RIP Tom Walkinshaw

Rugby lost a big figure when Tom Walkinshaw died last weekend at the too-early age of 64.  It’s for others to write about his motor sport career, but his impact on English professional rugby was immense.

He bought Gloucester RFC in 1997 when the club was teetering on a knife edge: would it step up to the demands of professionalism, or go the way of equally illustrious names like Richmond, London Welsh and Coventry?  Those who were closest to Gloucester at that time have little doubt that without Tom the latter route was the more likely one.   The best way to assess his significance to Gloucester is to have a look around the modern Kingsholm and compare it with what he inherited.

There are new stands on two sides of the ground, including the huge South Stand which, if there’s any justice, will surely become the Tom Walkinshaw Stand, and capacity up to 16,500.  No move out of town, no sharing with a football club, and the famous / infamous Shed still firmly in place.  No tacky and unpleasant mascot, no dancing girls, not too much music (they tried it once but the natives revolted and the idea was rapidly dropped), and an announcer who doesn’t make a plonker of himself every time he opens his mouth.  In other words, tradition and standards still being maintained, but in a thoroughly modern context.. 

That’s not to say that it happened without incident along the way.  Some of the dyed-in-the-wool Glaws fans fought every change that was made, and Tom must have found the supporters’ websites making uncomfortable reading from time to time.  The South Stand displeased some because it wasn’t a cantilever construction and had pillars, and some of the diehards still refuse to use the new name of Gloucester Rugby.  Some of the abuse dished out by ‘fans’ on the websites was deeply personal and simply unacceptable – reading it made one wonder why owners  give their time and invest their money in the game.  However, the players who have been at Kingsholm the longest, and knew Tom best, have, to a man, come out and praised his loyalty, passion and commitment to the club.

Tom’s impact on the wider English game was huge too.  One of the new breed of businessmen who came into rugby when professionalism arrived, he was Chairman of  Premier Rugby between 1998 and 2002.  During that period the salary cap came in, and attendances grew rapidly.  He locked horns many times with the RFU over the issue of player release, and the current agreement is in no small part down to his influence.

I last saw Tom a few weeks ago at Kingsholm, when it was clear to everyone that he was desperately ill, and his response to a question about his well being was typical of the man: “Still here, still fighting!”.  He’ll be sorely missed.

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On the subject of owners, you have to wonder what those at Sarries thought of Brendan Venter’s performance last weekend.  The bizarre interview with Sky after the defeat to Racing Metro didn’t really divide opinion.  Bar a few on the radical wing of Sarries fans who thought it was great to see someone sticking up two fingers to the ERC, the rest of the world seemed to shrug it off as a typically daft bit of calculated Sarries’ nonsense.  Being shocking only works for a short while: after that it just becomes plain boring.

Someone somewhere in the Sarries ranks needs to be thinking carefully about their club’s responsibility to the game and to supporters.  At one time it was simple: keep your own fans happy because they pay for their tickets and that’s where the money comes from to keep the club going.  Well, it doesn’t work like that any more.  Rugby fans pay their subscriptions to Sky and ESPN so that they can watch live matches, and part of that money makes its way back into rugby through the satellite broadcasters’ sponsorship of the game. 

By my reckoning that makes thousands of us Sarries’ customers to a greater or lesser extent, and we deserve a bit of respect for our contribution to their finances.  After a game, part of the deal is that someone from the club goes on air to comment on what has happened, and we deserve that to be done with a modicum of professionalism, irrespective of whether the club has won or lost.  If ‘Fortress Saracens’ doesn’t like that then they should simply pack it in and let one of the Championship sides take their place – in their current frame of mind they wouldn’t be missed.

Dr Venter heads off back to South Africa in the New Year, and time will tell what the real meaning of his new role of ‘Technical Director’ actually is.  The sad thing about last week’s shambles was that all it achieved was to add me, and probably quite a few others,  to the ranks of those whose attitude to his departure will be ‘Good riddance”.

First published in The Rugby Paper on 19 December 2010 and reproduced here with the permission of the editor.

Judge Judge and Lamb Bhuna

Imagine if you can: you're sitting in court, minding your own business, thankful that you actually did learn your shorthand, when the craving for a Lamb Bhuna comes over you.  You can't leave the enthralling case that has, seemingly, been going on for an eternity, because your editor wants every snippet of fair, accurate and contemporaneous news that he can get, but your craving for a 'Ruby' is getting stronger.  Now it's easy, tweeting 'Lamb bhuna, pulao rice, a chapati and a tarka dhal: I'll collect it at 8pm', won't get you into trouble, because tweeting in court is alright for now.



Journalists following the Julian Assange bail hearing asked whether they could tweet, and the advice given was at first contradictory.  In the Westminster magistrates' court it was OK, but at the High Court it wasn't.  Now, however, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Lord Justice Judge (I kind you not, Major Major eat your heart out), has given the green light.  His ruling is:

"A consultation relating to the use of live, text-based communications will be conducted shortly. Those who will be consulted include the Judiciary, the Secretary of State for Justice, the Attorney General, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Bar Council and the Law Society, the Press Complaints Commission, the Society of Editors in addition to interested members of the public via the Judiciary website.
Pending the outcome of the consultation, this interim guidance should be considered by courts, litigants, their legal representatives and the media if and when any application is made to the court to permit the use of live, text-based communications. If any difficulties arise in respect of the use of such communications, or the outcome of the consultation becomes known, it may become necessary to issue a formal Practice Direction.."

In other words, it's OK for now and we'll let you know if that changes.  In court Judge Judge said, "The use of an unobtrusive, hand-held, virtually silent piece of modern equipment for the purposes of simultaneous reporting of proceedings to the outside world as they unfold in court is unlikely to interfere with the proper administration of justice."

Result! Now, where's that Lamb Bhuna?

Rugby Test Matches used to be something special, but now they’re ten-a-penny, or so it seems.  The first games of the autumn series of internationals should serve as a warning that the paying punters are a bit more savvy than the home Unions seemingly thought.

Starting with Ireland, it’s hard to imagine a bigger PR disaster than the shots of the newly-redeveloped  Lansdowne Road – now the Aviva Stadium – with row upon row of empty seats.  It can’t have been what the powers-that-be or the sponsors wanted, but why did it happen?  First of all let’s state the obvious: the Irish economy is down the pan with a vengeance – more a tired old moggy than a Celtic Tiger nowadays.   In those circumstances whose bright idea was it to construct a ticketing policy that obliged punters to buy tickets for all four autumn internationals rather than on a game by game basis?  The economy’s shot to hell, but supporters are asked to fork out €340 for their seat – oh and by the way, those prices concealed a roughly 25% hike over the previous year’s matches at Croke Park! 

Not surprisingly, the fans told the IRFU what to do, and kept their credit cards firmly in their pockets.  At the eleventh hour the Union had a change of heart, ate a sizeable helping of humble pie, and announced ‘a comprehensive review of its entire ticket sales strategy, which includes price tiering, bundling and distribution channels’.  Too little too late, and attendances for the first two matches were embarrassingly low – 35,000 for a Test against the World Champions was a humiliation for the IRFU.  Incidentally, at the Ireland v Samoa game it was announced that 31,000 was a record for a clash between the two nations – talk about making the best of a bad job!

Wales’ first game, against Australia saw more than 20,000 empty seats in the Millennium Stadium, and there were still huge gaps for the clash with South Africa.  The WRU Chief Executive, Roger Lewis, lays the blame fairly and squarely at the door of Wales’ economic troubles, saying that his customers are being very cautious about where they spend their money.

Scotland too had their woes: failing by about 10.000 to sell out a game against the All Blacks is shocking, and those that did turn up will surely think twice about going again!  The result was so dire that almost a week after the event the SRU had ‘forgotten’ to update the results section of their website – I’m not surprised.

England did sell out their first two games, and so they should.  With a population of over 50M compared to Ireland’s 6M, Scotland’s 5M, and Wales at 3M, it would be a major surprise if it didn’t happen.   That said, tickets for the clash with the All Blacks were still available late in the day, and that must be a slight cause for concern.

The IRB’s Chief Exec says that all of this is just a ‘blip’, but I bet that was said more in hope than expectation.  Yes, the economy plays its part, but it is foolish to think that’s all that’s behind the problem.

The fact is that there is now too much Test rugby being played, and most of the games don’t actually matter much.  When games mean something – the Six Nations and the World Cup – the fans will come out in force, but they see the autumn Tests for what they are: predominantly a revenue generating scheme.

And there’s the rub.  The RFU announced its results this week and, recession or not, they were pretty impressive.  The £112M revenue was £7M down on the previous year, but that was because there were only three autumn internationals rather than four, and it was one of the years when England were away three times in the Six Nations.  The message that comes out loud and clear is that internationals at Twickenham are what keeps English rugby afloat.  Never mind that they’re not games that really matter, other than as a preamble for the real business of the Six Nations and the World Cup – the money they generate is vital.

So, square this circle: I’m convinced that fans are becoming disillusioned with too many Test matches, but rugby’s finances depend hugely on those games.  England will get away with this – their potential audience in Greater London alone is more than the population of any of the other home nations – but what of Ireland, Wales and Scotland?  Can they fill their huge stadia three or four times every November?  If they can’t then they’re potentially in real trouble.

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On the back of England’s great win over the Aussies, some awkward questions need to be asked.  They won’t matter to those in the corporate hospitality enjoying a good day out, but the dyed-in-the-wool England fans will have it in the back of their minds.  Has the sudden and wonderful improvement in England’s style of play been because of the coaches’ careful planning over the past couple of years, or has it been achieved in spite of them?  It’s wonderful to see the fresh blood – Ashton, Foden, Laws and so on – doing so well, but what took us so long to blood them? 

First published in The Rugby Paper on 21 November 2010, and reproduced here with the editor's permission

Film stars, a tabloid and skullduggery - this has it all

It's taking its time but it looks as though the News of the World (NoW) phone hacking scandal might just be coming to a head.  The Guardian, which has been relentless in reporting the developing story, now claims that a document has been lodged with the high court that suggests that the phone hacking was more than just the work of one or two 'rogue' reporters - it refers to this as 'explosive new evidence'. 



What is most worrying about this is that the document, produced by lawyers for actors Sienna Miller and Jude Law, cites extracts from paperwork that the Metropolitian Police seized from the NoW's private investigator Glenn Mulcaire back in 2006.  This is potentially a huge media story, but the most disquieting aspect seems to be that Scotland Yard simply sat on its hands rather than do something about a huge cache of potential evidence.  The Yard had previously agreed with the CPS that it would tell all of the 'potential victims' that they were targets of phone hacking.  They don't appear to have done this and at best this seems to be incompetence.



There are now around 20 public figures who have said that they are considering suing the NoW for breach of privacy, including the former deputy prime minister, John Prescott.  As Private Eye would say, this one will run and run!  This could just be heading to become one of the biggest media stories for many, many years.  

Mr Justice Tugendhat again

The definition of 'defamatory' is a crucial one for journalists and back in June Mr Justice Tugendhat tweaked the long-standing one.

The case was between Dr Sarah Thornton and the Telegraph Media Group, and involved her book, "Seven Days in the Art World".  A review in the Telegraph alleged that Dr Thornton had engaged in what is known as 'copy approval', giving her interviewees the chance to read what she proposed to write in advance of publication.  This is a practice that is generally frowned upon in a journalistic context (I do that in my Racing Post Guides but only for reasons of accuracy).  In addition, Thornton claimed that the review, by Lynn Barber, suggested that she had dishonestly claimed to have interviewed Barber as part of the research for the book.

  Dr Sarah Thornton        


After a lot of to'ing and fro'ing, on 26 September 2009 the Telegraph issued the following apology:

In her review of 'Seven Days in the Art World' by Sarah Thornton (Nov 1, 2008) Lynn Barber took issue with Dr Thornton’s assertion that she (Ms Barber) was among the 250 people who had been interviewed for the book, either face to face or by telephone. 

In fact, Ms Barber did have a pre-arranged telephone interview with Dr Thornton two years earlier which lasted over 30 minutes.

We and Ms Barber therefore now accept that it would be wrong to suggest that Dr Thornton made a false or dishonest claim to have interviewed Ms Barber and apologise to Dr Thornton for any distress caused by any contrary impression the review may have given.

In addition, the review commented on Dr Thornton’s use of a practice known as “reflexive ethnography” which Ms Barber equated to “copy approval”.

Dr Thornton points out that she did not give interviewees the right to alter any material she had written about them and that she always maintained complete editorial control of the final product and used the feedback provided by her subjects entirely as she saw fit. 

However, that was far from the end of the matter.  There were appeals, and finally, in June of this year Mr Justice Tugendhat dismissed Dr Thornton's libel claim.  The crux of the matter is that defamation claims must meet a seriousness threshold before they are actionable, and that they must affect the 'actions' of right-thinking people, not just their thoughts or opinions of the claimant.  Furthermore, he distinguished between personal defamation, and business defamation.  The judge found that the claim of 'copy approval' didn't meet the standard of seriousness required to be a personal libel. 

As far as business defamation was concerned, the Telegraph argued that, while copy approval was wrong in journalism, it was acceptable in the context of books.  Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that if a writer can use different standards for different readers and markets, then it's not defamatory to say that a writer is writing to one standard rather than another.

The result is a revised definition of 'defamtory': 'the publication of which [the claimant] complains may be defamatory to him because it substantially affects in an adverse manner the attitude of other people towards him, or has a tendency to do so'.  The key word is 'attitude' which replaces 'estimation', because he said that makes it clear that it's the actions of people rather than their opinions that matter. 

That might not be the end of this matter as his ruling will quite possibly be challenged somewhere along the road.  On one level this is akin to angels dancing on a pinhead, but on another it's a victory for the press in that it raises the bar for those who might want to sue for libel.

More from OPPD....

Back in November I blogged about the case of the unnamed Premiership footballer, referred to in the High Court only as JIH, but known to us as OPPD (over-paid prima donna). 
http://colinboagsblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/not-so-super-injunctions.html

  Mr Justice Tugendhat

Mr Justice Tugendhat ruled that we could be told the identity of OPPD, but we couldn't be told what he had done that made the tabloids so interested in him.  The rationale was that although OPPD had a right to his privacy, there was already so much speculation about his identity that his prospects of achieving 'the attainment of justice' would not be damaged if his name was revealed.  The judge gave OPPD 14 days to appeal against his ruling.

OPPD through his lawyers did appeal, on the grounds that the comprehensive media reporting of the hearings was such that, if his name was revealed, people would guess the nature of his allegations against him.  However, the good judge simply booted that ball out of the park, dismissing the nature of the reporting as 'lacking all detail'.  This time he gave OPPD 24 hours in which to consider appealing, and after 22 of them, he did.  That means there will be a delay of up to eight weeks before the latest appeal is heard - I have no idea who OPPD is, but he's clearly good at putting his foot on the ball and slowing the game down!

More to follow no doubt in Janaury!

Football doesn't much interest me.  I've long held the view that the game is institutionally corrupt, to the point where a decent case can be made for asserting that it's a malign influence on society.  That view was based upon the cheating that's now at the core of the game, and on the antics of some of the obscenely overpaid Premier League players.  However, recent months, and in particular last week's vote in Zurich have put a new spin on this, and as a result serious questions need to be asked about the role the media plays in aspects of our national life.





I watched the much trailed and hugely hyped Panorama special on alleged corruption in FIFA's ranks, expecting wondrous revelations, but what did I see?  Certainly not the knock-out punch that was predicted.  In fact, the organisation coming under greatest fire after the broadcast was the BBC which is accused of headline-chasing and worse.  It is reported that Sepp Blatter referred to 'the evils of the media' in a speech to FIFA delegates just minutes before the vote was taken, and it would be naive in the extreme to imagine that this didn't play a part in the humiliation that followed. 


Was the BBC right to broadcast this programme?  It's the wrong question, I'm afraid.  The right one is 'Was the BBC right to broadcast it when it did?'  Mark Thompson, the Beeb's Director General put up a typically staunch defence of the decision - staunch defences are what Thompson does, and goodness knows he's had enough practice at it!  However, in this case his words had a hollow ring to them.  He said that the BBC had been "right" to screen the Panorama programme, which contained "significant information about matters of very serious public interest and public concern".  One, it's questionable whether that was the case, but Two, any public concern about FIFA paled into insignificance compared to the concern the public had about the country not winning the 2018 bid!





The BBC's timing was just plain lousy and it should be asking itself some serious questions.  Top of the list must be, 'Would the programme have had less or more impact had it gone out the day after the vote was taken?'  The Sunday Times report that kicked this whole business off was a superior effort on two grounds: it had better content and FIFA had to act, and it was not published so close to D-Day.  Thompson says that he believes the British public is behind the decision to broadcast the programme, but an online poll (admittedly with just a couple of thousand respondents) shows 60% of those voting to disagree with the Director General's view.


The key message coming out of this is that not only does a media organisation have to check its facts, but it has to think carefully about the effect that its publication date will have on its target audience.  The BBC might think it has the moral high ground on this one, but it has also managed to hack off a sizeable chunk of its audience.  If I was one of the corporation's critics I think I'd be storing this example away for future use.

Wikileaks: sensation or damp squib?

My paper of choice, The Guardian, is giving Wikileaks' latest revelations the sort of blanket coverage that the Telegraph gave to the MP's expenses scandal, and it looks as though it has become Wikileaks' UK paper of choice too.  The Guardian is getting first crack in the UK at some of the juicier bits of Wikileaks content and it's making a meal of it: today 12 of the first 13 pages of the paper are dominated by the story.



The fact is that most of what has been leaked is boring in the extreme, punctuated by a few bits that interest.  How much of what is in the leaks really surprises?  I guess that depends on how cynical a view of the world you take: was anyone surprised that Prince Andrew maintained the reputation for clumsy frankness that characterises the male members of the Royal Family?  Did it surprise that US Embassy cables alleged that Russia is a corrupt autocratic kleptocracy, or that the UK government found a loophole that allowed the US to keep cluster bombs on UK soil?  I'm firmly of the 'nothing that governments and politicians do surprises me any more' school of thought so I was hardly shocked by these revelations. 

What also came as no shock was some US politicians over-reacting in typical fashion.  Having worked for a US corporation for more than 20 years, and having seen its machinations at first hand, I know only too well the barely concealed contempt that the US has for the rest of the world.  Unless it was invented in the likes of Des Moines, Idaho your average American execs have no time for it, and their misguided sense of their own superiority can be breathtaking.  The likes of Mike Huckabee, potential Republican presidential candidate and as right-wing as American politicians come, are about their business, calling for Wikileaks' founder, Julian Assange, to be tried under the 1917 Espionage Act, with Huckabee saying 'I think anything less than execution is too kind a penalty'!  Sarah Palin predictably wants Assange hunted down, and some of the right-wing blogs make more interesting reading that the leaks themselves:  Red State says Assange is a spy and, 'Under the traditional rules of engagement he is thus subject to summary execution, and my preferred course of action would be for him to find a small caliber [sic] round in the back of his head'!  In an ever-changing world it's good to know that the US remains the same - if you asked most of these people to point on a map to some of the nations mentioned in the leaks, I very much doubt that they'd have a scooby about it.

The White House is, however, taking a more balanced view of the leaks, going through the motions of expressing outrage while also playing down their significance. Hilary Clinton, on whose watch the leaks happened, is under some pressure but it's hard to see her being irreparably damaged, and President Obama might not be sorry to see his Secretary of State taken down a peg or two.  At the same time, however, there appears to be a concerted attempt at cyber war against Wikileaks' sites, with attacks from unknown hackers (I wonder who they could be working for?), and yesterday Amazon.com pulling the plug on hosting them after coming under pressure from politicians such as the chair of the Homeland Security Committee, Joe Lieberman..

It's all good knockabout stuff but it's hard to visualise governments and politicians across the globe being too deeply shocked about it: their diplomats are almost certainly expressing themselves in equally blunt terms in their missives home.  US Defence Secretary, Robert Gates, probably got it right when he said 'Is this embarrassing?  Yes.  Is it awkward?  Yes.  Consequences for US foreign policy?  I think fairly modest'.

Kiwis behaving badly

First published in The Rugby Paper on 14 November 2010 and reproduced with the editor's permission.

Back in the late 70s, in the company where I worked, we had a spate of people resigning to move to New Zealand.  There were generally two reasons for their decision, the first being that they were convinced that the Soviet bloc and the West were going to go MAD – that’s Mutual Assured Destruction for our younger readers – and that everyone was going to die.  Everyone that is, except those smart enough to be in the Antipodes, and preferably as far south as possible.  You see, they’d all read Nevil Shute’s ‘On The Beach’ where the Northern Hemisphere is destroyed in a nuclear war, and the last places the radiation reaches are the southernmost points of the Southern Hemisphere.  I never quite got the logic of their move – if the balloon was going to go up I’d rather not even see the flash than linger on knowing that the wind would eventually blow the radiation south and get me, and I’d then have to decide when to take the suicide pills the book had the Aussie government handing out! 

The other reason was that pre-hobbitland New Zealand offered a simpler, less materialist lifestyle where authority was still respected, where there was less of a drug culture, the TV screens were free of smut, the streets free of litter, etc. – I’m sure you get the drift.  That always sounded pretty damned boring to me, but each to their own.  So, what does this have to do with rugby?

Last weekend’s Rugby League match at Eden Park in Auckland was marred by alcohol-fuelled fighting in the crowd, and the New Zealand press has reacted with vigour.  There had been hints of trouble to come in the recent past: the Chief Executive of New Zealand Cricket was embarrassed by the behaviour of his country’s fans when he attended a Bledisloe Cup match in Melbourne, and in his sport crowds at one-day internationals have been known to get over-excited and chuck plastic bottles at the players.  The worry is that the Rugby League game was the first real test of the newly modernised Eden Park, and its facilities were found wanting.

It seems that a small minority of New Zealand sports fans don’t know how to behave when they’ve had a few beers, and there is real worry that RWC 2011 will be affected.  Make no mistake, the forthcoming tournament, now less than ten months away, is about much, much more than rugby.  This is New Zealand’s chance to show that it is a major country that can welcome large numbers of visitors, and put on a proper show.  There’s always an Australian angle to anything New Zealand, and outdoing what their rivals did in 2003, and maybe even beating them and becoming world champions, would be near the top of any Kiwi’s wish list.  The prospect that this showcase might be marred by crowd trouble is simply unthinkable.

The press coverage in New Zealand has been fascinating, and the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party must have been delighted with the exposure they got!  Their premise is that alcohol is the problem, and if the crowd is allowed to freely smoke dope then all will be sweetness and light – presumably the studies that suggest a link between cannabis and psychotic episodes haven’t yet been carried south on the same winds that Nevil Shute wrote about!

The serious but sad point is that the easygoing atmosphere we have at rugby matches in the Northern Hemisphere might not apply at RWC 2011.  The stakes are going to be so high that the authorities will not take the risk of having crowd trouble transmitted via satellite around the globe.  Expect security, which seemingly was virtually non-existent at Eden Park last Saturday, to be a lot tighter come next September.

The other factor on which the New Zealand authorities are pinning their hopes is that League and Union crowds behave differently – that’s their view, not mine.  There seems to be a feeling that one lot don’t know how to behave, whereas the 15-a-side fans do.

A more likely reason why most RWC 2011 matches will pass without incident is the obvious one: Nambia vs South Africa, or Argentina vs Georgia don’t seem to be likely flashpoints, although with Shute’s novel in mind, USA v Russia could get pretty serious!  The home nation should sail into the quarter-finals without much of a problem so it’s really only in the final fortnight that things could get tricky, and a New Zealand v Australia match is unlikely before the final – assuming both sides can win their knock-out games.  Such a final would be so tightly policed that it would be nigh on impossible for anything to go awry.

The imponderable in all of this, of course, is whether the ABs can stand the strain.  Their RWC record is worryingly poor, and the pressure cooker atmosphere caused by the weight of home expectations could work either way: to a glorious triumph on the back of a wave of Kiwi nationalism, or to a countrywide whinge about refereeing standards as happened in France in 2007.  The latter doesn’t bear thinking about!

PCC gets its knickers in a twist

Following last week's session about codes of conduct and the various regulatory bodies, right on cue the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) has obligingly shot itself in the foot.  It, and its Chair, Lady Buscombe, have had to formally apologise to lawyer Mark Lewis, and pay him an undisclosed sum in damages.


This is yet another case linked to the phone-hacking scandal that has engulfed the News of the World (see 'Private eye piracy', 18/11/2010), and involves documents seized by the Met when it raided Private Eye Glenn Mulcaire's offices.  It all goes back to last September when Mark Lewis gave evidence to a Commons' Select Committee.  In that evidence he said that a detective had told him that there were 'something like 6,000 people' who had had their messages intercepted or their phones hacked.  This is in stark contrast to the official line which is that there were only eight victims, including Lewis's client, Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers' Association.  The PCC had endorsed that version of events.

Speaking to the Society of Editors late last year, Lady Buscombe defended the PCC's endorsement of the official line, and went further, claiming that she had received 'new evidence' from Sotland Yard saying that the detective had been misquoted.  She also said that she would send the new evidence to the Chair of the Select Committee, adding that 'Any suggestion that a parliamentary enquiry has been misled is, of course, an extremely serious matter'



Lewis sued the PCC and Lady Buscombe on the basis that her speech clearly implied that he had lied in his evidence to the Select Committee.    

The Baroness and the PCC have now made a formal statement at the high court sying that it was never their intention to imply that Mark Lewis had misled the Select Committee.  The Baroness's original statement, and the apology, can be found on the PCC website:

http://www.pcc.org.uk/news/index.html?article=NjA0OQ==

Lord Prescott, that's 'Two Jags' as was, is suing the police for breaching his human rights after they initially declined to hand over details relating to him found in the Mulcaire documents seizure.  His name was on some of those documents and he is claiming damages over the Met's failure to inform him of that fact.  No fan of the PCC, he was quick to turn the knife:



'Today's humiliating apology by Lady Buscombe and the PCC exposes the sham of self-regulation for newspapers. The Chair of a body that is supposed to enforce newspaper accuracy has had to apologise to the high court and settle a libel action prompted by here own misleading comments. 

'The public has rightly lost all confidence in the PCC and I see no other option for Lady Buscombe but to resign her position immediately.' 

As of today, Tory peer Lady Buscombe is still in her £150k p.a. job, but who knows what tomorrow might bring, as there are sure to be further voices raised in support of Prescott's call for her to go?

Nice one Eric. Hampshire County Council in a pickle?

Good old Hampshire County Council (HCC)!  In an ever-changing world it's good to know that it's behaving as dimly as ever.  The Freedom of Information Act exists so that citizens can get information about how their money is being spent by public authorities, and it's no surprise, to those of us who've lived in Hampshire for a while, that our County Council isn't comfortable with having to reveal the details of the way it works.



Councillor Colin Davidovitz, the cabinet member for communication and efficiency, led the charge:

'There's no doubt that newspapers use the information they receive from FoIs to benefit a great deal, by putting it on their front page to sell more papers. They are benefiting from research we do on their behalf, at our expense. We also provide information to researchers. I see nothing wrong with charging organisations who benefit from the information we give them, for the service we provide. Why should taxpayers pay for newspapers to benefit?'

He was joined by Council leader Councillor Ken Thornber, who said:

'We will ask the Local Government Association to push for us to be allowed to charge commercial organisations where the data supplied is of commercial value to them.'

Apparently, in 2009/10 HCC spent £318,000 answering 707 FOI requests, which sounds like money well spent to me, especially as openness could have saved a lot of that - they need to understand that secrecy is what drives people to make FOI requests!

Those who campaign for greater public openness found an unlikely ally in Local Government Minster, Eric Pickles, a politician not renowned for his liberal tendencies. 



That's the Eric Pickles whose department declined to answer an FOI request about whether he took legal advice in the in the wake of adversely critical comments by a Department of Community and Local Government 'source' about the electoral commission chair, Jenny Watson. Ministers declined to renew her position as a board member of the audit commission in September.  It's widely accepted that Pickles did get external legal advice on the issue, so for a man so dedicated to the cause of transparency it should have been an easy (and cheap) one to answer: 'Yes' would have done!  I'm not sure how Pickles' reticence on this one fits in with his earlier statement that:

People should be able to hold politicians and public bodies to account over how their hard earned cash is being spent and decisions made on their behalf. They can only do that effectively if they have the information they need at their fingertips.

Still, back to Hampshire where he does support transparency.

"If councillors and council officers are to be held to account the press and public need access to the information that will enable them to do it.

"If town halls want to reduce the amount they spend on responding to freedom of information requests they should consider making the information freely available in the first place.

"The simple act of throwing open the books, rather than waiting for them to be prised apart by the force of an FoI, might even save a few pounds in the process.

"Greater local accountability is essential to accompany the greater powers and freedoms that the new government is giving to local government."

Councillors Davidovitz and Thornber need to think things through a bit more clearly.  Will papers have to also pay for the plethora of Press Releases issued by HCC, or will they be free because they contain the information they want to be made public?  I'll have you a bet that the HCC Press Releases in 2009/10 cost a lot more than £318,000 to produce.

Let's hope that the next time a Council puts its foot on the ball and slows the game down, Pickles' statement will rapidly bring them to their senses.