Monday, March 05, 2007
Levy Named in Cash for Honours Memo
Shocking revelations HERE in tomorrow's Guardian. Ruth Turner is alleging that Lord Levy asked her to change her evidence to the Police Inquiry. This is at the heart of the document (not email) which the Police are investigating. The fact that this is appearing in The Guardian will lend more weight to those who believe it is in Downing Street's interest for this to be in the public domain.
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31 comments:
He is still the UK's "special envoy to the middle east" isn't he?
Great choice Tony.
I dunno, I reckon this was a good honest scoop from the Guardian who have shown before that they will stand up to the High Court in the public interest. They can be much braver having no individual proprietor who can be nobbled with, I don't know, a peerage perhaps?
I realise from your position on the right that everything on the left must look pretty close together, but I really don't think the Guardian are in Blair's pocket.
Let's not be mean-spirited, congrats, however grudging, to the Guardian.
I have been following this closely on my blog, and advising of the legal position. I am glad that the Grauniad took my legal advice.
Just to be clear, is this the information that the BBC were compelled to keep quiet by the recent injunction? If so, are the Guardian breaking the injunction by revealing the information in this way?
Strange that it should be the Beeb nad the Guardian
now try telling me that Downing St is not imvolved......
Maybe more charges are in the offing for perverting the course of justice?
Tony, the Guardian journalist doing sky news paper review said he had to be careful about what he revealed.
He implied that the Guardian had ?been in legal discussions or arguments last night regarding what they could include in their story.
Iain, the impression I am getting is that what the Beeb has now made it clear they have an email, where as the Guardian has a document?
tony: It is the same info. No the Grauniad are not breaking the injunction, it did not apply to anyone else. They have to be named for it to be legally binding.
Iain, I missed Doughty street tonight so just wondering if there is any chance you will link the bit where you discussed Recess Monkey's "tired and emotional" posting?
BBC Radio 4 news were saying that an injuntion agaist the Guardian was attempted but because the paper had gone to press and was already being distributed, it was considered too late to prevent it.
So if Ruth Turner was asked in the email or letter or whatever to change her evidence, might the fact that she was arrested earlier in the year indicate that she did? In which case at least two people are likely to be charged.
Speculation, but fun.
Lads you have to hand it to Blair disaters all around him and he carries on regardless
By the looks of this it comes down to:
1. Does Yates have enough on Levy to bang him up?
2. does Teflon Tone have enough on Levy to prevent him from bringing the whole lot down arround them in an attempt by Levy to avoid Gaol?
As Verity keeps saying, all this could be sadly (for us) ended if Levy makes a break for Isreal.
A new road map anyone?
Iain, bearing in mind all things, including last Friday, I am not shocked, nor I suspect are you. That people should be shocked perhaps is a given.
That said the BBC make it clear they have an email, whilst the attorney general has partially lifted his injunction which was about nothing at all apparently.
Oh joy!
Questions...
If the Guardian is correct, and it was Lord Levy who was trying to pervert the course of justice, and say if this is the only significant piece of incriminating evidence, does that leave Ruth Turner in the clear?
Or could she be charged with conspiracy to pervert even if it was Levy who instigated it?
Also, as she was apparently alerting her superior, Jonathan Powell, of the attempted cover-up, could she effectively be protected as a whistleblower?
She may have just been approached by Levy, who suggested the cover-up, and may have refused or not responded, and then reported it to Powell. The police would still have questioned her under caution to fully assess whether she was a party to conspiracy.
Idle speculation, but Levy did promise at the start that he would take people down with him, perhaps this was his attempt to bring down Turner, who is innocent of conspiring, and this leak has come from Downing Street to get her off the hook, and leave Levy swinging.
Oh dear, you are all going to be so terribly disappointed when there are no charges brought. As is certainly going to be the case.
Just read the Guardian story online - doesn't really add any flesh to existing allegations.
It also mentions that while the Beeb has said it has seen a controversial e-mail, it's existence has been denied by others.
To be honest if the main focus of the case is now what Levy and Turner said to each other at private meeting with no notes, e-mails or other hard evidence it makes me fear that Yates doesn't have as much to go on as was first speculated.
If it comes down to he said vs she said it will surely be hard to prove, unless one of them is panicked enough to cut some sort of deal and reveal the full sordid details.
Oh, heck, now the BBC reports that The Guardian is "at the centre of a new legal row" over its publication of this story.
How much longer must this play out? Can't we just see Blair and his cronies in handcuffs, being led away to the clink, where they belong? Darn it, I'm impatient! I want to see this scumbag socialist NuLabour "government" fall, and fall badly. I want to see rotten eggs thrown in fat lardass Prescott's face, and this time the miserable dour scrote-faced socialist in handcuffs and unable to launch a punch back at the egg-thrower. I dream about this each night. Come on, Yates, make it happen!
Now we are told the e-mail was written but never sent. What??? She wrote it, saved it, but never sent it?? Not impossible I suppose, but distinctly odd.
This latest line: "She never got round to sending it" could surely only have come from Downing Street.
The Guardian is the print arm of the BBC and has a similar relationship to the current Government as does NTV to President Putin
These are not shcoking revelations, Iain. They seem to indicate that this whole fiasco comes down to Levy suggesting a way of handling police interviews. If tht is all there is, Downing Street iss off the hook in every sense and the whole thing has been a non-story.
It's the usual suspects:The political editor of the New Statesman was wheeled out to criticise Goldsmith --When how could a serving official refuse a request for an injunction from the police in accordance with his job?!
Unfortunately,the man in the street is not yet aware of the New Statesman's links with the Smith Institute.The remainder of that influx (coincidental!) of leftward leaning journalists into the BBC in the run up to the 1997 election,as revealed by the Wilson report,must be in fairly senior positions by now?
CASH FOR HONOURS UPDATE FROM THE SOURCE:
http://orangebyname.blogspot.com/
I think Lord Levy should arrange a quick trip to Israel...after checking extradiation agreements. It looks like he is being made the fall guy.
Definately leaked by Downing Street as they have most to gain....you can see the narrative unfolding before us. "To the PMs horror it now appears that Lord Levy attempted to alter or destroy evidence and not only that, but to sell peerages for to provide money for the Labour Party. The PM and the Labour Party knew nothing of this and Lord Levy now has nothing to do with the Labour Party. I think we should all move on....."
Anyone prepared to bet against me?
Maybe jailhouselawyer could comment. Can't Levy & crew claim that getting a fair trial will now be difficult given the press coverage? Another reason why No.10 is behind the leak....
Is Ruth Turner one of those "Loose Women?"
Thanks for the clarifications. This Guardian article looks to me like the Guardian and BBC working together to do the leaker's work for them. Whatever way you slice it, this has a nasty smell about it.
Jailhouselawyer, that's not quite a watertight approach. In Rowling v News Group Newspapers (which concerned the attempted leaking of the plot of one of the Harry Potter books), the judge gave an injunction against "person or persons unknown".
He justified it as follows:
"The crucial point, as it seems to me, is that the description used must be sufficiently certain as to identify both those who are included and those who are not. If that test is satisfied then it does not seem to me to matter that the description may apply to no one or to more than one person nor that there is no further element of subsequent identification whether by service or otherwise."
Since we do not know the contents of this injunction, it is (just) possible, though unlikely, that it covers other media outlets and bloggers.
Free at last ! Free at last !
With one bound Teflon Tony is free at last ! Maybe others in his circle will get a slap on the wrist, but he at least will never do porridge !
Hooray for the Guardian !! And with one bound he has escaped. By putting into the public domain stuff on the newsprint which couldn't be recalled even though the police didn't want it to be published Tony Blair has a cast iron, rock solid defence that he will not get a fair trial.
And all the huffing and puffing on the blogosphere will not change a damn thing ! It will only potentially make it worse !
Frank Fieldy ! Jackie Ashley ! Alan Rusby ! Your team would take a hell of a lot to be beaten. Yay !
Step forward 'Sir' Alan Rusbridger!
Well who would have thought it ?
The MSM being more willing to push the legal boundaries to their limit than those rascally bloggers !!
What a turn up for the books, eh !
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