secretary of the party who sums up how capitalism lies in Britain today and how it has no answers to the crisis it finds itself in apart from making the working class pay.

'Murdochgate' is in effect Britain's Watergate - it has acted as a catalyst for all the gathering discontent that exists with the government and the system it defends. The News of the World (NoW) web of intrigue links the government, particularly David Cameron, to what some have called "institutionalised criminality" including the police.

As Jonathan Freedland of the Guardian commented: "No wonder the [Metropolitan Police] was so lethargic in investigating hacking: why look too deeply into the affairs of people who represent either a meal ticket or a future paycheck?"

Freedland compared this crisis to the revolutionary movement in Romania in 1989 when the Stalinist dictator Ceausescu was booed at a mass rally in Bucharest. This led to a revolution which overthrew him and his system.

Sarah Brown, wife of former Labour prime minister Gordon, invited Rebekah Brooks, former editor of the News of the World, to a 'pyjama party' at 10 Downing Street even after that paper had threatened to run an exposé on her son's health! Brown himself attended Brooks's wedding, alongside the rest of the New Labour glitterati.

David Cameron also hosted News Corporation figures at Chequers, the prime minister's country home, estimated in 2007 to have cost the taxpayer £1,738 a day to run. Rebekah Brooks, Rupert Murdoch's son James and others were entertained there.

The trigger to the crisis was the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone. Just to say the words 'they hacked the phone of a dead school student' produces nausea. A single incident can encapsulate all the doubts, all the horror in relation to the capitalist system.

Miliband


Labour leader Ed Miliband was on the ropes after the self-inflicted damage of repeatedly condemning the public sector pension strikes, provoking enormous anger. Even the question of his leadership was discussed within New Labour.

But he seized the time, recognising that the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone was a defining moment. By openly challenging Murdoch, he tied his fate to destroying the authority of Murdoch. As a result, he has gained a certain kudos.

Will it last? That is unlikely, no more probable than Barack Obama's ratification of the assassination of Bin Laden guarantees him a second term as US president. It is the economy, the bread and butter issues, which will shape the outcome of the next US election.

The BSkyB deal is finished. It doesn't mean that the Murdoch empire is finished yet. But as the Financial Times (FT) points out, if they had tried to carry the deal through the repercussions against would have been even greater.

News Corp's British newspapers are not its main asset internationally, with its Fox TV network, spewing out right wing propaganda, still making huge profits in the US. Nevertheless the company's share price has fallen 20% following the scandal.

As a result of his cosy relationship with Murdoch, Cameron is desperately struggling to maintain his position. Miliband, like the man who milks the cow only to kick over the bucket, undermined his new-found popularity by agreeing a common parliamentary position with the Tories and Lib Dems.

And, of course, he too previously danced to the tune of Murdoch, quaffing champagne at his summer party only weeks ago. For the three capitalist parties, Tory chancellor George Osborne's "We're all in it together" never sounded so appropriate.

However, we socialists and working class fighters like Scottish socialist Tommy Sheridan are not and never have been 'in it'. The Socialist Party took the political position that the case against Tommy was a frame-up. We, and all those who stood by Tommy, have been proved correct.

Following the Murdoch revelations, in particular around the role of Cameron's "friend", Andy Coulson, former NoW editor and central to the trial in Scotland, there has been a sea-change in Scotland, especially amongst the working class. The general feeling expressed on the streets and on radio and television is that Tommy Sheridan was framed and should be released immediately.

Brooks's departure and the sensational resignation of Metropolitan Police commissioner Stephenson, while welcome, are insufficient. We demand not a judge's but a workers' inquiry. The TUC should front it and the print unions, journalists and printers who were sacked at Wapping should form the basis of an independent inquiry by the working class.

30 June

Much to the relief of Miliband, Cameron et al, the magnificent strikes of 30 June have been temporarily pushed out of the media spotlight by the drama of this crisis. But from the point of view of the working class and ourselves, this development has been the most important event in Britain in the last period.

The capitalist press jeered that, in the light of the convulsive movements in Greece, Spain, Portugal and Italy, there didn't seem to be mass protests in Britain. This was even after the epic 26 March mass demonstration! Two days before the biggest trade union strikes in recent history, the Guardian ran an article: "Where is the anger now?"

Teachers, it was argued, don't have the power of the miners or other industrial workers who went on strike in the past. We argued otherwise, especially today, where so many parents work full-time. Schools occupy a crucial position. Teachers coming out on strike have a massive indirect effect on workplaces and industry.

In the strike and its aftermath, the government lost the argument over pensions. Perversely, Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude claimed the voter turnout for strike action showed that civil service workers in the PCS union were not with the leadership.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka challenged that if Maude and the government really wanted to know trade union members' feeling, they should wait for the 30 June strikes. He also argued that the government should remove the ban, introduced by New Labour in 1999, on online voting for strike ballots.

On 30 June, workers massively answered the strike call. Far more than voted for the strike, in the NUT, ATL and UCU teaching unions and the PCS, participated in the hugely successful strike and demos. The strike represented a big defeat for the government and the employers' propaganda barrage. Maude then refused to appear on TV on the night of the strike to argue his case for attacking pensions.

Change of tack
Significantly, the government then changed tack. As we go to press, it appears that a deal including a 12-week consultation period is being dangled in front of local government trade unions. This is a blatant attempt to undermine the campaign for a four million-strong one-day public sector general strike in the autumn.

It wasn't just the government and the employers who were frightened by the power that was shown on 30 June; the conservative officialdom - the right wing within the trade union movement - also took fright. Dave Prentis, general secretary of the largest public sector union Unison, was manoeuvring behind the scenes.

Both Prentis and the government believe that they can arrive at some kind of a deal by limiting the increase to contributions of workers to the Local Government Pension Scheme, thus evading strike action. In other words, there is an attempt by the government with the connivance of right wing union leaders to counterpose negotiations to mass struggle.

Of course, if a victory can be won through negotiation all well and good. Workers do not support strikes just for the sake of it. But in this battle the government is most likely to be pushed back through action.

The government now wants to reach an agreement; if 50% of contributors are forced to opt out of the local government scheme, which amounts to tens of billions of pounds, it could fold. Together with other factors this could trigger a stock exchange collapse, thus enormously aggravating the current economic crisis.

Prentis is trying to ignore pressure from ordinary union members. The left in Unison must step in. Unison members face savage job cuts and attacks on wages, with the 'fire and rehire' approach to undermining workers' conditions, as attempted in Southampton, Shropshire and Labour-led Waltham Forest, for example.

The demand for a recall conference in order to press for a fighting programme of national action must be raised. Support for such a programme is inherent in the localised but ferocious battles that are developing across the country; in Southampton rubbish piles up on the streets but support for the strike by council refuse workers remains high.

There is now a visible and appreciable hardening of the mood of the working class. It is true that, as Murdochgate has shown, the ruling class in Britain is capable of bending in the face of hostile social pressures. But working class resistance to the cuts is also stiffening and a strong leadership can be decisive in securing victories.

Inequality
It is clear that capitalism, based as it is on the werewolf-like search for profit, is not able to escape this present impasse easily. In fact everything the capitalists have done, including the huge stimulus packages, has not solved the situation.

The relentless search for easy profits over the last three decades has accumulated massive problems for capitalism. Rising inequality is basically a growth in the share of the wealth taken by the bosses and a diminution in the share taken by the working class.

Median wages in the US were actually stagnant or declined for 20 years before this crisis. Cheap goods from China, cheap debt and low inflation went some way to softening the situation. But these factors have now changed or are likely to soon with, for instance, a slowdown in the Chinese economy, which could even become part of the worsening situation.

We are now supposed to be in a recovery! We have the phenomenon now of long-term permanent unemployment; 850,000 people in Britain have been unemployed for 12 months or longer. That's an indication of the sickness of the system.

The government claims to be in favour of 'job creation' yet 84 people are chasing every job in Merthyr Tydfil. This indicates the incapacity of capitalism in a 'phase of recovery' to be able to deliver jobs. In effect, we are in a double dip recession.

The international economic position is even more explosive now than earlier this year, compounded by the programme of 'fiscal consolidation', cuts in living standards. The potential for another Lehman Brothers-type event on a European scale is rooted in the situation. There's not just a sovereign debt crisis, but another potential banking crisis aggravated by Credit Default Swaps - the insurance on defaults - which are hidden in the system. The euro, in its present form, is doomed.

In general these factors mean that capitalism is stuck in a blind alley even if there's some economic growth. However, in Britain, estimates suggest only 0.1% growth in the last quarter. That is, as the figures show, insufficient to absorb the labour of the working class. All the targets of the government, even the most pessimistic, lie in ruins.

There is no question that elements of a pre-revolutionary situation exist in many countries, certainly in Greece. But some of these features exist in Britain also. The capitalist class is beginning to see the seriousness of the situation.

The consequences of the crisis can be seen in every single sector. The high streets have faced carnage with shops shutting daily; even the likes of TJ Hughes discount stores - a landmark in Liverpool, founded in 1912 - have closed their doors.

The dilemma and the stupidity of British capitalism are summed up in the sell-out of Bombardier in Derby. Thirty years after the Specials first performed their song, Derby could be reduced to a 'Ghost Town'.

For workers facing the loss of their livelihood, it's not enough for the trade unions to express opposition - they also have to consider occupation to prevent job losses and the movement of machinery out of the factory.

When you get library workers in an east London borough threatening to bring sleeping bags into work to occupy their libraries against closure, it is an indication of the temper of the mood and the possibilities that are developing.

The collapse of industrial investment is ominous. The Con-Dems' promise, their 'ark of the covenant', was that huge job losses in the public sector would be offset by the private sector. There is no possibility of this taking place.

Yet the public sector has been slashed and we face the cheap sell-off of public assets on an industrial scale. This year alone almost 3,000 contracts have been awarded to private firms.

Privatisation
The government's recent public services White Paper spells it out. Only frontline police, the judiciary and the army will not face outsourcing. Privatisation for the capitalists flows from their huge surplus of liquidity. There is no profitable enough outlet for it in industrial investment. The capitalists think that only by dismantling the state sector can there be any way out for capitalism.

But for the government this is not straightforward - every measure they take rebounds on them. Their plans for a cruel and, as the Socialist described, unworkable cap on benefits to £26,000 a household will result in 40,000 families losing their homes. Local authorities are expected to house them. What's more, we now know they have been aware of this for some time.

But the ruling class is, for the time being, locked into the policy of 'austerity'. Take the situation with housing. There is massive homelessness and growing unemployment, including among construction workers, yet bricks and mortar lay idle. Instead of public investment in house building as recommended in a recent Sheffield Hallam University study, we have the return of 'Rachmanism', the super-exploitation of tenants in squalid conditions by slum landlords. There is a catastrophe in education and in the NHS, where privatisation and £20 billion of cuts are going ahead.

It is impossible for the working class to remain dormant. The Daily Mirror's Kevin Maguire agrees with the Socialist that the government might not last the year. If the Con-Dems do manage to struggle on it will be mainly due to the incapacity of Labour and the trade union leaders to press home the advantage now.

Can Labour be changed? It is being changed - but not into a vehicle for struggle. Miliband, Peter Hain and others in the Labour leadership are proposing subsuming the remaining elements of the party into a 'movement', dissolving the branches and diluting any remaining power from the trade unions.

Nonetheless, defections by New Labour councillors and splits cannot be ruled out. Under the pressure of working class movements, the most unlikely types can be forced to act.

And the working class is moving to the left, socially if not yet politically. Thousands have joined the unions in the wake of the 30 June strike. The middle class is also affected. Every promise to them has been broken; their houses could be 'repossessed' to pay for care in old age and their children, denied not only this inheritance but also an education and a future, will be radicalised.

In this context, a determined opposition, even a small, but independent new workers' party, based on struggle, with a socialist programme could be decisive.


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News International scandal

Force Cameron out!

End of The news of the world, time fora free democratic press

So the demise of the News of the World will be greeted with lots of celebrations from trade unionists and working class activists who have been on its wrong end for years.

We clearly on this blog do not wish for any innocent workers to be caught up in all this and fear this is likely to happen with the closing of the paper this weekend.
This is a sad consequence of the paper deciding to close. We hope those workers can find another job very soon and be represented by a unin the NUJ, national union of journalists if they can be.

But this rehiterats our point as socialists for a call for a open democractic media run by the workers for the workers. there should be no profit involved in telling the news. Making money out of peoples misfortunes and happenings is not on and i do hope this will be the end of it although i dont hold out much hope for that.



On Thursday the 200 staff working on the News of the World were given 90-day statutory redundancy notices and were told their jobs were gone by Rebekah Brooks, News International's chief executive.

The National Union of Journalists responded: "This is an act of damage limitation to salvage Murdoch's reputation and that of News International, both of which are now tarnished beyond repair ... Closing the title and sacking over 200 staff in the UK and Ireland, and putting scores more freelances and casuals out of a job, is an act of utter cynical opportunism".

30 sub-editors at the Sun newspaper walked out in protest when they heard of the shocking treatment of their colleagues at the NoW.

The rights of workers within News International are minimal and this is a direct result of the smashing of trade union organisation by Murdoch following the Wapping dispute in 1986.

The Rupert Murdoch owned News of the World (NoW) phone-hacking scandal is being exposed in all its brutal venality. The revelations that Milly Dowler - the 13 year old murdered in 2002 - had her voicemail hacked by the private detective Glenn Mulcaire, who was working for the News of the World, has caused mass outrage.

A 'boycott the News of the World' campaign is gaining huge support.

So publicly toxic is the NoW becoming that even multinational companies like Ford and Tesco are pulling or considering pulling advertising from the paper.

On top of this it is currently being reported that some of those who lost family members in the 7/7 bombings in 2005 have also been targeted for hacking by the NoW.

The police have told the parents of the two girls, Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells, also murdered in 2002 in Soham, that they're phones were, in all likelihood, hacked.

All child killings are now to be looked at by the current police phone-hacking investigation to see whether their families were also victims of the NoW's gutter methods.

Establishment cover-up
These new and shocking revelations come from documents seized from Glenn Mulcaire in 2006, but are only now coming to light. This follows political and public pressure for a new inquiry following what was widely seen as a cover-up by the Metropolitan Police during its first 'investigation' in 2006.

Then the police claimed that Mulcaire targeted only a very small number of people.

News International gave assurances that "only one rogue reporter" was involved in illegal phone-hacking. The then editor of the NoW, Andy Coulson resigned after Mulcaire and the paper's "Royal Correspondent", Clive Goodman, were jailed.

Coulson went on to be appointed as David Cameron's chief media adviser but resigned late last year.

However, Sean Hoare, a former reporter who worked for Coulson at The Sun and The News of the World, told The New York Times that he had played tape recordings of hacked messages for Coulson and that his former boss "actively encouraged me" to break into the voice-mail accounts of public figures.

Hoare told the BBC Coulson was "well aware that the practice exists. To deny it is a lie, is simply a lie."

Unbelievably, even as late as December 2010 Scotland Yard claimed not to have found any new evidence of criminal activity. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) said there was "no admissible evidence" to support the claims that public figures' phones were hacked.

It was only when actress Sienna Miller's civil case was breaking that their was a change of mind and the Met Police issued a statement saying they were to launch a fresh investigation into hacking after receiving "significant new information".

This significant new information had been in their hands since 2006!

First the Guardian newspaper in 2009 claimed thousands of people had been hacked. Then the New York Times in 2010 exposed the fact that the Metropolitan Police had actually seized 4,332 names, 2,987 mobile phone numbers and 91 PIN codes (needed for accessing voicemail messages) from Glenn Mulcaire when he was arrested in 2006.

This alone would clearly indicate that phone hacking and other activities were indeed being practiced on an 'industrial scale'. Mulcaire's documents run to 11,000 pages and contained the mobile numbers and other personal information of thousands of targets.

All the revelations about Milly Dowler, the 7/7 families and the parents of other murdered children were in the hands of the police in 2006.

The extent of police collusion to cover-up the NoW activities is breathtaking. Andy Hayman, who led the 2006 inquiry for the Met, now writes for the Times and other Murdoch papers.

As Labour MP Paul Farrelly, a member of the select committee who looked into the phone hacking scandal commented: "Had Mr Hayman been in charge of the Watergate inquiry, President Nixon would have safely served a full term."... "We were very critical of the evasiveness displayed by Mr Yates (Hayman's replacement) in the police evidence to us."

News International are desperately trying to erect a cordon sanitaire around their chief executive, Rebekah Brooks. Brooks was the editor of the NoW from 2000-2003 and claims to know nothing of any phone-hacking.

Significantly, News International executives have passed to the police inquiry details of payments to police officers signed off by Andy Coulson, for "information".

It seems likely that they are preparing to offer up Coulson as a sacrifice to protect Brooks.

Payments to police
The widespread use of payments to police officers is another reason why the Met police indulged in a blatant cover up. It exposes the embedded links between the Murdoch press and sections of the state machine including the British government.

Both Murdoch and Brooks regularly met with Tony Blair and now David Cameron to push for their right-wing political agenda to be implemented.

In particular Murdoch has been lobbying Cameron and the Con-Dem coalition to allow News Corporation to own BSkyB outright, which would give then an unassailable position as the UK's most powerful broadcaster.

Alongside this, News International executives, particularly Murdoch junior, have launched a broadside against the BBC and its "monopoly", calling for an end to licence fee payments going to the corporation.

Their aim is to establish a totally dominant position for not just their titles, but also the political ideology they promote - free market capitalism and a virulent hostility to the interests of the working class.

News International's four UK papers - The Sun, The Times, Sunday Times and the News of the World - hold a 37% share of all newspaper circulation. Sky TV is already the biggest broadcaster in terms of revenue - £5.9 billion last year alone with profits just under £1 billion.

This puts Sky ahead of the BBC and ITN in terms of financial resources. Murdoch is desperate to win 100% control of BSkyB (he currently holds 40%), so he can access the full cash-cow that is Sky TV.

Full trade union-led public inquiry needed
Demands for a full and open public inquiry are growing into the phone-hacking scandal and the collusion of the police and many politicians. Cameron has now conceded an inquiry but only after police investigations are concluded.

We demand a full and transparent investigation by a democratic and accountable committee that would involve elected workers' representatives, including those of the print trade unions who Murdoch tried to destroy during the Wapping dispute.

Full access to all the documents seized from Mulcaire and other information must be handed over by the police to an independent inquiry.

Under capitalism, our media is neither fair nor impartial - but ultimately serves to defend the prevailing capitalist system and the abuse of power and control by a rich and powerful elite.

Especially today, in the wake of a huge economic crisis of capitalism, the media will aim to peddle the lie that working class people should pay for a crisis they did not create.

At the same time the Murdoch press are silent about the rich bankers and top bosses whose bonuses are back to pre-crash levels, in stark contrast to the millions who are facing unemployment and savage cuts in public services.

That is why we campaign for the democratic public ownership of the major media corporations as the only way to break their abuse of power and ensure a democratic media.

It would then be possible to ensure democratic access to the press based on an allocation to different ideas, including socialist views, dependent on their levels of public support.

Tommy Sheridan case
During the Tommy Sheridan [the well known Scottish socialist and ex-MSP] perjury trial former NoW editor Andy Coulson claimed that he knew nothing about the hacking of Tommy Sheridan's phone, even though Tommy's details were found in Mulcaire's seized documents.

He also denied ever paying bribes to police officers. Furthermore, Bob Bird, the Scottish editor of the NoW said he knew nothing about the hacking of Tommy Sheridan's phone or any other surveillance methods used by the NoW.

He also claimed that he could not find emails between the NoW and Glenn Mulcaire about the investigation that the paper did into Tommy Sheridan, as they had been "shipped off to Mumbai".

Tom Watson, the Labour MP who has been to the forefront of the campaign to get to the truth about the phone-hacking scandal, has been told that the email correspondence is in fact in a warehouse in London.

The reality is that the jury were denied a full picture of the lengths, including the money they paid, that the NoW went to undermine Tommy Sheridan. If they had been given all the facts then it is likely the jury would have arrived at a different verdict.

In addition, had these revelations about the NoW hacking of Milly Dowler and others, including Tommy Sheridan, been made available before Tommy Sheridan's perjury trial, rather than covered up by the police, there would have been no possibility of a conviction.

As it was the jury only found him guilty by eight to six and this conviction, in the light of what has happened in the last few days, must now be overturned.







Strong trade union influence in the newspaper industry can also help prevent the use of illegal and anti-working class methods of investigation, including phone-hacking.

A free democractic press must be born out of this crisis and fresh clean ideas brought forward for the industry.

"This must be accompanied by raising now the need for the nationalisation of the printing presses, television and radio, under popular management and control, as the most democratic means of overcoming the dictatorial stranglehold presently exercised by the press moguls and their acolytes.

"This is not to suggest 'state control' of the press ... We oppose the state monopoly of news and information as existed in the Stalinist states of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

"...The real alternative is democratic working-class and popular control of the press and media in general. This would not result in a monopoly for the government or one party but allow access to the media in proportion to political support.

" ... Capitalism and Stalinism defend undemocratic control of the media by a minority. Scientific socialism, Marxism, socialism and democracy stand for taking the 'production of information' out of the hands of a minority to put it in the hands of a majority and allow full freedom of discussion".


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News of the World phone hacking scandal