Jew World Order

By
Richard Littlejohn

Last updated at 12:13 AM on 6th January 2012

Even though I’ve never been a specialist crime reporter, I seem to have spent half my life drinking with coppers.

Back in the mid-1980s, I used to frequent a popular members’ club where you could find Fleet Street’s finest rubbing shoulders with Scotland Yard detectives, well-known trades union leaders, assorted politicians and reputed members of a notorious South London crime syndicate.

It could well have been the model for the Winchester Club in Minder. But it wasn’t to be found in Wild West London, it was within the sound of the House of Commons division bell.

Routine: I used to be a regular a popular members’ club where you could routinely find journalists rubbing shoulders with Scotland Yard detectives

Before the licensing reforms which allowed pubs to open all day, there were dozens of these drinkers all over London. This particular dive was handily placed for Scotland Yard, Transport House, Conservative Central Office, MI5 headquarters, Horseferry Road Magistrates Court, Westminster Abbey and Westminster Cathedral.

On any given afternoon, the eclectic cast list could include both Catholic and Anglican priests, Tory and Labour MPs, senior coppers, known villains and several prominent members of the TUC general council.

There was also a mysterious man in a gaberdine suit, content to sit on his own in the corner, sucking a large gin and doing the crossword in the Evening Standard. We always assumed this was one of the Funny People taking a late lunch. I said be careful, his bow-tie is probably a camera.

We weren’t only there for the beer. There were any number of places you could get a gargle when the pubs were shut for the afternoon. We were there for the company and what we might learn.

The Winchester Club was an information exchange — a real world, analogue version of the internet chatroom, complete with large scotches and stale scotch eggs.

Stories were swapped, gossip traded, but there were always boundaries, lines which were never crossed. We all knew the rules. What you heard in the Winchester, stayed in the Winchester, unless otherwise agreed.

As an industrial correspondent, I picked up most of my best stories over a few sherbets. But I was also trusted with plenty more which have never appeared in print to this day.

My colleagues on the crime beat had to be even more careful. Often, they were involved in reporting highly-sensitive, live investigations. They had to respect the confidences of their contacts, otherwise their careers would crash and burn quicker than you could say: ‘Put your trousers on, chummy, you’re nicked.’

Most of the coppers I’ve met have been great company. Gregarious, usually hilarious, storytellers — but cautious with it. They’re not going to tell you anything which could scupper their chances of securing a conviction or bring themselves to the attention of the Rubber Heel squad.

Sadly, the phone-hacking scandal has thrown up allegations of bribery and corruption. There have been bent coppers and corrupt hacks ever since Sir Robert Peel gave his first interview to the Pall Mall Gazette.

Laws already exist to deal with the guilty.

But the hysteria surrounding phone-hacking at the News of the World, and the closeness of some former senior officers at Scotland Yard to News International, now threatens to incriminate the innocent and destroy the functioning of a free Press.

Outrageously, it is being insinuated openly that any contact between police officers and journalists is fundamentally corrupt and dishonest. This notion has been stoked by venal politicians agitating for revenge over Press exposure of the Parliamentary expenses scandal.

Into this toxic atmosphere steps Dame Elizabeth Filkin, who was invited last summer to draw up a report on the relationship between the police and Fleet Street. She was recruited by former Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson, shortly before he was forced to resign for accepting a free stay at a health farm. Dame Elizabeth quit her previous job as Parliamentary Standards Commissioner, partly because of a vicious cross-party campaign of character assassination following her rigorous sleaze investigations into, among others, Keith Vaz and Peter Mandelson.

Concerning: Dame Elizabeth Filkin (right) has ruled in a report that police officers must keep a record of any conversation with journalists. She was recruited by former Met Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson (left)

But she overstepped her brief when she tried to seize additional powers and set herself up as the final arbiter of disputes between MPs and their constituents. That raised the hackles of even squeaky-clean MPs and earned her the nickname ‘The Madwoman in the Attic’. She was accused of lacking a basic understanding of the political process. We have elections to settle disputes between MPs and those they are paid to represent.

Having read the findings and recommendations of her latest investigation, one can only conclude that she lacks a basic understanding of what goes on in the real world, too.

Patronising doesn’t begin to cover it. Her report is an insult to the intelligence of every serving police officer at Scotland Yard.
It reads like a Victorian chaperone warning a virgin debutante about the bestial intentions of moustache-twirling serial seducers. When coming into contact with reporters, the police are advised to ‘watch out’ for . . .

‘Alcohol. Late-night carousing, long sessions, yet another bottle of wine at lunch — these are all long-standing media tactics to get you to spill the beans. Avoid.

‘Flirting. Often linked with alcohol. Designed to get you to drop your defences and say far more than you intended. Be careful.

‘I’ll make it worth your while. If you think they mean money, say no and beat a hasty retreat. Make sure the press office and the Department of Professional Standards know.

‘There’s a difference between the offer of a pint and the offer of £500.’

You get the gist. There’s 76 pages of this drivel, addressed to someone with the IQ of a three-year-old.

Sometimes it’s difficult to know where to start. I can only speak from personal experience, having split the odd lamb chop and shared the occasional bottle of wine with the police.

In my experience, most coppers can drink most journalists under the table. And that’s going some. Captain Beaujolais wasn’t called Captain Beaujolais because he stuck to skinny lattes all night.

And although I’ve had plenty of dinners with senior policemen, including a bit of late-night carousing, I’ve never been aware of any flirting — not even when I swallowed five bottles of Sancerre with Brian Paddick at The Ivy. Mind you, he was flirting with one of the waiters, come to think of it.

Policemen and women know the difference between a beer and a bung. And as for trusting the press office to do the right thing, the last time I spoke to Scotland Yard’s director of communications, he lied to me.

He’s now on gardening leave over his relationship with a former News of the World executive.

What on earth was new Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe doing when he agreed to accept every single one of Dame Elizabeth’s absurd recommendations? He was under no obligation to do so.

Hogan-Howe is supposed to have a reputation for sound judgment. Well, he’s screwed this one up, insulted the integrity of his subordinates and played into the hands of the Home Office, which wants to take control of the Yard and restrict the flow of all information to the media.

Courage: The Daily Mail’s unprecedented front-page on February 14, 1997

As two of Stephen Lawrence’s killers begin their jail sentences, it is worth reflecting that their convictions would never have come about had it not been for this newspaper’s brilliant campaign, which was conducted with the support and co-operation of the police.

Our crime reporters were convinced the five suspects were guilty. By sheer coincidence, in the week leading up to his decision to publish the ‘Murderers’ headline — which named all five — the Mail’s editor had lunch with a senior Scotland Yard officer, who told him words to the effect that he would stake his life on their guilt.

Under Elizabeth Filkin’s recommendations, that senior officer would be guilty of malpractice and detectives working on the case would be forbidden from sharing any information — let alone, heaven forbid, half a lager — with reporters working on a story designed to bring a gang of racist murderers to justice.

Then again, what else should we expect from a self-righteous Grande Quangocrat, a former lecturer and community worker, who has never had a job in the real world and only mixes with other people like herself.

That’s probably why I don’t ever remember seeing her down the Winchester. Pity, she might have learned something.

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