codes of the overworld

Very nice by Brian Cathcart:

If the Sunday Times was really interested in those exercising secret influences over important institutions, it would surely be writing about a foreign-owned company that has long enjoyed direct and unrecorded access to successive prime ministers and is also alleged (by the police themselves) to have corrupted police officers.

One former senior employee of this company sits in the Cabinet and and another was – before being forced to resign and charged with serious crimes – David Cameron’s chief media adviser. And then there is the company’s former chief executive (also now awaiting trial), who enjoyed private dinners and horse-riding with Mr Cameron, who exchanged intimate texts and emails with him, and who before that was also, remarkably, on intimate terms with Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.

I'm taking it as a good sign that Leveson's supporters are showing quite a bit of joie de combat, but having said that I can't figure out what will happen when Leveson finally makes his report. This is clearly about the relationship between three gangs - in media, politics, and the cops - but operating at a much higher level of interdependence than conventional gangs, so whereas in normal circumstances it would make sense to conclude that the surviving two would be happy with the liquidation of the third party, this logic doesn't quite apply here. It would be genuinely interesting to see what, say, Diego Gambetta would make of it all.

Comments

[belle le triste]

I remember when it were all gangs round here

[Guano]

I´m looking forward to seeing how Leveson writes, in an official report, that the Ginger Menace should not be having country suppers with the PM, the press should not be printing police spin, the police should be fully enforcing the law with respect to newspapers etc etc etc. I wonder how the language of such reports will deal with the corrupt relationships between these three gangs (which are supposed to be important democratic institutions).

[Alex]

...that Dick Fedorcio should be rolled into the sea like a sack of waste.

[CMcM]

Arguably, they're best seen not as three gangs but as three functional departments in a multi national who have heroically overcome the entrenched obstacles of silo working and committed to a common corporate objective as per the best McKinsey thinking. And now they're criticised for it!

[Guano]

A lot of the noise is coming from Paul Dacre, who wants to distract attention from what Operation Motorman found out about the illegal activities of the Mail. Leveson appears to have forced Dacre to choose between allowing Leveson to include it in his report or have the Operation Motorman files released. It will presumably be in the report, and Dacre is trying to release as many red herrings as possible so there is less focus on this.

[ajay]

Operation Motorman?? There's a codename with resonances...

[Alex]

Taking back the no-go areas.

With an armoured engineer tractor.

[Guano]

Leveson's report will be out on 29th November. Let battle commence.

[Chris Williams]

Was it just me who was really fucked off to hear they'd called it 'Motorman'? You might as well call the annual 'local cops nick local burglars and issue press release' operation, 'Overlord'. Dumbing-down tossers. And don't get me started on using slogans for invasion operation names.

John Allison has it right:
http://www.scarygoround.com/?date=20121107

[Phil]

Bit grandiose, I'll grant you - but it does make a nice change from 'Elveden', 'Weeting', 'Bishops Stortford Avoiding Low Bridge' and so on.

As for invasions, the rot set in with Churchill. (Was it MARKET GARDEN that narked him?)

[Richard J]

The quiet increase in popularity of John Allison over recent years is cheering.