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Guardian Slams Telegraph Suggesting HSBC Coverage Was Biased Due To Owners' £250 MM Loan From Bank
Two days ago, we wrote about the dramatic resignation of The Telegraph's chief political commentator, Peter Oborne, who quit accusing the newspaper of a “fraud on its readers” over its coverage, or rather lack thereof, of the HSBC money-laundering and tax evasion scandals. In a blistering attack on the paper’s management and owners, the Barclays brothers, Sir David and Sir Frederick, Oborne claimed the paper deliberately suppressed stories about the banking group in order to keep its valuable advertising account. He said it was a “most sinister development” at the paper, where he claimed the traditional distinction between the advertising and editorial department had collapsed."
Owners of the Daily Telegraph, Frederick and David Barclay
Oborne claimed that HSBC had suspended its advertising with the Telegraph after it ran an investigation in November 2012 based on leaked details of personal accounts held with HSBC in Jersey. He also claims that reporters were ordered to destroy all emails, reports and documents related to the HSBC investigation. “This was the pivotal moment,” Oborne wrote.
A few hours ago, The Telegraph responded with its own blistering retort, saying that it "makes no apology for the way in which it has covered the HSBC group and the allegations of wrongdoing by its Swiss subsidiary." It then promptly changes the topic and deviates away from the facts with what is an ideological ad hominem against those who cast the "allegations that have been so enthusiastically promoted by the BBC, the Guardian and their ideological soulmates in the Labour Party."
The Telegraph continues:
We have covered this matter as we do all others, according to our editorial judgment and informed by our values. Foremost among those values is a belief in free enterprise and free markets.
We are proud to be the champion of British business and enterprise. In an age of cheap populism and corrosive cynicism about wealth-creating businesses, we have defended British industries including the financial services industry that accounts for almost a tenth of the UK economy, sustains two million jobs and provides around one in every eight pounds the Exchequer raises in tax.
It gets better as the editorial author is eager to engage in a flame war with its biggest competitors thereby once again diverting from the topic at hand:
We will take no lectures about journalism from the likes of the BBC, the Guardian or the Times. Those media outlets that are this week sniping about our coverage of HSBC were similarly dismissive in 2009 when we began to reveal details of MPs’ expenses claims, a fact that speaks volumes about their judgment and partiality.
And the dramatic crescendo of the conclusion:
Given the importance we attach to that bond with our readers, we are today going further. We are drawing up guidelines that will define clearly and openly how our editorial and commercial staff will co-operate in an increasingly competitive media industry, particularly in digital publishing, an area whose journalistic and commercial importance can only grow.
We believe that this step makes us different from our rivals in the British media industry. Or rather, even more different. For The Daily Telegraph and its owner, Telegraph Media Group, are significantly unlike other media organisations involved in this debate. Unlike the BBC, we receive no support from taxpayers. Unlike the Guardian, we are not cushioned from commercial reality by a generously-endowed charitable trust. Unlike the Times, we receive no subsidy from tabloid stablemates. Unlike all three of those, we must generate a profit in order to remain in business and provide our readers with the world-class journalism they expect and deserve. Despite the ever-growing pressures on the media industry, we do produce that profit and, as a direct result, that journalism.
A profit... and perhaps the occasional loan from a conflicted party in question.
Because the ink had not even dried on the emotional monologue, when none other than the abovementioned Guardian "cushioned from commercial reality by a generously-endowed charitable trust" or whatever, appears to have discovered the reason for the Telegraph's editorial intervention on the topic. In "Telegraph owners' £250m HSBC loan raises fresh questions over coverage", we learn that "the owners of the Daily Telegraph secured a £250m loan from HSBC for a struggling corner of their business empire shortly before the newspaper’s reporters were allegedly “discouraged” from running articles critical of the bank, the Guardian has learned."
As they say: "Oops."
Where this is headed is clear from the onset: "The timing of the loan deal for Yodel, a loss-making parcel delivery firm owned by the Barclay brothers, raises fresh questions over the influence of commercial considerations on the Telegraph’s editorial coverage of HSBC. The deal was completed on 14 December 2012, company documents show. The paper’s former chief political commentator Peter Oborne alleged this week that there was a sea-change in its editorial treatment of the bank from early 2013. "
The documents show that Sir David and Sir Frederick Barclay had to formally give a personal financial guarantee as additional security for the loan facility.
...
Yodel refinanced in mid-December 2012 with Europe’s biggest bank. As security, the bank took a charge over almost all the Yodel business - meaning the bank could take control of the parcel delivery group should the latter breach its borrowing commitments.
The new HSBC loan was used to repay previous borrowings from Lloyds Banking Group. The Yodel business made a loss of £112m for the year to 30 June 2013. Yodel filings show an outstanding amount of £242m was due on the HSBC loan at the end of June 2013 and there are no filings since then suggesting the debt has been repaid.
When the Barclay family was contacted by the Guardian, declined to comment on the loan, but a source close to the family dismissed suggestions that the Telegraph’s coverage could have been influenced by a loan from HSBC. The source also pointed out that the family’s businesses had borrowings with many other banks.
Which begs the question: how many of those "other banks" also advertise on the Telegraph, and how many "world-class journalism" exposes on said banks which the Telegraph's readers "expect and deserve" have been provided in the area of digital publishing, an area whose, as the Telegraph op-ed noted, "journalistic and commercial importance can only grow." Well, maybe if not journalistic then certainly commercial.
That said, the Telegraph was spot on about one thing: it is "an age of cheap populism and corrosive cynicism about wealth-creating businesses."
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£250 MM?!
That's like the pimple on the ass of a fly that is on the ass of an elephant in the reality that is the lies for empire.
The banksters need to repay us.
Here is the Rest of the Story for those surfing in from the Internet:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-02-16/hsbc-bank-secret-origins-launde...
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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is mulling attaching his Audit the Fed legislation to a vote to raise the debt ceiling, Paul spokesman Brian Darling told The Hill.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) has introduced Audit the Fed legislation in the House, where it is expected to easily pass.
It's unclear whether the measure would be able to survive in the new-GOP controlled Senate, as Paul would need to pick up Democratic support to overcome a filibuster.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) — each viewed as top progressives on the Senate Banking Committee, which has jurisdiction on the bill — have come out against the bill.
Paul's bill has 31 co-sponsors, with just one Democrat: Sen. Mazie Hirono (Hawaii).
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) has said that he will have a hearing on Audit the Fed.
Paul held a rally on the issue in Des Moines, Iowa, earlier this month and he has fundraised on it, too. Paul's father, former Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), was an early supporter of the legislation.
Bill Still has been ranting about this in his award winning documentaries for years. The media corporations and the oligarchs who own them are beholden to the banks not just for ad revenue but for hundreds of millions if not billions in loans and operational financing needs.
Notice the parasites always bring up taxes, as if taxation were the moral high ground.
That right there should tell you what they think about the people whom are not living within range of the free fiat spigot.
"the traditional distinction between the advertising and editorial department had collapsed."
hmm, about 40 years ago
"the financial services industry that accounts for almost a tenth of the UK economy, sustains two million jobs and provides around one in every eight pounds the Exchequer raises in tax. "
"Notice the parasites always bring up taxes, as if taxation were the moral high ground. "
The financial services industry does not generate production, it only generates inflations, or manages speculations or transactions:
1. It creates money through lending it into existance or rehypothecating collateral assets privately amongst it's member institutions. Inflation.
OR
2. Collects monetary rents by charging interest and fees from businesses and other productive sectors of the economy.
OR
3. Charges tolls for clearing transactions much as a toll highway between every economic transaction/destination.
OR
4. Garners hush monies for creating and maintaining tax avaoidance schemes and shell accounts for dubious businesses and high net worth individuals that are specifically seeking to avoid paying the prevailing rates that would apply to them.
...That these inflations, interest charges and rents and tolls -and high net worth tax avoidance schemes- should amount to 10% or more of the economy shows just how pernicious and parasitic the whole financial regime has become...
HSBC subprime mortage business gets forgotten too ; the bank purchased USA Household International back in 2003 , were later warned and sued for predatory lending practices.
Plenty of articles can be found on the internet covering all aspects of this and other irregular activities of Europe's, London based, largest bank.
http://www.innercitypress.org/hsbc.html
A wave of truth seams to be moving in. Let hope this increase in truth become a secular bull move.
Crap, where am I gonna get reliable American news?
this could get ugly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3SwNXQMoNps
the family says"we borrow from lots of banks" well of course you do dear.
it's London. Need i say more?
And given what we know, what is so sacred to Londoners about Money, Markets, Ethos, Laws, and Royal Decrees.
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AMERICAN AND BRITISH spies hacked into the internal computer network of the largest manufacturer of SIM cards in the world, stealing encryption keys used to protect the privacy of cellphone communications across the globe, according to top-secret documents provided to The Intercept by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.
The hack was perpetrated by a joint unit consisting of operatives from the NSA and its British counterpart Government Communications Headquarters, or GCHQ. The breach, detailed in a secret 2010 GCHQ document, gave the surveillance agencies the potential to secretly monitor a large portion of the world’s cellular communications, including both voice and data.
the laundry of UK high society, dirtiest, yup...
from East India Company to present days.
Effen Pedofiles. Tyler, after reading how the drug cartels were formed, I've little respect for the British.
Technically the twins are not British. They are tax dodgers claiming residence in Monaco.
The Guardian has stated that the brothers are tax exiles, and although they reside, at least some of the time, in Monaco (giving Avenue de Grande Bretagne, Monte Carlo as their address) they operate their businesses from an office in the United Kingdom. When asked if he was a tax exile, Sir Frederick stated that he lived abroad for health reasons.The corporate tax arrangements of the Ritz Hotel, which was purchased and refurbished by the brothers in 1995, was the subject of a December 2012 investigation by BBC's Panorama current affairs television programme. The hotel has paid no corporation tax in the UK by legally claiming reliefs for 17 years.
Just another layer of slime to their already tainted veneer.
Nice work.
Thank you.
Freddie and David were up to lots of nefarious stuff, not mention outright criminality long before 1995, my friend.
yeah ill bet this is just to take the publics mind off the ongoing kiddie porn subject
Nuke 'em:
Stop whoring for Wall Street.
http://www.showrealhist.com/yTRIAL.html
http://patrick.net/?p=1223928
Brain Williams and now this. Let the incestuous bitch-slapping begin.
The irony is that all of them are guilty of selective truths, half truths and outright lies.
The sadness is that nothing will change.
Brian Williams was there. It happened.
Sir Freddie and Sir David have a very interesting history.
They're a couple of thieves, truth be known.
Pravda Times.....allshitnews.com
The Telegraph is only "Telegraphing" to the public that they too, have things to hide....all this sanctimonious stuff is just sweatin' bullets to head 'em off at the pass-or whistling past the graveyard (sure i killed the guy-but hey-at least i have a job and give to all the right charities" ) ha ha ha ha ha ha!
Wait, I think I've seen these two guy before.. -Brothers you say??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjkdynBFHuQ
it's enough to see how Guaridan covers Ukraine and 'global warming' stories to conclude that: yes, Guaridan is the worst biased piece of shit...
The Guardian?
You want to see the muck in the Telegraph on Russia and the Ukraine.
Unflipping believable.
Sheer poison.
Telegraph
Telecrap!.
Muzzles its journalists.
Muzzles most comments from its readers.
Most articles of substance - comments now stopped.
And the pro Tory and anti Russian/Putin propaganda it presents as 'news' is beyond sickening, its stomach churning.
Everyday a spiteful article against two targets.
Nigel Farage and UKIP.
Against Vladimir Putin and Russia.
Drip drip drip.
And deletes and 'modifies' and censors the comments which overwhelmingly support both.
Presstitution at its most blatant.
Very simple solution. Stop consuming oligarchy products. Buy local. Buy organic. Just stop buying McDonalds, watching TV and reading these shitty newspapers. Read a book instead. Wake the fuck up world.