Original subtitles

Thanks for watching!

If you were a gentleman, you'd see me to the door.

No.

Well, reporters from the sun aren't gentlemen, are they?

They're not even human beings.

What have you found out about Hitchcock?

Oh, piss off.

But the fact is that any news presentation will always be selective,

open to allegations of bias. You can't please everybody.

Of course, I suppose the conventional image most people have of a tabloid

is of some fat racist slob with an Australian accent.

Marvin Doney, you are sub -editor on a well -known nameless newspaper. How

accurate is this? Oh, totally inaccurate.

And may I say, we're not at all racist on my newspaper.

We merely like to give our readers what they want. A bit of spunky, harmless

fun.

Harmless fun?

I suppose that was harmless fun two months ago, was it, during the French

trade war, when you said the Sherman tank with a page three half -wits to

in a live share accident blew up an orphanage and killed 27 children.

Oh, come on, mate. French children?

And what about... the Crucible last week, giving away Elvis Presley's

as a bloody bingo prize.

If it wasn't for your newspaper plumbing the depths of bad taste in the first

place, we would have to sink to those levels just to stay in the market. Bad

taste? Coming from the bloke who whipped out his plonker on a kid's TV set.

I did not whip out my plonker.

I was in a state of nervous anxiety.

Very difficult situation. There's no issue here. Turn that racket off, for

sake, and get back to work.

Go on, Maggie.

Uh, well, I'd like some big jigsaw puzzle, really.

First of all, we've got a high court judge, Sir James Hitchcock, whose family

are all found at home one morning with the throat caught.

Well, Hitchcock's gone. Three weeks afterwards, we still don't know where he

Next... The woman who's been seen in Peckham, Linda Copeland, is also found

dead. So is her canary.

And so, a few days later, is Hitchcock's dog.

Well, that's seven deaths.

Five people and two animals.

What about this story? It's all the work of aliens. The one that Spam wants to

print out.

And that started with a Mr Kevin Pooley, who lives opposite the girlfriend.

He reckons he saw some big creature, like a yeti, near her house, which

Huge footprints in the fresh cement.

After which, a guy from the US Air Base at Redway Sun, a lieutenant, Scott

McKenzie, said he picked up signals from some kind of UFO near the judge's house

in Hertfordshire.

If only I could get back inside the house.

That'd be breaking and entering an illegal trespass.

Be bloody careful.

to introduce a special guest this morning, Lord Gilbert, who is Chairman

Royal Commission, currently looking into standards and practice in the British

press. I suggest we make him welcome.

And then carry on exactly as we would do if he weren't here.

Now, tomorrow's splash. I thought we'd lead with the new ideological schism

segregation policy in South Africa, backed up by... A four -page report on

prospects of a solution to the internecine political divisions in

Excuse me.

I'm ever so sorry, everyone. I seem to have stumbled into the wrong room by

mistake. I was looking for Russell Spam's office.

Good morning.

Oh, it is you, Russell. Are you feeling all right?

Never felt better, Dickie. Thank you.

The centre spread will, of course, be the review of modern prison policy. Is

prolonged incarceration corrective?

or does it generate a recidivist mentality among fenders?

Can you get me the first aid, nurse?

I think Mr Spam's having some kind of fit.

I'm fine, Dickie, honestly.

Now, pictures on page three, of course. We have the tits. Jack?

Yes?

Together with the report on ornithological health hazards posed by

-disruptions of ozone dissipation.

Russell, what's going on? You coming up with a story about Princess Diana

becoming a cannibal?

After she was seen eating a jelly baby?

Oh, by the way, Dickie, I don't think you've met Lord Gilbert here, Chairman

the Royal Commission on the Press.

Mr Lipton?

I wonder if you could spare me and my colleagues a short interview.

And by definition, any news presentation will always be selective.

You can't please everybody.

Yes, I heard you trot that one out on television.

And I was about as impressed by it then as I am now.

Mr. Lipton, can you honestly say that since you took over, the Crucible has

published one single story of benefit to society?

Oh, yes.

Hundreds. Name one.

Well, there's the, uh...

Possibly not.

We are currently working on an extremely important experiment that I am

confident will have far -reaching implications for Western democracy.

Yes, what is that?

I can't say at the moment. We

haven't gathered all the evidence yet.

Thank you very much indeed for your help, Mr. Lipton.

Yes, and in any case, we also... Thank you, Mr. Lipton.

How pleasant it is, Lord Gilbert, to have this little tête -à -tête before

go to press with your committed report.

Something has to be done about declining standards in the media.

I will be honest, sir. It's going to make grim reading, if I might quote from

our conclusions so far.

The Commission has found the tabloid press consistently guilty of factual

inaccuracies, misquotations, tastelessness, vindictiveness.

sensationalizing trivial issues and trivializing important issues.

Evasion of privacy, sexism, racism, jingoism, sadism, lurid exploitation of

and violence, and so on and so on. I believe your committee is divided as to

solution. Yes.

Two of our members favor the setting up of a new press tribunal with powers to

penalize offending newspapers and, if necessary, sequestrate their funds.

The other two, while critical of popular tabloids, feel it's up to the editors

to be more responsible without the need for statutory controls.

Which leaves you with the casting vote, Lord Gilbert, one which I'm sure would

in no way be influenced by any offers of remuneration from interested parties.

You appear to have dropped the key to your brand -new Porsche.

I don't have a brand -new horse, Mr. Rathbone, nor have I any desire for one.

Excuse me.

I think further dialogue between us would be inappropriate.

Good day.

Any good day, old girl.

How do we know that Maggie's murder story is going to be anything special?

do we know it isn't going to be just another judge who went completely loopy

didn't know what he was talking about?

The High Court's full of them.

We could just give up one big responsible story that benefited

I honestly believe it would tip the balance against this press tribunal they

want to set up.

Oh, we're all against the idea of a press tribunal, Dickie, but there are

methods of stopping it.

other methods.

Well, suppose this Lord Gilbert were suddenly to be discredited in some way.

Suppose Greg Kettle happened to find some dark guilty secret. Greg Kettle?

have you got that man up to now? Relax, Dick. He's just making some routine

inquiries. That's all just routine inquiries.

Oh, this is...

That's about it on the confidential police records, I think. Nothing to go

there. Onward, I think, Jez, to the next one. What's going on here?

Scotland Yard drug offenders, 1987.

How on earth did... Just checking a few files.

Using Jez's gizmo here, we're able to hack in via the phone to various

records. Hack in? What...

You're certain it's been confidential records? So far, we've done the Scotland

Yard drug squad, vice squad, parking offenders, BBSC, inward revenue,

undischarged bankrupts, and, of course, the major credit rating files.

There we are. There's the L's, you see.

Good Lord, there's my name.

I'd like you to raise your Barclay card, limit.

A thousand?

You put that back. OK, Greg.

Register of companies coming up now.

Complete inventory of all UK company directors. Right.

Let's see if he's here.

Lord... Lord... Ah,

there we are. Lord Gilbert.

Director of something called Regina Recreates.

Sounds promising.

Right, if you'll excuse me, Mr Lipton, I think this firm could do with a little

visit from Her Majesty's Press. Cheers.

And no funny business, Greg or else.

I don't suppose you could get my name off the Reader's Digest mailing list.

You from the customs and excise bin? Not exactly, but our powers are very

similar.

Open up this one, if you would. Oh, no, my boss says you can't open any of these

boxes without a search warrant. Quite correct.

Have you got one?

Sorry?

Er, no.

All right, I'll overlook it just this once. Go on.

Thanks.

All addressed to mail.

Order customers, I see, in plain wrapping. What's in these pots? Well,

different things, really.

Oh, bugger it.

I'll set them all on.

You,

uh, take your coffee?

You huffed out on the stairs back there.

I guess it was the shock.

Is that really Judge Hitchcock in that bed?

He's like a corpse. What's happened to him?

What the hell's going on around here?

Copy deadline in five minutes, Dickie. Where's Maggie's blockbuster story now?

She promised she'd phone in.

That isn't going to happen, Dickie.

Our only chance to maintain the... The freedom of the press lies there in your

hands.

The secret shame of Lord Dildo.

Lord Gilbert, chairman of the Royal Commission on the Press, is secretly the

director of a firm that turns out kinky sex appliances.

The faux -faced peer who wants to clap down on our saucy fun is himself an evil

porn merchant...

I mean, if you...

were suddenly to find out that ludovic kennedy was secretly running a brothel

plymouth you'd never take did you see seriously again now would you

maggie how did it go did you get anywhere

yeah oh boy well the

murdered family of judge james hitchcock were killed when a deadly virus

developed by american scientists for german warfare is escaped from a U .S.

base.

The virus has been secretly deployed by the United States throughout Britain

without the knowledge of the British government and in direct contravention

the existing world ban on biological weapons.

Zetatoxin 100 is probably the most lethal germ in the world.

It was genetically engineered in the States for military use.

It spreads instantly through the slightest physical contact, interferes

nerves and muscles, and within an hour or two, you're dead.

Well, three or so weeks ago, a US truck carrying supplies of this stuff to

Redway Sands had a smash -up, and a load of the sealed tube spilled out onto the

roadside.

Now, one of these was never found until Hitchcock's dog went sniffing round the

bushes.

Hitchcock took the tube home, rang up the airbase to tell them what he'd

and then... Went off to spend the afternoon with his floozy in London,

the tube with his wife. And the germ escaped?

Well, the seal must have cracked during the smash -up when the Americans arrived

with their yeti -look suits.

All they found was four dead bodies.

But Hitchcock had also caught the virus.

Yes, but for some reason it didn't take immediate hold. He became a carrier

without developing the disease.

So without knowing it, he sentenced his girlfriend to death that afternoon.

She must have died just after he left.

Along with her pet canary.

Well, the dead animals really should have given us a clue.

Anyway, when Hitchcock got back, the Americans carted him off to the airbase

where he couldn't spread the germ any further.

Then, to divert suspicion, they took a knife to everyone's throat to make it

look like the work of some kind of psychopath.

Well, there never were any aliens.

Mackenzie made up that UFO story on the spur of the moment.

Where's Hitchcock now? Still at the base?

Until this afternoon he was, but it seems that after three weeks in his

the Zeta toxin's finally taken hold.

He's on the way out.

He asked if he could go home to die.

Of course, the American top brass said no, but Mackenzie, well, he felt the

whole thing stank already and it was the least he could do.

So he snuck him back there today and he'll stay with him until, well...

He probably won't last another 24 hours.

Well, I think it's goodbye to Lord Dodo, Russell, don't you?

OK, Maggie, bash it out fast as you can. I'll need quotes from the Air Base, the

US Embassy, the MOD.

This will mean a complete overhaul of country and the spread. It's him,

Mackenzie.

Hello? Miss Troon?

Jesus, I don't know what's happened.

He's gone.

Well, I left him upstairs in bed while I went to the john, and when I came out,

he's just gone.

I don't understand it.

Gone? But he wouldn't have had the strength to walk.

It's Hitchcock. He's left the house still carrying the virus, for God's

Russell? Yes, Mr. Lipton? I think you'd better look at this. Front page of

Tomorrow Morning Sun.

Exclusive, we seize the hacking judge.

Murder man.

hunt ends as our lads nab the beast of the old bay in a dramatic 11th hour

commando style raid last night crack reporters from the sun tracked down and

seized judge james hitchcock and his evil lair in hartfordshire bringing him

back to whopping to await arrest by the police 27 journalists on the sun are

horribly killed after contact with a lethal virus

The man they kidnapped, missing judge James Hitchcock, dies in hospital.

The full scandal of how American forces smuggled illegal biological weapons onto

British soil.

And in Washington tonight, the president calls an urgent meeting of his staff to

find out whether or not he had any idea what was happening.

In the wake of today's sensational disclosures by the Crucible, the Royal

Commission on the Press comes down against statutory controls.

Their verdict?

The tabloids must be left free to put their own house in order.

I think it's clear that the Daily Crucible, under my aegis, has

itself as a pioneer of probing journalism.

And I can assure the British public that, following the very sensible

by Lord Gilbert's Commission on Freedom and the Press, that from now on,

integrity and responsibility are assured.

And careless inaccuracies are a thing of the past.

Mr Lipton.

Thank you.

Now we move on to our report on the booming trade in mail -order sex

Nancy Wingate went to visit a man who manufactures these bizarre marital aids,

Mr Gilbert Lord, of Regina Requisites in London.

Ladies and gentlemen, I come here today...

Not to gloat over the hideous and horrific deaths of the editorial staff

rival newspaper.

For gloating over hideous and horrific deaths is the dose of clap in the

of men.

Nor does it afford me one jot of satisfaction to observe that large

the British public, in their ignorance, have decided to stop buying the sun.

believing it to be contaminated with the deadly virus that killed its

supporters. There is no evidence whatever to support such a ridiculous

idea. And now, as the marble doors of this special memorial

tomb close for all eternity, let us pray for the 28

departed colleagues of this...

Fine, distinguished newspaper.

The oration was one of your very best, Mr Rathbone. A banquet for the eardrums.

Thank you, Russell.

Incidentally, I thought it was 27 bodies, not 28.

No, no, definitely 28 bodies. The man who arranged them in the tomb told me

quite distinctly. Oh, right.

By the way, have you seen Dickie around at all?

Not since he collapsed in a dead faint from heat exhaustion earlier this

afternoon, sir.

Oh, well.

I expect he'll turn up.

Tell me, any news on the Princess Diana story?

Well, Greg's interviewing some cannibals now, sir, rather than professional

comics.

Oh, excellent.

and a story with some sordid sex appeal.

Someone's secrets we have grabbed. Famous bags that we have stabbed.