In the Dock - why I watched The Leveson Inquiry
In terms of spectator sport it nears the magnificent. Lead council Robert Jay. QC, the perfect foil for these professional liars. How simple the truth now appears. Did anyone have the foresight to realise the impact that hour upon hour in the dock would actually have. Where else have we been witness to such intimacy with public figures. Here we see them, with little to play off, nothing to respond to except the relentless questions of Robert Jay who most of the time doesn’t even bother to look at them when they answer, instead he is head down scanning his pages for the next question with seemingly little regard to the response.
Forget the hot seat of Newsnight or question time in the commons, here there is no reaction, no readying for a spot of hot fire stichomythia, a public exhibition of mental agility. No, you don’t get any of that down the Leveson. For your appearance in the dock you must try to look relaxed, to look nice, to look like a nice person. You must avoid the temptation to look over towards the camera, nor to look skyward, the warning from the lawyers that you’d look like you were remembering what to say, it must seem natural.
Ken Clarke of all people was not a liar; he was grandiose, smug, a bit glib but he had little reason to lie, it wasn’t his fight, he had no need to circumnavigate around phone texts or intimate suppers. His only tell was relief.
Blair was probably one of the most casual of liars, like a Ferrari engine doing 40 mph. His five star countenance acknowledging only that he had been brought in to assist the process. He turned his appearance into a United Nations meeting of world leaders type deal. This fine mind was needed to get round the thorny issue of a free press, with remarkable candidness he artfully confessed to stage managed regrets,the charismatic theoretician sharing his expertise. He deftly avoided the ‘dock’ demeanor and turned himself instead into the international trouble shooter. Aside from the conspicuous body guards, the impossibly white cotton shirts normally assigned to Goldman Sacs high ups he managed to have removed himself from culpability by no longer seeming British, he was passing over us, details, an irrelevance, cute cutaway’s about not knowing back then how to use a mobile phone! Distancing himself not only by time, but by not being some juvenile texter. Like Clarke, he wasn’t under direct fire but even so the whole attendance at Mount Sinai? The close friendship that made it’s clean transition from
In terms of spectator sport it nears the magnificent. Lead council Robert Jay. QC, the perfect foil for these professional liars. How simple the truth now appears. Did anyone have the foresight to realise the impact that hour upon hour in the dock would actually have. Where else have we been witness to such intimacy with public figures. Here we see them, with little to play off, nothing to respond to except the relentless questions of Robert Jay who most of the time doesn’t even bother to look at them when they answer, instead he is head down scanning his pages for the next question with seemingly little regard to the response.
Forget the hot seat of Newsnight or question time in the commons, here there is no reaction, no readying for a spot of hot fire stichomythia, a public exhibition of mental agility. No, you don’t get any of that down the Leveson. For your appearance in the dock you must try to look relaxed, to look nice, to look like a nice person. You must avoid the temptation to look over towards the camera, nor to look skyward, the warning from the lawyers that you’d look like you were remembering what to say, it must seem natural.
Ken Clarke of all people was not a liar; he was grandiose, smug, a bit glib but he had little reason to lie, it wasn’t his fight, he had no need to circumnavigate around phone texts or intimate suppers. His only tell was relief.
Blair was probably one of the most casual of liars, like a Ferrari engine doing 40 mph. His five star countenance acknowledging only that he had been brought in to assist the process. He turned his appearance into a United Nations meeting of world leaders type deal. This fine mind was needed to get round the thorny issue of a free press, with remarkable candidness he artfully confessed to stage managed regrets,the charismatic theoretician sharing his expertise. He deftly avoided the ‘dock’ demeanor and turned himself instead into the international trouble shooter. Aside from the conspicuous body guards, the impossibly white cotton shirts normally assigned to Goldman Sacs high ups he managed to have removed himself from culpability by no longer seeming British, he was passing over us, details, an irrelevance, cute cutaway’s about not knowing back then how to use a mobile phone! Distancing himself not only by time, but by not being some juvenile texter. Like Clarke, he wasn’t under direct fire but even so the whole attendance at Mount Sinai? The close friendship that made it’s clean transition from
‘working relationship’, all of these areas of potential trickiness were worked through seamlessly.
Despite Prime minister status, Cameron never managed this manouvre and remained firmly in the dock. If not sweaty then at least hot under the collar. I don’t think I heard him use the title Sir, when addressing Lord Justice Leveson, did he? Wouldn’t that of clashed with the public perception as leader of the United Kingdom, high stakes player at the euro table, but his appearance didn’t strike us as odd, he looked about right sitting there having to remember his lines wondering how or when he would get through this without something terrible happening. I hadn’t been that excited by the knowledge he would be appearing, I didn’t think they’d get him. He had the script weeks before, he knew what they’ be covering. After all this is a man that defended Coulson. He had already staged a very inner sanctum, houses of parliament, ye old gothic historic, wood paneled drawing room in which to defend his friend. They brought in a pedestal and there he stood a cross between Sarkozy, Louis the fourteenth, Ritz type glamour and knights of the round table. He addressed his press public with strident repetition, ironing out the actual truth of the situation leaving no stone unturned, if only they could understand, people, all people, need a second chance. Andy was just such a man, he needed a second chance, was it right that he lost his position as the man who brought us the news of the world. Each week he had tried to bring us the most interesting aspects of the news from the world, he didn’t know, he didn’t know what was going on, but like any good General, he chose to step down, shoulder the blame, and move on. Surely that was the sort of man needed to help run the country. No one bought it but the bluff was so good. He didn’t shun the press, quite the opposite, bring them on, I shall fell each one in turn. Possibly Cameron’s main character defect is this almost exultant self belief in his ability to out manouvre, out play his opponents. Throughout his day in the dock Cameron played defense, fielding, wriggling, hand gesturing his way round absurd situations, distasteful associations and disastrous judgments.
Ironically even Andy himself was better in the dock, like a police officer, without personality he answered the questions gave little away but like Cameron, economical.
The Dock was a new, untested arena. It seemed like it was the same old but no, wait, it was far more revealing. The ultimate test, the test of integrity. It wasn’t about getting caught, not getting caught, it was about the person themselves. Were they honorable, were they the sort of people who cheated, who threw away odd bit of debris from their car windows? Did they pay all
Despite Prime minister status, Cameron never managed this manouvre and remained firmly in the dock. If not sweaty then at least hot under the collar. I don’t think I heard him use the title Sir, when addressing Lord Justice Leveson, did he? Wouldn’t that of clashed with the public perception as leader of the United Kingdom, high stakes player at the euro table, but his appearance didn’t strike us as odd, he looked about right sitting there having to remember his lines wondering how or when he would get through this without something terrible happening. I hadn’t been that excited by the knowledge he would be appearing, I didn’t think they’d get him. He had the script weeks before, he knew what they’ be covering. After all this is a man that defended Coulson. He had already staged a very inner sanctum, houses of parliament, ye old gothic historic, wood paneled drawing room in which to defend his friend. They brought in a pedestal and there he stood a cross between Sarkozy, Louis the fourteenth, Ritz type glamour and knights of the round table. He addressed his press public with strident repetition, ironing out the actual truth of the situation leaving no stone unturned, if only they could understand, people, all people, need a second chance. Andy was just such a man, he needed a second chance, was it right that he lost his position as the man who brought us the news of the world. Each week he had tried to bring us the most interesting aspects of the news from the world, he didn’t know, he didn’t know what was going on, but like any good General, he chose to step down, shoulder the blame, and move on. Surely that was the sort of man needed to help run the country. No one bought it but the bluff was so good. He didn’t shun the press, quite the opposite, bring them on, I shall fell each one in turn. Possibly Cameron’s main character defect is this almost exultant self belief in his ability to out manouvre, out play his opponents. Throughout his day in the dock Cameron played defense, fielding, wriggling, hand gesturing his way round absurd situations, distasteful associations and disastrous judgments.
Ironically even Andy himself was better in the dock, like a police officer, without personality he answered the questions gave little away but like Cameron, economical.
The Dock was a new, untested arena. It seemed like it was the same old but no, wait, it was far more revealing. The ultimate test, the test of integrity. It wasn’t about getting caught, not getting caught, it was about the person themselves. Were they honorable, were they the sort of people who cheated, who threw away odd bit of debris from their car windows? Did they pay all
that they should in taxes? Would they be good neighbors? These bottom line questions played out silently against the strident flat back responses, whilst they remembered all the points and justified and cleverly sidestepped, the lie detector flickered quietly away allowing us the public a clear, unfettered view.
Truth definitely made it’s comeback. Truth was king. And time, time for us to take them in, to watch not what they said but how they said it, how they reacted, moved, breathed. In this current world we don’t have time, people are spliced together, asked for their views and then talked over. Unwittingly we have colluded with the liars. Suddenly in all this high tech caboom comes Ye olde worldly Leveson space, where we take breaks for lunch and breaks for the stenographer, you will be up there for hours mate. We don’t really do irony, well not if it’s yours and we prefer if you answered the question. Expansiveness is not encouraged, you may as well leave all your bag of tricks at the door. Under this looming eyeball we will hold you for hours if not days. The staggering contrast between the liar and the truth teller was far more apparent than I think any of us could have realised. Testimony that ranged from dishonest to straightforward stuck out like dogs balls.
Gordon Browns account of his Baby was obviously the truth, it rang out from the heart of him, a stillness, no artifice, no mocking smile, no reflecting back to the screen or the page, but as he moved on to the conversation with Murdoch he kept referring to evidence, there was ‘no evidence’ that the conversation ever took place. Suddenly his face awash with incredulity, eyebrow raising, he’s on. The same tactic was used by Osbourne, the bluffly delivered shtik over the ‘conspiracy theory’ as if he was reviewing some 911 Youtube video. Poor Gordon was probably advised to use the same approach, but how did this fit with the belligerent Scot? He’s not a witty repartee man, he’s dour and dry and not given to elastic facial grimaces. All we saw was the twitching arm of the lie detector it’s arc ever wider. As soon as he wavered from the truth he became out of kilter with us, it was no longer any good.
The Leveson Inquiry with the telly option has reaped much more than mere evidence it has allowed us intimacy. Paxman, Newsnights’ Judge Judy, I had thought, was the nearest thing we had at attempting to bring people in power to account. I now see that the hostile, invasive questioning so in fashion nowadays gives the perfect environment for short natty (devoid of content) retorts. Political thought has been reduced to gamesmanship of the fast comeback, verbal quick fire chess. The Dock by contrast allows the defendant to slow cook for several illuminating hours. Quick wittedness looks like what it is, avoidance. Under oath obviously helps the cause, and the
Truth definitely made it’s comeback. Truth was king. And time, time for us to take them in, to watch not what they said but how they said it, how they reacted, moved, breathed. In this current world we don’t have time, people are spliced together, asked for their views and then talked over. Unwittingly we have colluded with the liars. Suddenly in all this high tech caboom comes Ye olde worldly Leveson space, where we take breaks for lunch and breaks for the stenographer, you will be up there for hours mate. We don’t really do irony, well not if it’s yours and we prefer if you answered the question. Expansiveness is not encouraged, you may as well leave all your bag of tricks at the door. Under this looming eyeball we will hold you for hours if not days. The staggering contrast between the liar and the truth teller was far more apparent than I think any of us could have realised. Testimony that ranged from dishonest to straightforward stuck out like dogs balls.
Gordon Browns account of his Baby was obviously the truth, it rang out from the heart of him, a stillness, no artifice, no mocking smile, no reflecting back to the screen or the page, but as he moved on to the conversation with Murdoch he kept referring to evidence, there was ‘no evidence’ that the conversation ever took place. Suddenly his face awash with incredulity, eyebrow raising, he’s on. The same tactic was used by Osbourne, the bluffly delivered shtik over the ‘conspiracy theory’ as if he was reviewing some 911 Youtube video. Poor Gordon was probably advised to use the same approach, but how did this fit with the belligerent Scot? He’s not a witty repartee man, he’s dour and dry and not given to elastic facial grimaces. All we saw was the twitching arm of the lie detector it’s arc ever wider. As soon as he wavered from the truth he became out of kilter with us, it was no longer any good.
The Leveson Inquiry with the telly option has reaped much more than mere evidence it has allowed us intimacy. Paxman, Newsnights’ Judge Judy, I had thought, was the nearest thing we had at attempting to bring people in power to account. I now see that the hostile, invasive questioning so in fashion nowadays gives the perfect environment for short natty (devoid of content) retorts. Political thought has been reduced to gamesmanship of the fast comeback, verbal quick fire chess. The Dock by contrast allows the defendant to slow cook for several illuminating hours. Quick wittedness looks like what it is, avoidance. Under oath obviously helps the cause, and the
information itself can, at times, (though not as often as we had all hoped) help but beyond the nuts and bolts we have a far clearer idea of who these people are.
Are they straight, are they good? Questions that have not really been on the agenda for years. Down the Leveson we see them appear before us like shaved cats.
Strangely it would seem that no amount of coaching can eradicate the lie. If a man appears before us and cannot speak the truth, no matter how well prepared he is, there is something dulled like frozen compared to fresh. The truth has an oxygen that no well rehearsed lie can deliver.
Various glove puppets tried, Michael Gove, the ‘A’ star student spoke like a man reciting. A lack of normal deviation, of errs or umm’s, instead he rolled out the
product and sat back triumphantly. The after taste, the gut instinct was to find this man non human, or at least without a soul. Here was a man..... capable of following orders, what ever they might be.
Nick Clegg faired better, possibly because in recent months the level of sadness inside him has grown. He has truly known the disappointment of being a disappointment to oneself. You can see him at question time, a shade off wincing as he hears the emphatic Cameron shielding his party with ever more annunciated diction. Mind you it would help Labour considerably if they sorted out Ed Milliband’s speech. Some speech impediments are not conflictual with content and some distort, his points are lost in a soft muffle. How to rally the troops when it sounds like it’s being delivered through a duvet? Although Ed did seem like a good person in the Dock where really all that is required is the truth.
The dynamic of the dock then, in this never before experienced platform, has been like a truth drug. Not in the way it was supposed to perform but in a far more human normal, back in the day form, when public figures required a moral backbone, before they were synthesized through the medium of news moments.
This revealing chair can only work on the humans that are themselves aware of their own deceit. Therefore the exceptions find themselves in another category, the psychopaths.
Murdoch. He lost it, he found the whole deal uncomfortable, he didn’t want to be in the dock, he didn’t want to abide by his army of lawyers, and much to their horror, obviously tossed their many careful warnings aside to go rogue
Are they straight, are they good? Questions that have not really been on the agenda for years. Down the Leveson we see them appear before us like shaved cats.
Strangely it would seem that no amount of coaching can eradicate the lie. If a man appears before us and cannot speak the truth, no matter how well prepared he is, there is something dulled like frozen compared to fresh. The truth has an oxygen that no well rehearsed lie can deliver.
Various glove puppets tried, Michael Gove, the ‘A’ star student spoke like a man reciting. A lack of normal deviation, of errs or umm’s, instead he rolled out the
product and sat back triumphantly. The after taste, the gut instinct was to find this man non human, or at least without a soul. Here was a man..... capable of following orders, what ever they might be.
Nick Clegg faired better, possibly because in recent months the level of sadness inside him has grown. He has truly known the disappointment of being a disappointment to oneself. You can see him at question time, a shade off wincing as he hears the emphatic Cameron shielding his party with ever more annunciated diction. Mind you it would help Labour considerably if they sorted out Ed Milliband’s speech. Some speech impediments are not conflictual with content and some distort, his points are lost in a soft muffle. How to rally the troops when it sounds like it’s being delivered through a duvet? Although Ed did seem like a good person in the Dock where really all that is required is the truth.
The dynamic of the dock then, in this never before experienced platform, has been like a truth drug. Not in the way it was supposed to perform but in a far more human normal, back in the day form, when public figures required a moral backbone, before they were synthesized through the medium of news moments.
This revealing chair can only work on the humans that are themselves aware of their own deceit. Therefore the exceptions find themselves in another category, the psychopaths.
Murdoch. He lost it, he found the whole deal uncomfortable, he didn’t want to be in the dock, he didn’t want to abide by his army of lawyers, and much to their horror, obviously tossed their many careful warnings aside to go rogue
and off script but despite all these messy moments there was no sense he was lying. This then is a man who does not delineate between truth and lies. There is no moment of decision, no fall out, no torment. His agenda is to win, to kill off the opposition and to win. Unlike Blair who must know moments of anxiety, who wonders how he got to this point in his life, who has segued off to the fuzzy land of near truth and denial, Murdoch appears to have little time for such namby pamby preoccupation's. He has total belief in himself and as such will do whatever it takes. The bizarre love for Brooks comes from the recognition that they are the same. Neither one would bother with the facts when it comes to winning. Winning, for them, is the ultimate truth. I won, I must be right.
With a gleaming amorality the dock offers little in the way of
insight, we get to see the horror and power but we can in no way suss them out, they are impenetrable since they are not like the rest of us. Brooks seemed to enjoy her time in the dock, she managed to force a smile across Jay’s face with ‘You need better sources Mr Jay’ She did this with such grace, such ease. She did use ‘Sir’ when addressing Lord Justice Leveson, but with overtones of ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’ . A courtesan blushingly forced to confess all her iPhone contacts, helpless to her own powers of seduction. Leveson too fell at her feet. By the time she revealed and played and became serious, and looked up from looking down, she had given only what she wanted to away, a nasty slap in the face to Cameron, that will teach you, delivered like a ‘oops I dunnit again, but yes, that was what he said, and the fabulous, ‘Should I put it back to you, if the Browns had asked me not to run it I wouldn’t have done.... it is the only way we would have put it in the public domain.’ Wow, so what, what does she mean to tell us, firstly she deftly takes back the reigns, with ‘shall I put it back to you’... a shifting of the dock dynamic into a two way conversation, almost akin to ‘let me ask you a question’ and then with swift absoluteness she assured us that had Brown objected she would have pulled the story, yeah right. Mind you it sounded so good, she couldn’t actually be lying could she? I mean it’s so blatant it’s telling us a certainty, she has already made sure that the air of dispelling myths is well underway, no she was not given clothes by Murdoch with which to exit the nick, no (slight giggle, I was not his Venus being born, good sport) she did not take swims with Murdoch. She has led us all to a place where this highly professional, highly ethical woman is now telling us exactly what went down. All this setting the stage perfectly for the final knock out blow, we wouldn’t have published if the Browns were unhappy.
This level of non truth is only to be used by the real killer elite and so really the Leveson Inquiry can be said to have unearthed far more than it set out to do. Even to the extent of singling out Murdoch and Brooks as possibly the
With a gleaming amorality the dock offers little in the way of
insight, we get to see the horror and power but we can in no way suss them out, they are impenetrable since they are not like the rest of us. Brooks seemed to enjoy her time in the dock, she managed to force a smile across Jay’s face with ‘You need better sources Mr Jay’ She did this with such grace, such ease. She did use ‘Sir’ when addressing Lord Justice Leveson, but with overtones of ‘Happy Birthday Mr President’ . A courtesan blushingly forced to confess all her iPhone contacts, helpless to her own powers of seduction. Leveson too fell at her feet. By the time she revealed and played and became serious, and looked up from looking down, she had given only what she wanted to away, a nasty slap in the face to Cameron, that will teach you, delivered like a ‘oops I dunnit again, but yes, that was what he said, and the fabulous, ‘Should I put it back to you, if the Browns had asked me not to run it I wouldn’t have done.... it is the only way we would have put it in the public domain.’ Wow, so what, what does she mean to tell us, firstly she deftly takes back the reigns, with ‘shall I put it back to you’... a shifting of the dock dynamic into a two way conversation, almost akin to ‘let me ask you a question’ and then with swift absoluteness she assured us that had Brown objected she would have pulled the story, yeah right. Mind you it sounded so good, she couldn’t actually be lying could she? I mean it’s so blatant it’s telling us a certainty, she has already made sure that the air of dispelling myths is well underway, no she was not given clothes by Murdoch with which to exit the nick, no (slight giggle, I was not his Venus being born, good sport) she did not take swims with Murdoch. She has led us all to a place where this highly professional, highly ethical woman is now telling us exactly what went down. All this setting the stage perfectly for the final knock out blow, we wouldn’t have published if the Browns were unhappy.
This level of non truth is only to be used by the real killer elite and so really the Leveson Inquiry can be said to have unearthed far more than it set out to do. Even to the extent of singling out Murdoch and Brooks as possibly the
only two that are without conscience, with Gove and Osbourne coming up the rear.
Even strange James Murdoch seems to have a semblance of conscience or at least aware that there are people who do and they notice stuff like that. That last engagement with dad in another dock saw James blush as he tried to hold dad back.
I am left with very clear impressions of all those I managed to see. Adam Smith was a young man about nine years off his childhood, the perfect fag. He was a good boy but had fallen in love with the wrong crowd (man)? Gove well he Osbourne and Cameron are really all facets of the same neglected privilege.
In a way Jeremy Hunt deserves his own category, not a liar exactly, but a narcissist who only has space for one truth, his. Fred Michel a modern day Maurice Chevalier (during the occupation). Hugh Grant is throughly great. Ian Hislop, who has made a living as a lie detector never made the needle jump. Milly Dowler’s parents were probably the yard stick of how good people do actually behave.
Even strange James Murdoch seems to have a semblance of conscience or at least aware that there are people who do and they notice stuff like that. That last engagement with dad in another dock saw James blush as he tried to hold dad back.
I am left with very clear impressions of all those I managed to see. Adam Smith was a young man about nine years off his childhood, the perfect fag. He was a good boy but had fallen in love with the wrong crowd (man)? Gove well he Osbourne and Cameron are really all facets of the same neglected privilege.
In a way Jeremy Hunt deserves his own category, not a liar exactly, but a narcissist who only has space for one truth, his. Fred Michel a modern day Maurice Chevalier (during the occupation). Hugh Grant is throughly great. Ian Hislop, who has made a living as a lie detector never made the needle jump. Milly Dowler’s parents were probably the yard stick of how good people do actually behave.
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