Read All About It #2

More arrests, more allegations, more resignations... we would have been naive to expect that this was an issue which would blow out in a matter of weeks, but as the casualty list grows, the long-term effects of the phone hacking scandal are perhaps only just being guessed at.

When news first broke, optimists (or pessimists, depending on your viewpoint) were saying there would be a six-week furore of frenzied media speculation, a few resignations, and then all would subside into dull, elongated legal investigation with the occasional snippet of information being gravely intoned on Radio Four. How wrong they were.

Rebekah Brooks finally gave in to what may well be seen as the inevitable, and resigned a few days ago. The anti-Brooks contingent took to Twitter rejoicing, and there may well have been private relief in Number Ten that at least something the PM had recommended was being acted upon, rather than written off as a lame attempt to extricate himself from the mess. The Lib Dem's persistent cries of "Andy Coulson!" faded into the background for a few short hours, as Brooks, James Murdoch and Rupert Murdoch arrived in Westminster to give evidence before a Select Committee.

Heads continue to roll. Both Sir Paul Stephenson, who was until Sunday the head of the metropolitan police, and his assistant commissioner John Yates, have stepped down. The taint of corruption touching Yates is understandable, as London Mayor Boris Johnson pointed out on Radio 4 on Monday morning - Yates was in charge of the initial phone hacking inquiry back in 2009, and has been accused of 'hushing up' or blocking further investigation in favour of focusing on dealing with terror threats and other significant issues at that time. Before Yates' resignation was announced, Boris intimated that the assistant commisioner was likely to be investigated, and news of the resignation came shortly after that. In a public statement, Yates insisted that his conscience was clear, and that his resignation was due to the desire to quash the potential effects of 'malicious gossip' on the Met as it prepares for the 2012 Olympics. Sir Paul's reasoning was similar, but his resignation is rather more puzzling; as someone who had no involvement in the 2009 investigation, and was not in office when former NotW employee and hacking suspect Neil Wallis was employed by the Met, the necessity of his departure is questionable. In fact, it begs the question, do we expect our leaders to fall on their swords at the arrival of trouble or the admission of failure? Isn't this a rather medieval view of authority's responsibilities? And who will be left to clear up if they all leave?

In the midst of this upheaval, whispers are increasing in the ether that PM Cameron could be the next 'victim' - will the scandal extend its deadly tendrils so far into his administration as to topple it? Personally, I think much of this is wishful thinking on the part of those who have always felt that Cameron was a bit of a squib, and have been waiting for something big enough to squash him. However, it can't be denied that a lack of government pressure on the Met back in 2009 may have contribued to the now-evident inadequacy of their investigations, and the break of so much larger an issue two years later. But as Cameron so readly admitted, and as so many others have echoed, this is a far broader problem - a collusion of state, media, police and public complacency in the matter has led us to this stormy port. And at the heart of it all are the newspaper bosses who swore that all corruption had been eradicated from their midst.

It therefore astounds me that reports are coming through of both Ladbrokes and William Hill offering odds on the PM's departure from office as a direct result of this whole mess. Really? Betting against the government in a time when we need more faith than ever in its ability to clean Britain up? I don't care what your political affiliations are, whether you'd rather have voted in a martian than Cameron or not - this is not an appropriate response to the circumstances in which we find ourselves. All governments, and all statesmen, have failings, whether they be cowardice, over-zealousness, too great a degree of dependency or too high a value placed on their independence, but backing them to fail is far from an adequate answer. If anything, this is Cameron's opportunity to engineer the recovery of a nation whose economy and reputation have been fragile for quite some time, and are growing ever weaker. I do not view him as a saviour, by any means, but I hold out hope for his potential as a steady mind and hand within a body which, for better or worse, makes the decisions which steer our future. At present, I don't think that politically we can do much better than that - but we can do much worse.

Read All About It

After 168 years in print, The News of the World is set to publish its final edition on Sunday. While no doubt many devoted readers will mourn its passing, the shock of James Murdoch’s decision to close down the paper for good has by no means diminished the enormity of the scandal which has led to this eventuality. 

When Andy Coulson stepped down as editor over allegations of phone hacking in 2007, his resignation seemed to be taken as a carte blanche guarantee that all such actions had come to an end. Clive Goodman and Glenn Mulcaire served jail sentences, and order appeared to have been restored as the Mirror’s former editor, Colin Myler, took Coulson’s place. Granted, Coulson himself was subsequently hounded by the press in relation to the affair, but this was more due to David Cameron’s decision to employ him as communications director for the new administration. While no evidence had been brought against Coulson personally in the matter, the public seemed to think him an unwise choice for the role, which he abruptly resigned early this year.

It has therefore been with disbelief and a degree of incredulity that the British public has watched the unfolding of this most recent saga. Like one of the ‘shock factor’ headlines of which The News of the World is so fond, it’s caused many of us to do a double-take – is it really possible that so much corruption has been going undetected until this week? The heads of various interested parties have been doing a double-take themselves, desperate to acknowledge or apportion blame and assure us of their outrage and subsequent good intentions. I think we can all be forgiven for taking these with a pinch of salt, however genuine some (or even all) of them may be. When it comes to the press, we have learned to be wary.

The donation of the final edition’s entire circulation revenue to ‘good causes’, for example, has drawn far less sympathy than James Murdoch perhaps would have hoped. Some are saying that it merely proves the Murdoch empire can function perfectly well without the paper’s takings, while the Prime Minister was heard to say that he wouldn’t be surprised if it were replaced with a Sunday edition of The Sun. Of course, there are no available facts at present to confirm this, and it should be noted that in another fit of generosity, the ‘paywall’ on the paper’s website has been taken down, making its content free to the public, subscribers and non-subscribers alike. Having never read The News of the World in any kind of voluntary capacity, I was pleased to see I could now have gratis access to information on Prince Harry’s sex life, Apprentice losers finding love, and all the puns you could fit onto one web page. Apart from a grave-looking James Murdoch staring out from a box on the home page, you wouldn’t know anything bad had happened.

News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks seems to have vastly understated the situation when she said that the company was having ‘a very bad moment’ – News Corp’s market value has dropped by about £1.2 billion since the scandal broke, and the poor guys and girls at BSkyB must be wringing their hands as their share price plummets to a similar tune. Interestingly, the Brooks quote has come from a ‘secret recording’ of the meeting amongst NotW staff, obtained by Sky. Either Sky are really not learning from this, or they figure that their questionable sourcing techniques will be the speck to NotW’s plank. Either way, I wouldn’t be surprised if Ms. Brooks becomes public enemy number one within the newspaper’s community, as the majority of them, unlike her, will inevitably be left without a job come next week.

Back to politics, and while the PM has doggedly stood by his decision to employ Andy Coulson, he has by no means trodden gently when it comes to condemning the breaches of privacy which have occurred and those who have perpetrated them. Nor is he convinced of News International’s good intentions when it comes to the closure of the NotW – he was quoted as saying that it was a purely commercial decision. “It's nothing to do with contrition, it's absolutely self interest,” said Cameron, in a press conference on Friday.

Mr. Cameron also stated that, had he been her boss, he would have accepted Rebekah Brooks’ resignation offer. Reports have been circulating that it was offered, but this has yet to be confirmed – it looks as though the former Sun editor will be staying. However, Cameron does seem to have over-reached himself somewhat in his zeal for justice. In announcing that the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) had ‘failed’ in its role, he also declared that it would be subsequently shut down. As one of the Commissioners rather gleefully pointed out on Radio Four yesterday afternoon, it can’t be. The independent body would only shut if it went into some form of administration, and the Commission replied on its website that it refused to be a ‘convenient scalp’ for the government’s inquiries.

It seems ironic that a paper known for its exposure of scandal has become the centre of one of the largest media furores in years. Some of us may turn up our noses at the ‘red-tops’, preferring headlines that don’t periodically scream ‘Nazi Orgy’ or similar, but there can be no denying that the paper has had a significant influence on a vast section of the British public, and in some cases on noteworthy legal developments. After the murder of the schoolgirl Sarah Payne, The News of the World ran a huge campaign for what has become known as ‘Sarah’s Law’, which allows concerned parents to ask police for background checks on any adult who has unsupervised contact with their children.

Now the crime-fighting ethic upheld by James Murdoch in his statement on Thursday, looks to have turned on the paper. The exposure of wrongdoing doesn’t bring so much kudos, it seems, when it’s in your own backyard. It remains to be seen whether the excavation of that backyard will yield sufficient evidence to bring justice to a very messy and ignoble situation.