The depth of the phone hacking scandal is far greater than I thought. It seemed to be about a few celebs and a lot of faux anger from the Labour party who clearly saw it as an opportunity to put David Cameron under pressure because of his employment of Andy Coulson. It is clearly so much more than that.
I still believe Andy when he says that he didn't know about the hacking, more so now we can see just how filthy the whole thing was, but it is clear that there was an acceptance of "no questions asked" information gathering.
David Cameron is right to call for a public inquiry into this issue. The UK media is hugely important and I naturally feel very uncomfortable at anything which might look like limiting a free press, but it is in all our interests for public confidence in the papers to be maintained.
The attacks by the Labour party were opportunistic and may have blinded many Conservatives to the potential scale and implications of the phone hacking. Labour run the risk of over playing the situation again. By trying to tie this in with the BskyB acquisition, the employment of Andy Coulson etc. they are trying to embarrass the Conservatives rather than find the truth.
With regard to the police and their relationship with the media I'm going to keep quite on that for the moment. As I sit on the MPA's Professional Standards Cases Committee I may have to decided on cases linked to this.
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Well done for changing your view on this disgraceful episode. It is entirely correct to review your position as new facts come to light. It is also perfectly reasonable for you to presume that Coulson is innocent until proved guilty. But it does look like he personally signed off when police were paid (a possibly more serious allegation than phone hacking), so I'm not sure we should trust any of the assurances he has given on the issue.
But it doesn't really matter whether I trust him or not. What matters is that the Prime Minister did trust him and had full confidence in him. He had plenty of time to ask difficult questions, but continued to back him.
The rotation of jobs between the NOTW and police and government positions is the aspect of this that really bothers me. It suggests that the politicians fiddling their expenses, the police taking bribes from the Murdoch empire, and the Murdoch empire paying people to hack phones and all ultimately corrupt.
Since 1994 no party leader has won a general election without an ex-NOTW editor by his side. Murdoch and his 40% newspaper ownership has completely corrupted the entire system.
Well done Sir on admitting you were wrong.
I just hope that people will stop jumping to Political conclusions when questions are asked about such a torrid and nasty affair.
As for the News of the World, I have never been a reader and have intention of reading such a lurid comic.
Thank you for admitting you were wrong.
Can we expect a similar apology from Mayor Johnson? Who was documented as saying the hacking claims were "codswallop cooked up by the Labour Party".
I personally am not a supporter of any Political party, you all have your positives and very significant negatives, this being one.
What really matters here is that Cameron's judgement was badly wrong. I suspect pressure will be shown to have been placed on the police by No 10 to back off the hacking scandal.
Coulson is merely the first casualty in this new war between Cameron & Murdoch. And my money is on Murdoch winning. This government will fall.
'I gave him a second chance' really does sound like Cameron was aware of a lot more of the extent of the criminality than the public were aware of at the time Coulson was appointed to the Conservative Party and then to the government.
If Cameron was aware of any criminality then he should have reported this man to the police years ago rather than choosing to rehabilitate him. You just have to look at Alistair Campbell to know it doesn't work.
But politicians of all parties are too keen to have easy access to the monopoly provider of newspapers in this country. 'It was News Corp wot won it'.
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