Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

Comedy gold hypocritical nonsense from Murdoch's lackeys: "As we have always made clear, we have a zero-tolerance approach to wrongdoing and will take swift and decisive action if we have proof."

Phone-hacking row: government backs new inquiry

Pressure mounts on Andy Coulson, as MPs call on the powerful standards and privileges committee to summon witnesses such as Rupert Murdoch to give evidence

September 9, 2010

Media tycoon Rupert Murdoch should be called to give evidence to a new inquiry into the News of the World phone-hacking row, MPs were told today as they agreed to refer the issue to the Commons' most powerful committee.

Amid calls from MPs of all parties for parliament to stand up to the "red topped assassins" of the media, the government backed a motion for hacking to be investigated by the standards and privileges committee.

Tom Watson, a former Labour minister, told MPs that Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International, should both be called as witnesses by the committee following their refusal to appear at a previous inquiry held by the culture committee on the same issue.

The decision to launch the new inquiry piles pressure on David Cameron's director of communications, Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor, who has repeatedly denied any knowledge of the illegal eavesdropping for which ex-royal editor Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire were jailed in 2007.

Labour's Chris Bryant, who tabled the motion after discovering his own phone had been hacked, urged MPs not to be "supine" in the face of allegations that their voicemails were illegally intercepted.

Earlier this week, the home affairs select committee launched its own inquiry into the practice of phone hacking. But Bryant said a separate investigation should be held by the standards and privileges committee because of the power it wields to subpoena witnesses to attend.

The committee should use that power and refuse to let witnesses get away without answering questions, said Bryant.

Earlier this year, the culture, media and sport select committee published a highly critical 167-page report condemning the "collective amnesia" and "deliberate obfuscation" of News of the World executives who gave evidence to them.

The report said it was inconceivable that only a few people at the paper knew about the practice of illegally hacking the phones of public figures.

Watson told MPs said the committee should call the "DCMS select committee refuseniks – the people associated with News International who flatly rejected our invitations to give evidence to our own inquiry."

He issued a critique of the media and urged MPs to stand up against it.

"There is one more tiny little shame that we all share – the truth is that we, all of us in this house, are scared," he said.

"If you fear passing this resolution, think of this: it's almost laughable. Here we sit in parliament, the central institution of our sacred democracy, between us some of the most powerful people of the land, and we are scared...

"They, the barons of the media with their red-topped assassins, are the biggest beasts in the modern jungle. They have no predators, they are untouchable, they laugh at the law, they sneer at parliament, they have the power to hurt us and they do with gusto and precision."

He went on: "We are afraid, and if we oppose this resolution it is our shame. That is the tawdry secret that dare not speak its name.

"The most powerful people in the land – prime ministers, ministers and MPs of every party – are guilty in their own way of perpetuating a media culture that allows the characters of the decent to be traduced out of casual malice, for money, for spite, for sport, for any reason they like. "

Today's motion received the backing of the government, after Sir George Young, the leader of the Commons, told MPs in a brief statement that the government accepted that the issue was a matter for the Commons.

Bryant, who was told by police he was on Mulcaire's list, said that hacking into MPs' phones was "a contempt of parliament, a severe breach of parliamentary privilege" which could compromise their right to speak freely, which "stems in essence from the 1689 Bill of Rights".

New material has come to light over the past two weeks by former members of Coulson's staff, whose allegations have cast doubt on Coulson's repeated claim that he was completely unaware that the practice was going on during his tenure.

Today, the Guardian revealed that another former News of the World journalist has come forward to say that phone hacking was rife at the paper when Coulson was editor.

Paul McMullan, a former features executive and then member of the newspaper's investigations team, says that he personally commissioned private investigators to commit several hundred acts which could be regarded as unlawful, that use of illegal techniques was no secret at the paper, and that senior editors, including Coulson, were aware this was going on.

Downing Street has stood firmly behind Cameron's most senior aide.

But today, the deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, failed to give Coulson his full backing by ducking a question of whether he should resign.

In an interview on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, he said: "If there are claims and counter-claims everyone is entitled to both ask questions and make inquiries."

"I believe that the most important thing of all is that the police now, since new allegations have been made, should look now as quickly and thoroughly as possible at these new allegations."

Though the row centres on the period Coulson edited the Sunday tabloid newspaper, Bryant insisted that his call for the committee to investigate was "not about one man".

"This is not about the one honourable member whose case has already been to court," he told MPs. "It is, however, about what kind of investigative journalism we want in this country. Searching, yes. Critical, caustic, aggressive and cynical, maybe, but not illegal. And it is about whether this house will be supine when its members phones are hacked, or about whether it will take action when the democratic right of MPs to do their job without illegal let, hindrance or interception has been traduced. We have taken action before as a house. We should take action today."

Jack Dromey, MP for Birmingham Erdington, said he hoped for "full cooperation from Downing Street, not least because the lesson of Watergate is that the cover-up is worse than the crime".

News International has issued a statement in response to the debate, which read: "This matter, which largely relates to alleged behaviour five years ago, has become intensely partisan.

"Amidst a swirl of untethered allegations, there should be no doubt that the News of the World will investigate any allegation of wrongdoing when presented with evidence. As we have always made clear, we have a zero-tolerance approach to wrongdoing and will take swift and decisive action if we have proof."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/sep...ew-inquiry