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.