The Sun seeks protection - under 'bonkers' Human Rights Act

The Sun newspaper never misses an opportunity to wage war against the Human Rights Act. With approbation it last year reported the PM's vow to tear up the statute. And the paper fell in love with Britain's Equality and Human Rights chief Trevor Phillips when he described the Act as 'bonkers'.

As the paper wrote last December, Mr Phillips [said] the laws had "fallen into disrepute". 'People believed they had "come to mean the defence of the rights of unpopular minorities — of criminals, terror suspects and illegal immigrants — at the expense of everybody else."'

So, which newspaper staff (or unpopular minority) are now thinking of defending their interests under the Human Rights Act as Murdoch's internal inquiry team hand bribery suspect hacks (or 'legends') over to the cops? Step forward the galley slaves aboard HMS Sun. The irony is just too exquisite.

To read more, click here.

The Sun makes up a story to suit a headline (so what's new?)

"10.7m Brits Don't Work (Including the ex-Prime Minister who helped to put them there)," screeches a Sun headline on page 2. Really? Brown is still MP for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath on a basic annual salary of £64,857.85. As confirmed by the Sun on page 9. Goodness knows what Rupert makes of it all.

Oh, and Rupert's authorisation that Brown fucks off to run the IMF may be ignored.

£800,000 for journalist bullied by Andy Coulson - now the Tories' top spin doctor

The News of the World reporter who was bullied by former editor Andy Coulson and his staff side-kicks has been awarded nearly £800,000 for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination by an east London employment tribunal.

Matt Driscoll will pick up a record £792,736 from Murdoch's News International which with legal costs stands to lose over a £1 million on this case alone.

The tribunal found that Driscoll had been subject to "a consistent pattern of bullying behaviour". "The original source of the hostility towards the claimant [Driscoll] was Mr Coulson ... ". The Guardian reports, "The judgment singled out Coulson for making 'bullying' remarks in an email to Driscoll after the first formal warning, letting him know that he thought he should have been sacked."

Madame Arcati has long campaigned to raise the profile of this case, long after other media went silent. Coulson is the Conservative Party's top spin doctor. Despite Tory pledges to fight bullying in all its forms, Cameron has clung onto Coulson - and no doubt an absence of a media clamour for Coulson's removal will be a comfort. Bullying is the common coin of newspapers. The culture of newspapers promotes bullying. The attributes of the bully are required for editorial preferment.

Ironically, last Sunday, the News of the World went big on its own anti-bullying campaign (schools only, natch) - how hollow that looks now. The Screws these days is an archaic spectacle - a tawdry palace of hypocrites and liars, sad middleclass hacks at a chav masquerade as they clamber and shit all over each other in their prefab open-plan coop. I can't think of a more disgusting publication.

As for Coulson - go! The People needs you! More at Bullying UK.

National newspapers' conspiracy of silence over this payout, click here

Stephen Gately: The Movie. A goat, its chopped cock and a voodoo death

Now he is dead, time for his celebrity to soar on the thermals of dreams. Stephen Gately in life was the cuddlesome pop toy of boyz and girlz and guileful tabloidz. In death, he is being reconfigured. Jan Moir (Moi? Mwah?) of the Mail dreams he died because he was a morally stinking homo (to paraphrase). Mark McGowan has made a short movie about a Stephen Gately killed by ... voodoo. McGowan dreams Stephen Gately cut off the penis of a sacrificed goat and drew malevolent sorcery to his effigy heart. Of the two dreams I prefer Mark's. It strikes me as truer, comparatively speaking. (Click film once, slight delay)


STEPHEN GATELY VOODOO from LIVE ART TV on Vimeo.

Stephen Gately: The Sun, Andy Coulson and... blackmail?

The Sun reminds readers today that Stephen Gately of Boyzone - who has died suddenly at 33 in Majorca -  "was the first boyband star to bravely come out as gay" in 1999. "He took the decision to 'out' himself in the Sun in June of that year." Oh, really.

The reality of course is much more interesting than that. I must have imagined that his mother Margaret had a different view of the matter at the time. "Stephen has been bullied into doing this," she told the Mirror. "The Sun has destroyed so many lives. There was Lenny Henry and there was Sophie Rhys-Jones. Now it's my son - and us. All of us are involved in this. I have to go out and do my day's work with the whole place looking at me."

An ex-Boyzone roadie had slithered to the Sun with his gay Gately tale. Having promised to give up its habit of homophobia earlier in '99, the paper couldn't just splash with its exclusive (with its unreconstructed "gay shame" implications). It had promised: "From now on the Sun will not reveal the sexuality of gays - men or women - unless we believe it can be defended on the grounds of overwhelming public interest. If gays choose to come out, we will report it if we feel it is newsworthy or relevant. Otherwise, we will not invade the privacy of gay people."

So the paper, anxious not to lose anything to mere integrity, contacted Boyzone's PR agency and made it plain the story would come out sooner or later, so why not let the Sun handle it responsibly. Or as Boyzone manager Louis Walsh said at the time after a phone interview with the Guardian's Roy Greenslade: "Greenslade said to me that didn't Andy Coulson (of the Sun) ring me and say: `There's two ways of doing the Gately story - the right way and the wrong way?' Was that not blackmail? I said it wasn't blackmail..."

Ah, Louis, ever the pro. As he has said, "We work the tabloids. We need them. They need us." And our old friend Andy Coulson! Now the Conservative Party's media boss.

Dominic Mohan: A Gemini mind forced to slum it at The Sun?

Dominic Mohan

The new editor of The Sun is a Madame Arcati-/Katie Price-style Gemini - and for that reason alone I offer him my congratulations. Mercury-dominated Gemini is the sign of and for the media: so I shall be expecting great things of him, such as the sackings of all his charisma-free columnists - all useless. The jury's still out on Gordon Smart (see below).

Too little time to do Dominic's horoscope properly, but I've managed something . He was born on May 26, 1969. Where is not clear. Every profile of him says he's "from Bristol". Does this mean he was born in Bristol? I am assuming it does. In any case provided he was born in that locality it makes little difference.

I have used astro.com for a rapid analysis so I can't be accused of shaping material by what I know. His Sun (not Sun) in the 10th House "promises honour, success, and prestige in adult life. Publicly you appear as a vital, proud, powerful person. Your individuality has the need to manifest itself publicly and often to foist its energy on others."

His Moon in the 2nd House explains his current red top focus: "Occupationally, you are going to be inclined to pursue money through popular activities. In any case, expect a fortune which holds variation and fluctuation. Try to orient your monetary dealings to the general public for you possess the ability to succeed when in touch with the popular masses." So, you see, it was all meant to be. He has found his calling.

A more curious feature of his chart is a disconnect between his brain power and station in life. A number of placements suggests a refined mind but one forced to slum it a bit. I'm sure editing the Sun will balance things out. "In a subtle fashion, fate may force you to become involved in activities that are not up to the level of your abilities," I read. Could this be that in his heart he cringes at the prospect of yet another front page Jordan cock-cunting tale or of whisking his troops off to Butlin's for some bonding with the working classes? I do not know. I can only wonder.

His Moon in Virgo makes him fairly easy to deal with (confirmed by people I know) and I doubt there will be many Rebekah-style hysterics. He is highly analytical and if he has a fault it is his indecisiveness. Presumably he has conquered this. For sure, this guy's a worker. He's a worm in the burrowing sense of the word.

If the mood takes me I may do a full horoscope to see how long he's likely to last.

Gordon Smart loses his Madonna Candy Hard-on

Celebration: A past and present coadunation of Madgestic sounds

Diddums! What did Madonna do to the Sun's Bizarre hack Gordon Smart? Forget to send him a freebie? Today he gives her a good rubbishing in the wake of Radio 1's decision not to playlist her new single Celebration. "Her Madgesty's last album, Hard Candy, didn't do as well as expected. Probably because it was rubbish," he scribbles in his best GCSE-level prose. "I'm also sick of the sight of her parading around in her undercrackers." Why, because she's 51? Rhetorically, as he attempts to stay down with the kids, he asks: "COULD this be the beginning of the end of MADONNA's reign as the Queen Of Pop?"

Oh Gord!

Oh dear. Was it only a year ago - on Aug 25, 2008, to be precise and four months after the Hard Candy release - that he had a waking wet dream over her Sticky & Sweet tour. "Madonna's energy and performance is incredible," he jizzed. "I doff my cap to a 50-year-old pole-dancing and double-dutch skipping mother. Without question, Madonna is still the Queen Of Pop. Long live the Queen." Get the Kleenex out.

It's hard (candy) not to laugh.

Rebekah Wade - You vill vear definable collars!

Someone at the Sun has forwarded me an email from editor Rebekah Wade upbraiding her scurvy staff for their lack of sartorial style. "You vill not vear jeans, boots or T-shirts," she screams. "You vill vear shirts with definable collars, nice frocks - see a Top Shop window display for inspiration." (It is true I have just embellished the detail here but I have captured the spirit of her message: I know how literal some of you are) Rebekah likes to use grown-up words like "monetise" because she's going up to management soon and then Dominic can take over properly and get the editor's salary he richly deserves.

The Sun - duped by Jaws man

"A photograph appearing to confirm that a great white shark was lurking in waters just off Britain was today exposed as a fake," reports the Guardian. "The man who took the picture, which was featured prominently in the Sun, admitted he had snapped the creature during a fishing trip in South Africa rather than off Newquay, northern Cornwall." The man works for a Cornwall nightclub, for heaven's sake - low life, low life.

As I revealed the other day - I'm surprised Rebekah Wade didn't phone me for a quote herself - the sea god Poseidon told me that the great white the Sun has championed for sales purposes is nothing more than a basking shark. The paper should offer to reimburse anyone who was duped into buying a copy of the paper because of the "Jaws" fiction.

Old Moore's shines (again) - in the basking Sun

Yummy Katherine Bergen who edits The Sun's entertaining and informative The Whip column - I suspect she has doubled as one of the sexy naked beach girls on page 3 today - has further amplified the genius of Old Moore's Almanack by picking up where Madame Arcati left off, to put it politely. No sooner had I done my best for Moore's than beady-eyed and newly-inspired Katherine rushed to her news agents and bought a copy for further insights into Gordon Brown's Pisces-dominated horoscope - it is her top piece for Tuesday.

Old Moore's came out in June; in fact I felt a little guilty that my piece was sooooo late. So the Sun's timing is exquisitely coincidental.

While I have the paper in front of me, Katherine might want another little rip, er, I mean, tip off - the Great White Shark off Cornwall, that has replaced the apocalyptic floods on the front page, is a basking shark. My good friend the god Poseidon* told me.

*Poseidon explains: "A Basking shark [pictured] lives on tiny zooplankton which it filters out with modified gill rakers from vast quantities of sea water passing through its enormous mouth. A bit like The Sun in relation to zooplankton blogs."