Cycling UK Forum

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/news ... -200m.html

Some pretty big somes there - appoaching $200 million* a big bill to pay - allegedly for paying the Bill

* A tip for Rupert from the thirdcrank book of home psychology - thry thinking of it in imperial - £126 million sounds a bit less.

I find it a bit sinister that the police, an organisation implicated in the alleged corruption of this whole affair, are investigating other alleged criminals.

No police have been arrested yet. What a surprise.

I regard police corruption as a thousand times more serious than corrupt newspaper employees.

If no police were prepared to take cash from journalists then journalists wouldn't bother offering it. The root cause of this whole matter is alleged police corruption.

Corruption by public servants like the police should be investigated as a matter of urgency, and before any investigation of wrongdoing by newspaper employees.

blackbike wrote: ... No police have been arrested yet. ...

I think that bit is factually incorrect.

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edit to add:-

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16999659

The lowest payout that I have noticed so far was some MP who got £40,000.
This is one occasion when I seriously wish that I had been the victim of a crime!!

I dont normally agree with the METs feeble excuses and I am not someone who is remotely worried by the "terrorist threat" but when the MET say they were busy looking into that area at the time I fully accept that excuse.

Obviously any Police corruption needs looking into but as pointed out the bent Officers are just collateral damage from the inquiry.

meic wrote:
Obviously any Police corruption needs looking into but as pointed out the bent Officers are just collateral damage from the inquiry.

No they're not.

They are absolutely fundamental to it and the root cause of the whole affair.

If no police staff accepted bribes then there'd be no point anyone offering them.

That is true except that the Police were not the target. The impression I got from Radio 4 is that this was about the Newspapers and the Celebs, people only started to mention the Police later on when the spotlight on the other two accidentally caught them there too. Collateral damage.

Didnt "Two Jags" have to take out his own personal civil case against the MET because his complaints were being ignored.

I totally agree that the Police corruption is the most important bit of the whole affair.
With any prying into MPs, lawyers, NHS etc confidential communications about their duties coming next.

Everything that's been unearthed in this case is appalling and steadily getting worse. The report in my Daily T link that a figure cannot be put on future liabilities seems to imply that there may be more to come. When I thought of this thread, my initial idea was to create a segregated farcility for the current press cycling campaign. After the sudden folding of the NoW, we now have reassurance about the future of The Sun. Presumably. it's not impossible that this might spread to The Times.

It's my impression that there is little corruption at street level in our public services, although I'm not suggesting it should not be investigated whenever it is suspected and dealt with firmly when it is detected, especially if it involves the police. It is, IMO, a chicken and egg situation about the cause. When people with big wallets are alleged to be involved, it is said that every man has his price. I've never been tempted, either to offer somebody leniency in return for a bung, or perhaps more to the point, by somebody offering me a substantial sum for info (or leniency.) That's part of my reason for thinking it's not widespread. I've never been privy to secret info, but nor has anybody ever tried to see how many 000's would be on my price ticket. I doubt if many people could be sure how they would respond to what Noel E calls life-changing money.

Part of this is the damage to public confidence in our institutions, including the news media. It seems, for example, that even current and factual reports from the BBC are not trusted by some people.

I think that in the UK people dont offer blatant upfront bribes.

They just give or offer future gifts, no strings attached.

Then mysteriously and unconnectedly they get some benefits and they give more gifts and so on.

Many major MPs, cabinet ministers now get HUGE consultancy fees for very little work for companies which benefited during their time in power.

Not corruption, not bribery all perfectly legal. No deals or promises were made.

All registered in the register of interests.

Yes, it's one of my eternal regrets that I never had any interesting beans to spill. Otherwise, there might be a nice job in retirement as some newspaper's crime pundit. As it is, I'm reduced to doing it all for nothing on here.

About 25 years ago I worked for a small but very rich company headed by a very rich individual. His opinion which he had no hesitation in sharing was that you could buy anyone or anything. It was just a matter of getting the price right. His actions and results a few times seemed to back this up. Nowadays in this even more materialistic age there appear to be quite a few who work on this principle.