UKC

The Lord McAlpine with the Dragon Tattoo

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 muppetfilter 15 Nov 2012
Has anyone noticed the way that the events have unfolded mirroring the plot of Stieg Larssons book. A Journalist fed fake information about a public figure reveals the story and massively damages the institution they work for.


Or is it part of the tory plot to destroy the BBC .....
 GrahamD 16 Nov 2012
In reply to muppetfilter:

Hmm - I don't think Millenium as a 3 or 4 man 'plucky underdog' operation and the BBC really stand serious comparison., do you ?
Wiley Coyote2 16 Nov 2012
In reply to muppetfilter:

I dunno. There are obvious parallels. One is fronted by pompous journo with an overblown sense of his own importance and then there's the bloke in the Dragon Tattoo books.....
 nightmonkeyuk 16 Nov 2012
In reply to muppetfilter:

I've not read anything about the McAlpine story for fear of getting arrested.
 Simon4 16 Nov 2012
In reply to muppetfilter:

> Or is it part of the tory plot to destroy the BBC .....

No that explanation falls on Occam's razor, it was entirely self-inflicted - due to hubris, malice, the wish to harm their political opponents and a sense of invulnerability - after all, McAlpine could scarcely prove that he WASN'T a child-molester, could he?

There was no need to lure the BBC into smearing McAlpine on the basis of flimsy, unchecked, and largely discredited evidence, they were gagging to do it. The difficulty would have been to stop them, which would have required all their mouths to be tapped over. Does anyone seriously doubt that the broadcasting arm of the Guardian saw a golden opportunity to simultaneously escape from their own difficulties and also to assasinate a political foe, and found it irresistible? It was too good to be true! Unfortunately for them, what seems to be too good to be true, normally is. In this case, Lord McAlpine managed the normally impossible feat of proving a negative - he managed to prove that he was NOT a paedophile, even for most of the "no smoke without fire" merchants. This was what undid the BBC, also their hangers-on and fellow travellers like George Monbiot and Sally Bercow. That and their inability to resist triumphalist gloating, while burnishing their pretended concern for a genuine, but still delusional, victim, Steve Meesham.

They had the chance to kick an already shaky and embattled coalition while it was down, possibly even to bring the government down, and were wetting their nickers in excitement. They even had an element of plausible deniability, in that they did not actually directly name him - knowing perfectly well that the name would come out instantly and they laid all the signposts to ensure that it did. That this feeble piece of disingenous cowardice did not ultimately do them any good was not for want of trying - willing to wound, but afraid to strike, to strike in any way that they thought anyone could retaliate directly at them.

No need for any conspiracy theory of any greater complexity than this.
 MJH 16 Nov 2012
In reply to Simon4: Oh please, the right wing press hardly came out of this scot free. There was plenty of them jumping on the McAlpine bandwagon.
 seankenny 16 Nov 2012
In reply to Simon4:
> (In reply to muppetfilter)
> were wetting their nickers in excitement.

A BBC sub-editor would never let an error like this through. Or perhaps the spittle just obscured the screen?

Anyhow, another inspired rant Simon, good to see you managed not to mention Philip Schofield who I believe was not working for the BBC at the time. But however good the anti-BBC rant, and this is quality, it's getting a little, well, samey. Time for you to move on from rants into action. Don't pay your licence fee. Be willing to go to prison for your beliefs!
 The New NickB 16 Nov 2012
In reply to Simon4:

You know with the Beeb being the broadcasting arm of the Guardian, can you explain why it was the Guardian that actually exposed the mistaken identity!

Your obsession with the BBC and the Guardian and possibly Tom Watson is really destroying any credibility to anything you write. It is just delusional ranting, no better than some of the crimes against reality that you accuse this forums more aggressively left wing (and sometimes moderate) posters.
 Tyler 16 Nov 2012
In reply to The New NickB:

A question for the whole thread; Why are the BBC being sued when they didn't release the name? Are they vulnerable to being sued every time they report on a rumour when the subject of that rumour is subsequently unmasked?
Wiley Coyote2 16 Nov 2012
In reply to Tyler:
> (In reply to The New NickB)
>
> Why are the BBC being sued when they didn't release the name?

Contrary to a very common belief, you do not have to name the person to libel them, if they can be otherwise identified. In fact not naming your intended victim can make things even worse for you because entirely innocent people you had not the slightest intention of implicating can be placed under suspicion and in some cases may sue.

Also, while we're at it, the other common misconception that throwing in the word 'allegedly' as Ian Hislop jokingly does on HIGNFY, is unlikely to work either.
 Tyler 16 Nov 2012
In reply to Wiley Coyote:

> Contrary to a very common belief, you do not have to name the person to libel them, if they can be otherwise identified. In fact not naming your intended victim can make things even worse for you because entirely innocent people you had not the slightest intention of implicating can be placed under suspicion and in some cases may sue.

I didn't know that, makes me wonder what the test is. I didn't see Newsnight so don't know exactly what was said but 'senior figure in the Thatcher govt' probably narrows it down to over 100 people, maybe they said 'senior figure in the Thatcher govt whose name sounds like Mord LcAlpine'. The other thing that always puzzles me is when people say things like 'they are named all over the Internet' but where do you look for these things (e.g. users of superinjunctions) if you don't have a name to search for? I never found Lord McAlpine until he outed himself, maybe I should follow Sally Bercow's Twitter feed.

 The New NickB 16 Nov 2012
In reply to Tyler:

Funny thing is, she didn't name him in relation to the allegations either. The Daily Mail had to change an article night that libelled Mrs Speaker.

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