Phone hacking scandal deepens

[Jan Klimkowski]

Fwiw - Andrew Neil, former Murdoch editor, said last night on BBC's Newsnight (I paraphrase) that PM Cameron and the Tory High Command had decided upon the resignation of Coulson months ago, and that only the timing was undecided. The decision for Coulson to resign yesterday morning was because it was anticipated that Blair's Iraq Inquiry testimony would be the lead story for national and breaking news.

In other words, yesterday was considered "a good day to bury bad news" - which was my first response when I heard the news. That spindoctor gambit failed, and Coulson's resignation did lead most UK TV news outlets. However, Fleet Street has largely attempted to ignore the story.

Meanwhile, as the article below outlines, a lot of "holding lines" held by Murdoch empire executives and the Metropolitan Police have now collapsed.

Big Daddy Rupert Murdoch is reportedly flying into London personally, and his apparatchiks must know that they may be disowned as "rogues" at any time if the Murdoch Empire needs protecting and the evidence against them is damning:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jan...orp-crisis

The Metropolitan Police investigation has been revealed as a non-investigation. The evidence that is now becoming public domain has been with the rozzers all the time. But instead of investigating, Met Police Assistant Commissioner John Yates and his officers decided to investigate whistleblowing witnesses under criminal caution.

Natural justice demands that it is members of the Murdoch empire and the Metropolitan Police who will soon be interviewed under criminal caution.

Andy Coulson's resignation is just the start

The fall-out from the resignation of David Cameron's PR chief will reach far into our political culture
Brian Cathcart guardian.co.uk, Friday 21 January 2011 19.35 GMT

It should not end here. Andy Coulson had to go and the miracle is that it took him and David Cameron so long to recognise it, but the ramifications of the phone-hacking scandal now stretch so far and so deep into our political culture that it is possible to see him as a secondary figure.

To illustrate the point, look at the position of James Murdoch, one of most powerful people in the British media and bidding to be more powerful. Back in 2008, Murdoch received a visit from the News of the World editor, Colin Myler, and his legal chief Tom Crone. They told him they were about to settle a case brought by Gordon Taylor of the Professional Footballers' Association alleging that NoW reporters had hacked his voicemails, and that it was going to cost more than £500,000.

If Murdoch asked him, Crone was there to say that Taylor's lawyers had a transcript of his hacked voicemails with the names of two NoW journalists all over it, and a dubious contract with the name of a third. Again if asked, Crone would have explained (I guess) that in the eyes of a court this was the equivalent of being caught red-handed. Now Murdoch was their boss and £500,000 is a lot of money; do we think he asked? If he did, then he knew about the infamous transcript, and in particular he knew how damaging it was. That in turn means he had a damn good idea that the NoW phone hacking scandal was far, far worse than it had been portrayed. Why didn't he do something about it? And if he didn't ask, then his best defence now is the Coulson one: "I'm a boss who was kept in the dark."

At least half a dozen News International executives are equally compromised. Myler, for example, has assured MPs, the public and the Press Complaints Commission that after taking over from Coulson he conducted a thorough investigation of phone hacking and found nothing. Sooner or later somebody must ask him how he defines "thorough", because lawyers for the lengthening queue of celebrities now suing his paper are turning up evidence almost by the day.

But it doesn't stop at News International, indeed for the Metropolitan police this is if anything worse. That evidence for example transcripts of Sienna Miller's voicemails with the name of a NoW journalist written in the corner is all coming, in bits and scraps, from files the police have been sitting on since 2006, and which they are guarding with an almost fanatical zeal. Why? And why, for that matter, did the Yard's finest fail to investigate the Gordon Taylor and Sienna Miller material themselves? Not to mention the Jim Sheridan, Andy Gray and Sky Andrews material.

One of the enduring characteristics of this scandal is that people keep saying things that are very difficult to believe. The Met says it looked at the hacking documents it was holding and there was nothing suspicious. News International used to tell us, until a week ago, that it had had one rogue journalist and that was the end of it. When the Commons media committee heard these things it snorted with derision, so why haven't these people been called to account?

One reason is that the tabloid press has ignored the story. Miller must be amazed: she has finally found something she can do in her private life that red-tops won't feast on. But for most of the newspaper-reading public this story does not exist: they have never been confronted with the strange claims of the Met and News International.

Editors who routinely invoke the public interest when it suits them have in this case systematically abused the public interest. One leading player in the story has been in Downing Street for nine months; another dominates our media landscape; a third is our most powerful police force. If their conduct is not a matter of public interest, what is?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/...-the-start