Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

From The Guardian piece above (my emphasis in bold):

Andy Coulson, the News of the World's former editor, resigned this month as the prime minister's director of communications, saying that persistent allegations of mobile-phone hacking occurring on his watch made it impossible for him to do his job.

His resignation was interpreted in some quarters as an attempt to take the heat off Murdoch at a crucial time in News Corp's bid for BSkyB.

Further revelations that Cameron and James Murdoch, the Europe and Asia chief of News Corp, had been dinner guests at the Cotswolds home of News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks over Christmas provided ammunition to those who claim No 10 is too close to the media empire.

That relationship looked set to become more apparent last week when Murdoch flew into the UK to hold urgent meetings with senior executives at News International.

There were rumours that Cameron and Murdoch were due to hold a brief, informal meeting later in the week in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, home to the World Economic Forum, but that this was called off when the News Corp boss decided to stay in London to deal with the phone-hacking scandal.

"He will be thinking all of this should have been sorted out long ago," said someone familiar with the thinking of the News Corp board. "He'll want to know why Rebekah has not closed this down."

Anyone who knows anything about newspaper working practices understands that former NOTW editor, and former Cameron Propaganda Chief Andy Coulson, was either incompetent or a liar.

If he did not know that the corroborating evidence for stories that put the NOTW at risk of millions of pounds of libel damage came from hacked phones, then as editor of the newspaper he surely should have known. Since Coulson has always maintained he did not know this, then his only defence is incompetence.

If Coulson is demonstrably incompetent, then why did PM Cameron appoint him as his Chief Spin Doktor.

So, the notion in the article above that Rupert Murdoch is asking Rebekah Brooks (nee Wade) why "she didn't close this story down" earlier is a fabricated narrative. The Murdoch empire has chucked millions of pounds at former and fired employees, some now in prison, in what looks like an attempt to buy their silence.

It increasingly looks as if cash will not be enough.

It looks likely that this story of corruption, blackmail and the illegal gathering and use of political leverage will only be closed down through the black arts....