something missing here, surely

the full list of charges following Operation Weeting on phone hacking is handily produced for us by Guido.  But something is missing.  The individuals or groups of individuals whose phones were allegedly hacked are listed, but Mr Salter's name is not there!  And he identified himself as a target just a few short weeks ago, as we read in the Reading Chronicle (so it must be true)!  What can have gone wrong?  There must be a separate operation going on just in respect of the hacking of Salter's phone, don't you think?  Which will report in due course and will result in serious criminal charges.  Bound to happen.  Do I detect a note of scepticism in your resonse, dear reader?  Careful now.  Because if you are right, and there is no police operation going on in respect of the alleged hacking of Salter's phone, then Salter was either lying or deluded when he said he had been a target of News International, and that of course cannot be the case.  Can it?  And the Chronicle published a story which was a lie, and if they did not know then that it was a lie they do now.  So they'll publish a retraction, won't they?  Won't they? *sound of tumbleweed*

Leveson and Watson

Last month I wrote to Tom Watson MP, following the publication of a "story" in the Reading Chronicle which made me aware that he had submitted evidence to the Leveson Inquiry which referred to me by name, and which was untrue.  I sent the letter by registered mail.  I have not received a reply.  The text is below:

Tom Watson MP
House of Commons
London W1A 0AA

Dear Tom Watson

Leveson Inquiry

I refer to the evidence uploaded to the Leveson Inquiry website on 22 May 2012, and specifically to the part of that evidence submitted to you by Martin Salter and which referred to me by name (see below).

"After a turbulent relationship with her local party my neighbouring MP Jane Griffiths was eventually deselected on 22nd February 2004.  The following Sunday she gave an angry interview to the Mail on Sunday and tried to smear me and others in a series of wholly false and ridiculous allegations.  My solicitors Bindmans managed to have my name removed..."

I have written to the Inquiry (copy enclosed) formally requesting that this part of that evidence be removed from the transcript of the Inquiry, for the reasons that it is both untrue in its reference to myself and irrelevant to the Inquiry. Its irrelevance is in fact confirmed by its author, Martin Salter, in a comment he submitted to a story about the giving of that evidence published in the Reading Chronicle (copy enclosed). In fact it was on having my attention drawn to the Reading Chronicle story that I first became aware of the existence of this evidence submitted to the Inquiry by yourself.

I am formally requesting you to remove the part of the materials submitted to you by Martin Salter which refer to me from your evidence to the Inquiry. I hope you will agree to do this, so that I need not consider any further action.

At no time was I approached by any of the parties or informed that my name was going to be submitted in evidence to the Inquiry. This appears to me to be at the very least discourteous, if not actually in bad faith, the more so as we are former colleagues in the House, but the usual courtesies should surely apply to everyone if they are to be meaningful.

Finally, the Reading Chronicle story quotes Martin Salter as saying that you had approached former MPs for evidence of phone hacking or any other criminal or wrongful behaviour on the part of News International employees. I was not so approached, nor were a number of other former MPs with whom I am in touch. I should be grateful for the names of those you approached, as I think we could have a useful conversation on certain matters. If the names are not to be supplied, an indication of how many former MPs you approached would also be helpful.

I can be contacted as above, and look forward to hearing from you.

Jane Griffiths

At the time of writing this post that evidence submitted by Tom Watson MP has not been withdrawn, and I have received no communication from him.  I have now made my own submission to the inquiry, which had not originally been my intention.  It is factual. 

I now have to consider my position and any future action.

it's different for girls

Readers will remember that I posted some days ago about some nonsense in the Reading Chronicle, dictated to them by Martin Salter.  The headline of their story, that Salter had given evidence to the Leveson inquiry, was a plain lie.  And they knew it was.  But the Chronicle's willingness to publish lies knowing them to be lies is well known in Reading and further afield. However, they took the opportunity to have dictated to them some untruths about yours truly, which Tom Watson MP has chosen to submit to the Leveson inquiry, although they are totally irrelevant to it.  I am taking action in respect of Tom Watson MP and of the Leveson inquiry people separately, as you might expect me to.  In respect of the Chronicle I asked for withdrawal of the untruths in the story and for a reply, to be given equal prominence with the piece of dictation they had previously taken from Martin Salter.  They have refused, and have told me I may write a letter for publication, which must be significantly shorter than the original piece and which will be subject to their editorial control.  I'm not doing that.  I've posted my response as a comment on the on-line version of the story, but if you read the Chronicle only on paper you will see nothing.  You might wonder how many other untruths go uncorrected in that organ.

it gets better - Mr Salter engages in dialogue!

he has commented on the Chronicle story referred to - like this:

Just for the record. My solicitors were contacted by officers from Operation Weeting earlier this month regarding some phone records that had just come to light and which are currently the subject of investigation. Ms Griffiths is of no relevance to the attempt to bribe a police officer in 2000 in the wake of my spat with the NoW over their Sarah's Law campaign and only of passing relevance to impersonation incident in 2004 which was a follow up by the NoW to her Mail on Sunday deselection allegations.

Along with other former MPs I agreed to provide Tom Watson with examples of illegal behaviour by News International to assist his evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. I remain convinced, as I said in my statement, that there was a culture of criminality in parts of News International which had a corrupting effect on our public life. I await the outcome of the three police enquiries and Leveson with considerable interest.

Martin Salter 


I'll refrain from fisking for a little while, would be interested in what readers think.  It is not his usual prose style, especially the missing article in line 4, would simply point out that if he was seeking to provide Tom Watson MP with examples of illegal behaviour he has not done so.  It was not illegal to go to his house and try to speak to him.  Oh and Mr S - why did you not sue?  Especially over the fraudulent housing allowance claims 1997-2001?  Hein?

my response to the lies

The Reading Chronicle published this yesterday, so here is my response to it.  I have also put it in the comments box on the story, and they have said they will publish a shortened version in the dead-tree remix.

I read with interest your copy of a press release from a Mr Martin Salter titled "Ex-Reading MP tells Leveson he was a News of the World target". Apparently Mr Salter is upset that the now defunct News of the World ran an "unpleasant" story about him refusing to back its Sarah's Law campaign in 2000. Poor love. Journalists not always being nice about people in public life? That must have come as a terrible shock to the notoriously publicity-shy and reclusive MP. Understandably still traumatised 12 years later by the dreadful discovery that there are parts of the print media which are sometimes unwilling to copy out his press releases, Mr Salter has attempted to heal those wounds by providing his tale of woe as evidence for Tom Watson MP to present to the Leveson inquiry. What Tom Watson was thinking when he agreed to accept this stuff is another matter. But I have read Tom Watson's ghostwritten book "Dial M for Murdoch", which is not only crammed with inaccuracies but reveals that Tom Watson at one stage believed himself to be mentally ill. We're with you on that, Tommy-boy! Mr Salter takes up the story. The News of the World went to his home! Shock! Horror! They had a photographer! Anguish! Terror! He was indeed terrified. He had to stay away from home for the Whole Day! In case the Nasty Men came back! I am reliably informed that he spent the day in Reading West, where he knew the press would never find him. They were searching for him, of course, in Reading East. A cunning stunt, I'm sure you will agree.

Anyway, the reason I have taken up my pen is that Mr Salter's press release contained the following:

"In 2004, former Reading East MP Jane Griffiths, (punctuation errors either Mr Salter's or the Reading Chronicle's) attempted to "smear" him with "a series of wholly false and ridiculous allegations" in an "angry interview" with the Mail on Sunday after she was deselected by her local Labour party." First, matters of fact. No smear. A smear is an allegation, usually untrue, but anyway intended to make the person it is about look in some way bad or as though they have done something they have not done. Everything I said in relation to Mr Salter was factual. Not only this, but he said so himself at the time, telling MPs and anyone who would listen that he had "coughed to the dope". (No, me neither. I think it's a secret language they speak in Staines.) "Ridiculous" my words may have made Mr Salter seem, but "false" they were not. If they had been, why did he not sue me? He brags about his litigiousness often enough. Also, I was not "angry" during the interview. The journalist and I had a good laugh together. I've let the journalist know about this nonsense, and I have of course contacted both Tom Watson MP and the Leveson inquiry team. Second, why was this nonsense given in evidence to the Leveson inquiry? There is no connection with phone hacking. Except in Mr Salter's dreams. He tells us that on the day in question the Horrid Newspaper Man made 20 calls to him, which he ignored. He also tells us that to this day, eight years on, he is still "trying to figure out" if there had been "an attempt to illegally access his voicemail messages". No evidence for it, Martin. Sorry mate, you're just not interesting enough.

I am grateful to the delightful Sally Stevens of Berkshire Media for allowing me the opportunity to reply to the nonsensical falsehoods peddled by Mr Salter in the pages of the Reading Chronicle. It does the heart good to know that not all newspapers allow lies and smears to go unchallenged

targeted? how exactly?

the Leveson inquiry goes on, and Tom Watson MP has been giving evidence to it.  According to this report, Watson referred to the "targeting" of then MP Martin Salter for opposing "Sarah's Law" as an example of the power wielded by the Murdoch empire.  He's got that one way wrong.  First of all, Salter was not actually targeted at all.  He was pictured in the News of the World, with about eight other MPs, all of the pictures seriously unflattering, because all had responded to the paper's call on MPs to support "Sarah's Law" with vocal opposition.  (Me, I threw that letter in the bin and ignored it all).  That was the extent of the "targeting" that took place.  Anything else was in Mr Salter's press releases,  Even His Master's Voice frames their copy of his press release as a question, perhaps because even they balked at the reproduction in his press release of the completely false story that a paediatrician was burned out of their home because of the activities of News of the World journalists.  Didn't stop them copying it out though.  Allegedly, Devon and Cornwall police at one stage had evidence that an investigator was looking at Mr Salter's activities.  Well, if one was he didn't work very hard at it, or he would have found the fraudulent housing allowance claims from 1997 to 2001 (when disclosure rules came in) - about 48K trousered for a non-existent London flat.  I posted about the allegations last year here.  Now Mr Watson, I have read your book 'Dial M for Murdoch' (great title, shame about the numerous inaccuracies) and you ought to be a bit more careful.  I don't know if Leveson questioned you about the "targeting" but he ought to have done.  What? Exactly? Happened?