I think the outrage of many online at Jonnie Marbles is venting at an easy target. It’s telling that the person getting most abuse out of yesterday is not Rebekah Brooks’ Facebook friend John Whittingdale who shut down Tom Watson’s questioning of the Murdochs just as it looked like it might bear some fruit, or Louise Mensch using the opportunity to grandstand and smear political opponents, or even the Murdochs, but a man with a pie.

Anyway, my thoughts are here: http://nathanieltapley.com/2011/07/20/on-custard-piety/

I’m assuming he isn’t in prison then, which is good.

Assaulting an 80 year old man is a scummy and worthless thing to do, but battery is a pretty minor offence in the grand scheme of things.

Interrupting a parliamentary hearing, and making it much more likely that the public will be excluded from such hearings in the future is far more serious. They should do him for Contempt of Parliament (an offence that is an exact match for the circumstances yesterday). Hasn’t been done for a while, I wouldn’t have thought, but maximum sentence there would be for the remainder of this Parliament. (Used to be locked up in St Stephen’s Tower, but I suspect this really has fallen into desuetude…).

As a constitutional geek, I’d love to see that happen, purely for the precedent, and even if the sentence was nominal.

Who is the bloke next to Tom Watson who is completely still throughout?

Comedy, it’s all about the timing. If Comedian Johnnie Marbles had pied Murdoch any other day he’d have been a hero, with his future secured. Instead he is almost wholly reviled as an idiot (or worse) and will likely serve some time in the nick.

What an arse. Politicians finally begin to stand up to Murdoch, finally succeed in getting him in front of them, finally start asking some awkward questions, and this idiot thinks it’s his place to scupper that process? He didn’t just show contempt for Parliament, he showed contempt for everyone who wants to see the truth about all this come to light – the public, the victims of phone hacking, everyone. As it happens, questioning was resumed; but there’s no way he could have known it would be.

It beggars belief that anyone could think there’s more symbolism in the image of a powerful man with shaving foam on his face than there is in the image of a powerful man being brought to the House of Commons to squirm in front of a committee of MPs. A sillier, more irrelevant gesture would be hard to imagine; it’s like someone shouting out ‘poo-poo head!’ during the cross-examination of a war criminal.

So he’s one of the UKuncut organisers. I’ve never been a fan of them. Too studenty.

That’s him being interviewed on the Newsnight film.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/9383598.stm

The chap on the right-hand end of the horseshoe is magnificent.

@damon
UK Uncut were quick to distance themselves from this incident on their twitter feed. This WASN’T a UK Uncut demonstration even if he is a member, this was one man acting as his own publicity machine and if you’ve seen his “comedy” online he needs all the help he can get.

Why was it necessary for the two of them to appear together? All we got was Murdoch the lesser constantly attempting to answer questions addressed to Murdoch the elder in an monotonous nasal corporate-speak. It would have been much more productive if the elder had appeared on his own and the lesser could just have written down his answers as they were choreographed anyway.

I imagine his actions would have been much more helpful and less counter-productive if he were Milly Dowler’s father. But since he isn’t…

@Richard W

I agree. The only time anyone seemed to get anything out of them was when Tom Watson stopped them answering on behalf of each other.

Until she was arrested, of course, RB was scheduled to appear with them.

“I’m assuming he isn’t in prison then, which is good.”

What Tim J said

It would have been much more productive if the elder had appeared on his own and the lesser could just have written down his answers as they were choreographed anyway.

No it wouldn’t. It might have been more dramatic a spectacle, but the thing that became clear was that RM doesn’t (or seems not to) have all that much detailed information on the day-to-day running of his newspapers. So the answer to most questions would have been ‘I don’t know’, which isn’t terribly productive.

Personally I assumed he was commenting on the ridiculousness of the entire select committee process, not that of the person in front of it. Does anyone really believe this process was or is going to make any difference to Rupert Murdoch’s power and reach? I’ll be amazed if it has any significant short-term consequences, let alone long-term.

The best comparator I have for circumstances is probably the Fathers for Jusice talcum-powder on Tony Blair at PMQ incident – a stunt when the world is watching.

The charge was “threatening, abusive or insulting words or behaviour”, but it was not pressed.

This one would seem to be some variety of assault, and there’s also more legislation in place since 2004.

Does an attack on a witness not a politician make a difference.

The security seems to be less that in our local Magistrates’ Court.

The power of the political pie discussed here
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2011/07/a-cultural-history-of-pie-ing-from-mr-flip-to-rupert-murdoch/242188/#slide1

Anita Bryant is pied mid-rant against ‘the homosexuals’ – made me chuckle, anyway
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dS91gT3XT_A

I tend to agree with Denny [14] – even when caught protagonists just keep lying.
This charade will be about as effective as Sir Johnny Chilcot’s bluster-fest.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/04/chilcot-inquiry-tony-blair

Guy P. But he didn’t just start being a prat yesterday by the look of him.
Some of that UK Uncut behavior seems pretty juvenile and attention seeking too.

well done jonnie,thanks for getting sympathy for me and admiration for my wife wendi. your cheque is in the post
yours
rupert murdoch

He only attempted to pie a man, FFS, he isn’t a suicide bomber or Lee Harvey Oslwald. Get over it people. A forty quid fine and an ‘on your way, you little scamp’ should suffice.

BTW while the incident was occuring, did Mucky Murdoch manage to retain control over his bowels?

13. Tim J

” No it wouldn’t. It might have been more dramatic a spectacle, but the thing that became clear was that RM doesn’t (or seems not to) have all that much detailed information on the day-to-day running of his newspapers. So the answer to most questions would have been ‘I don’t know’, which isn’t terribly productive. ”

Being together did not make much difference as I don’t know is pretty much how the other answered the rather softball questions anyway. Not being informed of the facts was actually productive in exposing issues relating to poor corporate governance. They will both be gone from News Corp within a year as the institutional investors want the two of them out. May even be sooner. The old boy has lost it and yesterday confirmed as much. News Corp assets are worth twice the value broken up as the capitalisation because of the Murdoch Discount.

yeah it was quite funny though

“To show the ridiculousness of Murdoch’s power would have required something more ingenious and clever. “

Or a parliamentary committee that had him flailing on the ropes until “Jonnie Marbles” tried to make it about him.

Not being informed of the facts was actually productive in exposing issues relating to poor corporate governance.

Only up to a point. News Corp is a $50bn business. No chairman or chief executive could reasonably be expected to have total grasp of day-to-day operations of every component part.

It’s a sufficiently decentralised business that its subsidiaries took decisions over payments of hundreds of thousands of pounds without needing to consult the parent organisation. You can argue that it shouldn;t be so decentralised, but not that it’s illegal or improper for it to be.

And clearly Rupert Murdoch’s not going to be chairman/CEO forever. He’s 80. But he’s not dead yet. Premature grave-dancing I think.

@damon Yes I agress JMarbles appears to have been trying very hard for a number of years and his “comedy” is as poor as his aim, however, I do believe UK Uncut have been successful in highlighting the tax evasion in this country to a large number of people but this incident had nothing to do with UK Uncut.

Also to top off the routine Jonnie Marbles apparently shouts “you naughty billionaire”….more like Jonnie Mumbles.

@2 – Yes, a charge of contempt of parliament does seem quite fitting here. A sentence of a fine and his being banned from the Parliament complex for five years would also be appropriate.

Obviously a false flan operation. If he appears in court represented by Harbottle & Lewis, we’ll know who’s paying his defence costs.

Massive respect to Jim Sheridan, I think, for remaining utterly unmoved throughout.

Massive respect to Jim Sheridan, I think, for remaining utterly unmoved throughout.

That’s just how he looks while he’s waiting for the next thought to come through.

*starts premature grave dancing* WOH! YEAH! COME ON!

23. Tim J

“Only up to a point. News Corp is a $50bn business. No chairman or chief executive could reasonably be expected to have total grasp of day-to-day operations of every component part. ”

A CEO of a $50bn corporation can’t be expected to know the minutiae of every part of the business. However, the buck stops at the CEO for what goes on in that business. It is no defence to say that the NotW was only 1% when the reputational damage far exceeded 1%. It is like BP saying one Mexican gulf rig is only a small part of our overall business. Moreover, once issues began to be exposed years ago it was down to him to get acquainted with the facts. He was either unwilling or unable through advanced years to get a handle on the issues and that is poor corporate governance.

Hang on a minute.

UKUncut were very keen on saying that they didn’t have ‘members’ per se, only people acting in a common interest, and a ‘spokesperson’ on Newsnight was very reticent indeed to condemn any violence whatsoever.

They’ve changed that tune pretty quickly. Not sure how you can disown someone when you don’t offically have members either.

I see the British courts have taken a lenient view of Marble’s pie and have only sentenced him to 6 weeks in prison – I wonder if his defense team pursued all possible options by asking everybody in a 3 mile radius if they’d been watching any porn lately?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2021580/Rupert-Murdoch-pie-attacker-Jonathan-May-Bowles-jailed-6-weeks.html