howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#1
this lot are putting up the cost of church weddings as they are so hard up.
"Senior Anglicans are said to be "embarrassed" by the disclosure of the Church's links with the parent company of the News of the World.
The Church Commissioners, which manage investments on behalf of the Church of England, own almost 350,000 shares in News Corp, worth £3.8 million.
The Church's ethical investment committee has now written to Mr Murdoch calling on him to hold senior executives to account over the "gross failures of management" over phone-hacking at the News of the World.
However, members of the Church's national assembly, the General Synod, meeting in York this weekend, demanded swift action to extricate the Church from the scandal.
The Rev Canon Jonathan Alderton-Ford, a vicar in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, and a General Synod member, said: "Senior figures in the Church of England are embarrassed by this ownership.
"Clergy and lay people that know about it are of a mind that we should divest ourselves of this investment or we should be we pressing through our ownership for change in the leadership at News Corp."
The Church's ethical investment advisory group said it would first seek to persuade Mr Murdoch to discipline senior executives before considering the "nuclear option" of withdrawing its investment in the company.
The statement was seen as a thinly veiled demand for Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International and a former editor of the Sunday tabloid, to be fired.
Professor Richard Burridge, deputy chairman of the ethical investment committee, said: "If we don't get a satisfactory answer then disinvestment comes on to the horizon, but you can't go straight to the nuclear option, you have to engage first."
In the letter to Mr Murdoch, the Church described the behaviour of the News of the World as "utterly reprehensible and unethical".
The closure of the newspaper, while welcome, was not a "sufficient response" to revelations of malpractice at the newspaper, the group said in a statement.
"We cannot imagine circumstances in which we would be satisfied with any outcome that does not hold senior executives to account at News Corporation for the gross failures of management at the News of the World," the statement said.
#2
Howard - I don't mean to be dense, but is this real? It's dreadful if it is.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#3
in the telegraph tomorrow, words fail me on this one.
#4
That makes two of us, and neither of us is usually short of a syllable or two!!
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#5
If the Church of England owns shares in news papers, what's wrong with that?
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#6
rather a lot alex, news international could never be accused of being an ethical investment.
many years ago the church was found to have an arms dealer in their portfolio.
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
#7
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#8
I will admit to having never read the News of the World.
The Daily Express and Mail are informative papers, unbiased, and will unravel blatant injustices, bringing the full reality of the news home to the readers.
Guest 710- Registered: 28 Feb 2011
- Posts: 6,950
#9
Well said Alexander. You are not alone in what you say, to judge by your use of the plural, 'readers'. I wish you both well.
Ignorance is bliss, bliss is happiness, I am happy...to draw your attention to the possible connectivity in the foregoing.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
#10
Alex, your use of irony to bring home your point is much appreciated. You are obviously centrist because people on the left and right of the political divide would swear that the Guardian and the Telegraph respectively are the only newspapers to print the unbiased reality.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Ross Miller
- Location: London Road, Dover
- Registered: 17 Sep 2008
- Posts: 3,709
#11
that is the first time I have ever seen either of those rags described as unbiased (DM & DE that is)
they are both tarred with very much the same brush as NOTW - they paid the same firms of private investigators to obtain information - the very firms that are at the centre of the hacking controversy
"Dream as if you'll live forever. Live as if you'll die today." - James Dean
"Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength,
While loving someone deeply gives you courage" - Laozi
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
#12
Come off it, Ross, I wouldn't go as far as describing those two newspapers called the Guardian and the Telegraph as rags.
As for those two German papers you mentioned there, Deutsche Mitte and Deutsche Edition, where do they come into the equation?
Now back to the Daily Express, I'm a subscribed member to the online comments website, and took part in the Crusade in November last year to liberate Britain from the EU.
I have the first-day cover of that edition, with a picture of Britannia armed with Shield and Trident, clothed in the cloak of Victory, and a proud British Lion seated next to Her!
Proud to be a member of!
Jan Higgins- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,931
#13
I think all newspapers are rags, it is just that some are better quality rags than others.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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#14
The only reason to buy the NoW or Sun would be if it were cheaper than toilet paper..........
Guest 688- Registered: 16 Jul 2009
- Posts: 268
#15
I think that we are confusing the concepts of subjectivity and objectivity here.The idea that the media establishment are purveyours of any other reality apart from their is misleading.Their reality is where their own vested interests lay.
Keith Sansum1
- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,948
#16
well said john h
how funny of alexander to say that the daily mail is unbiased
what a laugh(if it wasn't so serious)
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
Guest 656- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 2,262
#17
Back to the Church...........Yes Bern, It is indeed very true. I too was shocked to hear reference to the Church of England shares (all 3.8mill) in News Corp on The Andrew Marr show this morning, was also mentioned on the Politics show. Beggers belief really, you couldn't make it up and as Howard says..... the price of weddings these days
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#18
colette
just to add they are whacking up the costs of funerals too.
Keith Sansum1- Location: london
- Registered: 25 Aug 2010
- Posts: 23,948
#19
lord carlisle an ex barrister and lib dem now saying he agrees with ed milliband that the bskyb proposal should be postponed until all this mess is cleared up.
he warned that a number of leading lib dems will vote with labour to stop the proposal, and tories to
blimey dave boy the problems are mounting
ALL POSTS ARE MY OWN PERSONAL VIEWS
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
#20
makes sense that mr murdoch is in the u.k.
no doubt he is dangling his puppets in the establishment to ensure that he gets his way.
rather interesting that he owns a higher proportion of the media here than he does in either his home or adopted country.
