Hacking scandal exposes an elite who are a world apart

i AM sure that I am not the only member of the general public who is concerned about the company our leaders keep, namely the Prime Minister’s friendship with the chief executive of News International.

If as much attention was paid to my phone being hacked, I would call that a breach of my civil liberties, but it only applies to one section of society. We all know that our modern day leaders have not had day jobs, so to some extent they live in a fantasy world with one advisor advising another. Perhaps it is time Parliament was moved to Leeds so they can all get real.

From: Brian Sheridan, Redmries Road, Sheffield.

HOW eloquently Andrew Vine describes the depths of cynicism dredged by a section of the press in the case of Milly Dowler (Yorkshire Post, July 7).

We are talking about tampering with the phone of a missing child here. Surely the freedom of the Press, desirable as it is, cannot be absolute.

From: Tom Howley, Marston way, Wetherby.

FORMER trade unionist activist Bernard Ingham tells us why it doesn’t pay to be part of the trade union movement (Yorkshire Post, July 7).

Well, of course, it does pay to be a trade union member, but the protection that membership provides was almost terminally weakened by Prime Minister Thatcher’s determination to crush the only strength that working people had to achieve fairness and justice in the workplace.

Mrs Thatcher, of course, was seeking to make life easier for her friends in big business.

One of the first of Thatcher’s friends to profit from her changes to the Employment Act, which almost destroyed the trade union movement, was Australian Rupert Murdoch.

Politicians of all parties are terrified of Murdoch who wields his tabloid newspaper power without regard for the consequences. His Sun newspaper boasts that “it wins elections”.

Is Bernard Ingham proud to be a member of the same profession as the Murdoch journalists who have hacked into people’s lives for the sake of a headline?

From: Robert Reynolds, Harrogate.

I REALLY thought that, by now, the British people were numbed to the greed, stupidity and amoral behaviour of our society “elites”.

Whether bankers, politicians, journalists, policemen, their actions would cause a mere shrug of the shoulders as we continue our daily grind. Lions indeed led by donkeys. Yet the fall in sales and ad revenues of the News of the World, before the decision to close it, gives me hope.

As our so called political “leaders” are quaking in their boots after fraternising with a wounded Australian newspaper magnate, it really is amusing to watch our “masters” panic.

Personally, I think the British will fall for the usual sacrificial lamb technique much beloved of our Establishment. Indeed I’m prepared to lay bets. As a director of a company, you are held responsible for the activities of that company.

Yet how many bankers went to jail for the negligence they so blatantly displayed? Today, the banks continue with their old tricks as if nothing ever happened.