Baroness Peta Buscombe was mad to take over the Cup of Hemlock that is the  Chair of the Press Complaints Commission, and now she’s paying the price.

She’s cocked up the job from start to finish, been bamboozled by the Screws,  sued for libel by a leading media lawyer, made herself look ridiculous and – one good thing – she’s almost certainly brought this useless institution to the point of its overdue execution.

Restricted as they were by sub judice topics in the case of Rebekah Testarossa, they might have done better to leave this session until the future, when she would not have been in a position to bat away their questions with another clutch of well-honed lies, the way all her colleagues did in 2009.

They could have asked…..

When, in May 2006, she saw that the News of the World carried a story in which they reproduced a verbatim message left by Prince William on Prince Harry’s voicemail, did she not question to the legality of the means by which the story was found? Or did she just think that Coulson, Thurlbeck and Goodman hade made it up? When she became CEO of News International did she not question News of the World managing editor, Stuart Kuttner about it?

Why was News editor Greg Miskiw sent packing in July 2005, shortly after the Gordon Taylor story went wrong?

Why was Stuart Kuttner sacked in 2009, the day before the Guardian revealed the Taylor pay off.

Why was Tom Crone sacked two weeks ago? (Yes, they asked her but they didn’t challenge the absurdity of her mendacious reply.)

Let us hope that the Metropolitan Police are less lenient in their questioning. At least we know Rebekah’s not a member of the same Lodge as the Senior MET Freemasons – that august charitable organisation still doesn’t allow women members – or does it, and they just haven’t told us?

Watch this trowel.

Large  sections of the British population ( at least, of those who are intelligent enough  to be interested) are baffled by the extraordinary display of inertia in the Met’s handling of crimes  committed  by News of the  World journalists and those committing outsourced crimes on the paper’s behalf. When the police do extraordinary, mysterious things , it’s always worth looking for the Mason in the woodpile. How many members of the senior management of News International and the News of the World are Freemasons? We don’t know, of course.  How many senior members of the Metropolitan Police are Freemasons? We don’t know.

Thanks to Nick Davies’s investigations for the Guardian we do know that the multi-faceted criminal, Jonathan Rees (who hacked into the bank account of Peter Mandelson, among others) is a Mason and as a result was able to meet many corrupt police officers at his Lodge, and arrange to pay them for information, which he then sold to clients, like the News of the World.

Masonry is one of the most insidious, disgraceful aspects of British life. It secretly permeates the police, the judiciary, the professions, county councils and  government departments . If Masonry is seen to be a factor in the NOTW crimes and the systematic cover-up by the police, that institution, too, must be looked at.

It should be,  but that will never  happen because there is too much power and influence vested in this secret, self-serving organisation.

Even Private Eye don’t have the balls to take them on.

It’s very heartening that Nick Davies has had the courage to name  them in this criminal context.

In the little Indie on 23^rd May 2011, under a spot on their gossip page 15, called “iquotes”, we read that actor Dominic West tells the Sunday Times how he and a friend reacted when the now  Samantha Cameron said she was to marry David, the future Prime Minister. West is quoted as saying ‘We were like: “Why do you want to marry that Tory boy?”.’

I wanted to check the story in the Sunday Times – presumably recent (although, maybe not, if the little ‘i’ is really scratching its arse for tattle) but couldn’t, because I cannot sign up to the News International PAYWALL. Given my current relationship with NI news harlot, the News of the Screws, whose lawyers Messrs Farrer & Co are threatening me with legal action if I don’t apologise to truth-molesting  Mazher Mahmood for damaging his reputation (which I’m not going to), and knowing their methods of information-gathering, I think it would be unfair to give them my  address, email address, mobile telephone number, landline number or bank account  details, because they might be tempted to plunder private data about me – not that they would find anything of interest to the public or even in the public interest, so squeaky clean has my life been.

So I looked elsewhere and I found a piece in the Guardian dated 17^th July, 2008 nearly three years ago…..

‘David Cameron was a couple of years ahead of (Dominic West) at Eton. “I didn’t know him then but I do now,” West said. “I know his wife a bit because my best friend used to be crazy for her. When she wound up marrying Cameron, we were like, ‘Why do you want to be with that fucking Tory boy?’” West now lives just a stone’s throw from the Camerons in west London but claims not to have infiltrated the Notting Hill set. “I must try harder to ingratiate myself with them,” he laughs.’

Odd, don’t you think,  that the Sunday Times should have repeated the story almost verbatim, give or take a “fucking”, three years later, especially when you consider the relationship between the PM and News International’s boss, Rebekah Brooks, who has without any doubt instructed all the editors of newspapers under her control to be very Cameron-positive.

At first sight, most readers might see West’s assessment as a little negative. On the other hand, last year before the election, Andy ‘Soon-to-have-a-Felt-Collar’ Coulson, then (as a result of DC’s distressingly poor judgement) running the Conservative propaganda show, arranged for it to be ‘leaked’ that the lovely Sam Cam had once voted Green, not Tory, thereby immediately improving her profile as a modern independent woman (not the Sloane-Ranging, Tory-loving young Hooray Henrietta the public might have expected DC to marry), thereby giving her and him (as a broad-minded chap who understands that bright young females don’t always vote Tory [bet she does now though]) some useful street-cred. (Coulson performed a similar reverse spin for George Osborne in the Screws five years ago, when they became firm friends).

Andy Coulson may have gone, but his fingerprints linger on, with the help of his old mates at the Sunday Times.

And here’s a side note, Cameron’s claim that the reason he had dinner last Christmas with Rebekah Brooks, who is now clearly seen to have been in charge of what was effectively a criminal organisation in Wapping, was that he was an old school friend of  her husband, Charley Brooks, looks pretty thin.

Brooks was three years older than DC at Eton, and in a different house, thus very unlikely to have had any intercourse with him – other than of a rather beastly nature. And frankly, the ambitious Cameron’s interest in Charley Brooks the race-horse trainer manqué, not to say Ladies’ Underwear merchant ( also manqué), and novelist – most would agree, manqué – would have been non-existent.

But Bonker Brooks has made it to home base with Rebekah the Testarossa, and for DC being on good terms with Ole Rupe is a Number One PR priority – otherwise why would had have taken the absurd risk he did in taking the mendacious Coulson to Downing Street, just to keep Rupe happy?

It is as much within the remit of the Civic Society as any planning application to guard prominent positions in the town against encroachment by unsuitable occupants. Shropshire Council have made it known that they need to generate extra income from the properties they own and they have ear-marked the ground floor of the Assembly Rooms building as a potential candidate. It’s in the interest of everyone in Ludlow that a site like this should be occupied by a business or organisation which will generally enhance the function, ambience and visual appeal of the town.

It has been mooted in our local organ that the ASK restaurant chain might be approached, or are even in discussions over the proposal. The appearance of a mediocre, characterless restaurant like ASK or, even more alarming to contemplate, Macdonalds in a key spot in Ludlow’s unique and handsome Castle Square would be abhorrent to most inhabitants and an affront to the dignity of this quite exceptional town. It would be culpably insensitive of those whose task it is to decide if they were to  inflict something so intrusively inappropriate on future generations of Ludlovians and visitors to the town.

In principle, provided that the well-run Tourist Information Centre were re-housed in as practical a site (which could well be the Buttercross), there’s no reason why its current premises and that of the museum should not produce an income for the strapped council, provided always that they continue to fund the museum elsewhere (albeit, perhaps, in a more stimulating form than the current exhibition). But the Council must do so only by letting the premises to a business that’s truly compatible with and sympathetic to its very particular position in the town.

At the same time, it’s worth pointing out that there are large premises, with restaurant planning use in a prominent spot on Corve Street, which have so far failed to  secure a tenant from among local restaurateurs, nor even from any of the aggressive national chains, despite an excellent size, suitability and prime position.

The current choice of eating places on offer in Castle Square is a discouraging and shameful result of weak and short-sighted initiatives by the County planning authorities, in keeping with their timid decision to allow an application for an absolutely unsuitable development  on Church Walk. The George, which in its wonderful south facing site, could be a fine bar and restaurant, is a distressing example of what happens to pubs in the hands of the monolithic and unsympathetic Pub Cos, while the Castle Lodge Buttery is surely not a sight to be proud of.

It matters very much what goes on in the Assembly Rooms site and, notwithstanding the need for income, it would be a far wiser, longer term commercial decision for the town if the premises were offered not simply to the highest bidder, but at a viable rent to a restaurant of quality and distinction, which would add both to the culinary reputation of the town and the visual qualities of Castle Square.

It is very much within the power of the County Council and to some extent the Board of the Assembly Rooms to decide who the tenant should be and it is vital to Ludlow’s reputation that they get it right. In this, the people of the town deserve open debate and transparent decision making.

For them the only thing that is “A matter of genuine regret” is the fact at they’ve been finally, irrevocably caught.

They paid millions in legal fees and settlements against the actions brought by Max Clifford and Gordon Taylor to avoid having to make disclosures.

Now, by putting their hands up and offering and uncontested settlement, they avoid the massive legal costs, and still don’t have to disclose any incriminating details.

What they are admitting to now are crimes which the Metropolitan Police should and could have uncovered four years ago.

We need to know what hold the Screws had over the Met and individual senior officers which deterred them from doing this.

Former MP and CMS Committee member, Adam Price has said that the paper also put pressure on MPs to deter them from questioning the ridiculous and mendacious Rebekah ‘Testarossa’ Brooks.

Even more alarming than this, is the closeness between the Prime Minister and Andy Coulson, clearly a party to many conspiracies to hack voice-mails and almost certainly now a candidate for collar-feeling, and his former boss, the Testarossa, who was one of the few outsiders at his birthday party at Chequers last year. She too is inextricably involved in these crimes.

Why, too, have the CPS been so docile?

Why was a female employee of the CPS seen on holiday, motoring through France with the Screws star shag’n’brag reporter, Neville ‘Onan the Barbarian’ Thurlbeck?

To this list must also be added the name of the Cock of the Wapping dung heap, the Sunday Arse-Wiper’s most notorious liberty-taker and rule-bender, Mazher Mahmood (STILL THERE).

Proud holder of the sobriquet, Fake Sheikh, Mahmood’s primary journalistic aim is to see his by-line on the front page of the paper as often as possible – though not so often these days.

Mahmood is also to be named in two claims against the paper for phone-hacking – by George Galloway, when Mahmood tried set up a sting to bribe him and failed, and by the former champion jockey, Kieren Fallon, once again the subject of a sting that went so wrong the resulting Old Bailey case collapsed through the paucity of evidence presented by the Fake Sheikh (and the City of London Police, this time, by the way) after which Fallon successfully sued the paper for libel and won £100,000+ in damages and costs.

Fallon has only recently – and reluctantly – been informed by the Met that Glenn Mulcaire had listed more than one of his mobile phone numbers, and evidence given by Mahmood and his team in court five years ago suggested that the journalists acquired some information in concocting their story by listening to messages left by Fallon on a friend’s voicemail.

Mahmood has for many years jealously guarded his own ‘investigations’ team (somewhat depleted these days) and most of the IT and technical stuff is carried out by Conrad Brown, son of the late Screws super hack, Gerry Brown. The simple task of voice-mail hacking would be well within his scope.

 What odds would you offer on ‘Onan’ and Mazher being ushered to the Wapping exit (with a sack of hush-dosh over their shoulders) before the summer Solstice?

 BSkyB (39% owned by News International) has just announced that Andy Gray has been sacked - not for crass, flippant sexist comments about female linespersons, but for an undisclosed unknown, off-air incident a month or two ago.

 Like suing his employers for hacking his phone?

But what next?

Andy Coulson, called as a witness in the perjury trial of Scottish politician Tommy Sheridan at the end of last year, declared under oath that he had no knowledge of all the phone-hacking that was going on at the News of the World when he was in charge there.

Over the last 18 months, since he blatantly dissembled in front of the Commons Culture Media Sport committee, it has become increasingly unlikely that this is true.

Could another perjury trial now be on the horizon?