back to article Who runs this world? Sony Pictures CEO jokes about getting UK culture minister fired

Sony Entertainment CEO Michael Lynton mulled pulling strings to get UK culture minister Ed Vaizey fired to replace him with the grandson of former prime minister Harold MacMillan. Vaizey, a democratically elected Tory moderniser, oversaw "digital industries" for Britain's Coalition government – from broadband to copyright …

  1. This post has been deleted by its author

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Many a true word said in jest.

    1. GilbertFilbert

      Re: Many a true word said in jest.

      It reminds me of G W Bush's jape to his mates about running America - it would be some much easier if it was a dictatorship, provided he was the dictator.

  3. dorsetknob
    Paris Hilton

    Bella (donna) Pollen

    "" Brit-born Lynton was sharing breakfast with Bella Pollen""

    Now was that Breakfast in Bed ?

    Paris because she like's to eat Breakfast in Bed

    They do say that to Get on in politics you have to get into bed with politicians ( or their wives )

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Personal communications

    Just from reading those snippets, it's immediately clear this is just a private chat and as such we shouldn't be reading it. No political intrigue there, just jest.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Personal communications

      It's also nice reading it on a public newsite.. so much better than having it hidden away in a secret data center with the rest of our private emails. Lol (not really)

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Personal communications

      > No political intrigue there, just jest.

      The political intrigue is why documents hacked in December are conveniently being made public now, in the lead-up to the general election.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Personal communications

        What effect does thata have in a one-party state?

  5. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Gimp

    snap taken in 1994 of a 22-year-old George Osborne with his arm around his pal Natalie Rowe. In 2013, she published an autobiography describing her time as a dominatrix

    Why it's always OTHER people having fun? I should have studied less...

    1. Mark 85

      Why it's always OTHER people having fun? I should have studied less...

      Very true. If you had been having the fun, just thing how high up the political food chain you might be.

    2. Yugguy

      Damn right.

      I get so bored with this weird idea that we need to drag out something harmless that someone did half a lifetime ago.

      Student in had sex with someone else shocker.

      Frankly I'd like it if my politicians admitted to having had a life.

  6. Richard Bijster

    Totally unsurprising

    This article is an example of all that is wrong with UK politics. Back room deals which are anything but transparent.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Totally unsurprising

      Since at least Bismarck we know that politics are not exactly a wiki. Many hundred millions dead people have died to bring us this message. But we still don't care...

    2. veti Silver badge

      Re: Totally unsurprising

      This is true in every political system (at least, every one that's ever been used on any scale larger than a small village). Certainly not unique to the UK.

      But you'll note the whole thing is a joke, and the respondent even points out that he'd need to be in Parliament before it could work. In that respect at least, the UK is significantly more democratic than, for instance, the USA.

  7. x 7

    So....we have a mouthpiece for a modern-era foreign zaibatsu, convening (or congealing) with a highflying member of the clitterati, conspiring with a lizard-grandson of a leading illuminati to put pressure on a tory powerplayer and probable mason to sack a mere mortal human.

    How many conspiracy theories can you find in a story? How many strings are being pulled? I say shoot the lot of them. Conspiring politicos, especially unelected or self-appointed ones, deserve every bullet they get.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      clitterati

      The female section of the Upper Crust?

      1. Mark 85
        Coat

        or maybe it's the crusty section of..... ok.. I'll leave now.

      2. Amorous Cowherder
        Coat

        She's running an "Upper Crust"? Mines a cheese and tomato baton with a cup of cha on the side please!

  8. Vimes

    It was the last Labour government that pushed through the Digital Economy Act shortly before they lost the last election, with Labour bigwigs meeting with media moguls.

    The conservatives are far from the only ones with dodgy friends. When it comes to this sort of thing there is no choice. Don't think your vote will make the blindest bit of difference when it comes to who holds the power.

    1. Vimes

      And as for Dunstone, didn't he used to support the Labour party? I seem to recall Peter Mandelson attending Dunstone's wedding a number of years ago.

      The telecoms & media industries seem to have their tentacles all over the place. Just look at Labour and BT (Patricia Hewitt was a non-executive director there for a while) whilst with the conservatives we have Ian Livingston (former MD at BT) being given a peerage and a position as unelected trade minister in government.

      1. montyburns56

        "whilst with the conservatives we have Ian Livingston (former MD at BT) being given a peerage and a position as unelected trade minister in government."

        To accept peerage turn to page 38 to reject peerage turn to page 109.

        (Yes, I know)

    2. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

      New Great Games ... Not the same as the older Great Game

      Quite so, Vimes. Well said, Sir and/or Madam.

      With particular and peculiar regard to APT ACTivity and the Digital Economy in Live Operational Virtual Environments with Political Puppet Theatricals, who and/or what rules over who and/or what, and for and to what greater end with new beginnings, is surely the whole essence and raisin d'être of the Great Game and Greater IntelAIgent Games which deliver Futures and Derivatives of Futures for Suppliers/Internetworking Service Providers of Presents. Quite whether such is as a MMORPG Morph and Meme Variation on Sub-Prime and a G-Cloud Theme and within the ken with command and control of conventionally perceived sources and traditionally conceived forces, is that which is currently always aptly and actively too, vulnerability and penetrations testing all defences and attack protocols.

      Here be a live virtual round and exploding XSSXXXX grenade ...... and as an email an opportunity to engage with/in leaderships .......

      Please consider the following premise, which is an already active and surreally attractive and beautifully addictive Global Operating Devices Program/APT ACT App and Deep and Dark Web Virtual Machine Programming Project.

      "Helping people live safer, more secure lives" via "Software Engineering, Information Management and Testing" is only easily made possible if one controls and commands the narrative, and ideally one has quite an absolute and ultimate command and control of all available powers and levers, whenever IT drivers and delivers creative imaginative mutually beneficial positively reinforcing solutions to sticky problems on epic scales with Sublime InterNetworking Services and Internet Server Provision of a local/national/international/internetional/universal narrative ........ Superbly Scripted Tales and Trails for Multi-Media Enablement and Regeneration of Smart and Smarter Species/Virtually Programmed Machines which can easily be treated as Humanity.

      Is such an Advanced IntelAIgent Program and CyberIntelAIgent BasedD Project, a subject and object of desire to interest and engage Powers That Be [PBUH] and/or Powers that want to be and dare can and can dare win win?

      If so, further discussion providing more details are easily arranged with contact details provided in messaging..

      Have a nice day.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: New Great Games ... Not the same as the older Great Game

        I, for one, welcome AManFromMars' political commentary, which makes far more sense than the mainstream media. That first sentence, spurning the use of punctuation and with delightfully whimsical gratuitous capitalisation, came closer to explaining the Westminster system than anything else so far.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      > Don't think your vote will make the blindest bit of difference when it comes to who holds the power.

      It does make a difference: it gives the whole charade an air of legitimacy.

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Crazy Power Surge .......with the Registering of SMARTR ActivIT

        Quite so, AC. And I wonder if in a couple of weeks from nothing, a national protest which has voters putting their crosses against all candidates on their voting papers to transparently clearly register their realisation and the displeasure with the failure of inept private and piratical politically incorrect partied leadership, to show new ways forward with media into a future,which can be really anything which one desires with an HyperRadioProActivated Imagination and Perfect Pragmatic Virtualisation, and abundantly heavenly rather than austerely hellish.

        Wwwords Create Command and Control and Crush Wwworlds, which is why some in the present and past have been kept secret and hidden from general view, for the private and personal benefit of the Few/TPTB?!.

        The Future though thinks to share everything with everybody so that the Bigger Picture can reveal itself in all of ITs Glory.

        Secrets are for losers and for those up to no good. Period.

        Vive la Virtuelle Revolution. :-) I Kid U Not :-) Poe's Law Rules.:-)

        He knows nothing and thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career. - George Bernard Shaw (in Major Barbara)

        An honest politician is one who, when he is bought, will stay bought. - Simon Cameron

        Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedies. - Groucho Marx

        A politician needs the ability to foretell what is going to happen tomorrow, next week, next month, and next year. And to have the ability afterwards to explain why it didn’t happen. - Winston Churchill

        1. Britt Johnston
          IT Angle

          What are Churchill and Marx doing in the same bed as Barbara?

          I like the idea of ElReg's <<Minimise Comment>> icon, but it doesn't seem to work well enough in the case of this article.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      If you vote Red or Blue, you might as well live in a single party state...

      Neither really differ.. neither actually try to solve problems, they just argue...

      Take the Trident replacement Issue

      The Problem: it costs money & many disagree, yet it is vital to our countries defence.

      Their Solution: replace like for like.... costing billions and gain nothing...

      My Preferred Solution: Arm the astute class with nuclear cruise missiles, maybe also the Type45's, use the freed up money to buy more Ships/Subs

      1. Julz

        Unfortunately the UK gave up it's ability to make our own independent nuclear weapons a while ago. All we have are Trident, and they are far from independent; their replacements even more so.

        1. x 7

          We still design and build nuclear warheads. Want we don't make are the delivery systems, though building a freefall nuke bomb would still be within our capabilities.

          1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

            Meanwhile, in a Bletchley Park type Adastral Park v4.2 Venue ......

            We still design and build nuclear warheads. Want we don't make are the delivery systems, though building a freefall nuke bomb would still be within our capabilities. ... x 7

            The most potent and destructive of weapons systems nowadays are virtualised and capture hearts and minds and souls and bodies with truths which are impossible to deny have a growing validity and are being cynically ignored by media and spun by puppets and muppets as being dangerously anti-establishmentarian?

            Ok, so be it, for they most certainly can be and are, but that is the System's problem to suffer.

            1. x 7

              Re: Meanwhile, in a Bletchley Park type Adastral Park v4.2 Venue ......

              "The most potent and destructive of weapons systems nowadays are virtualised and capture hearts and minds and souls and bodies with truths which are impossible to deny have a growing validity and are being cynically ignored by media and spun by puppets and muppets as being dangerously anti-establishmentarian?"

              No. Thats crap. If you substitute "mistruth" for "truth" them you may -just- have an arguable point

    5. Amorous Cowherder

      "Don't think your vote will make the blindest bit of difference when it comes to who holds the power."

      Who holds the power? Mainly the "Humphreys" running the Civil Service isn't it?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Maybe Sony executivr should have been a little morem careful..

    ... about their own company, before planning broader...

  10. Chris G

    No smoke without fire

    Many a political truth has been said to have been said in jest!

    Of Course it was a jolly jest between mates......wasn't it?

  11. Solmyr ibn Wali Barad

    Sony Entertainment...

    ...an anchor that is dragging the whole ship down.

    1. x 7

      Re: Sony Entertainment...

      With luck someone at Sony HQ will see the reports and sack the prat. They surely can do without the bad publicity the way group sales have plummeted in the last few years.

      With any luck he'll suffer the fate the plotted for others

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    CEOs are to sharholders

    what politicians are to the electorate.

  13. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Misuse of company resources for personal use?

    So a Sony employee was using a corporate email account for a private jokey chat with an old friend, does he not possess a private email account?

    If I was a Sony shareholder, I'd be wondering how many other corporate resources he was using in a personal rather than corporate capacity.

    I guess he may like the rest of us invest in a personal email account now he knows how poor his corporate security is!

  14. Amorous Cowherder
    Facepalm

    The lives of the great and the good eh? Yep some bloke who runs a division of worldwide tech company just decides to fire a government minister in the UK and put his best mate in charge. When these sorts have such a disconnected sense of reality, it's no wonder no one has any trust in govs and corps.

  15. Hans 1

    Shell managed to get Nicole Bricq out of their way, in just 7 days ...

    13/06/2012 - Bricq bans drilling off the coast of French Guyana

    21/06/2012 - She is replaced by Batho who immediately reverts that decision

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicole_Bricq

    7 days ...

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