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.

Your executives Myler, Crone, Kuttner, Coulson, Hinton all told the CMS committee in 2009 that there had only been one rogue reporter, Clive Goodman – the Royal editor – and continued asserting this, as did you, right up until 2010.

Are you telling us that you and your executives believed that the extensive phone hacking of Gordon Taylor and his assistants by Mulcaire was ordered by Clive Goodman, the one rogue reporter?

And did they (and you) believe that Goodman also instructed Mulcaire to hack into the phones of Skylet Andrew (a footballers’ agent), Simon Hughes, and Max Clifford, all of whom were named as victims of Mulcaire’s hacking when he was convicted in January 2007?

If they didn’t believe this (and they could not possibly have believed it), they all lied to Parliament when they re-asserted their claim that Goodman was the only guilty reporter.

The obfuscation, the hesitation, the avoidance of direct answers, the high pitched protesting whine, as well as the inconsistency of fact when James Murdoch appeared before the committee on Tuesday were all convincing indicators that he too has now lied to parliament.

News International have now “admitted” they have had this information for four years (at least five, in fact). I watched Andy Coulson (former editor) Colin Myler (current editor), Stuart Kuttner (managing editor/chief dirty tricks organiser for twenty years and at least 8 editors) and Tom Crone (head legal honcho) of the News of the World tell a parliamentary committee that there was absolutley no further evidence of phone hacking, and that Clive Goodman (jailed Royal claptrapper) was a lone rogue reporter. 

They were all lying…..

Here’s how I reported it at the time …

I hope this doesn’t spoil your  breakfast, but it’s important we should know how diligently  this man goes about his work. – before we judge him too harshly.

Thurlbeck is  the hard-nosed  hack who usually handles the dirtier celebrity shag’n'brag  stories for the News of the World. A sting went badly wrong for him a few years ago. He’d set out to expose a naturists’ boarding house whose owners allegedly offered ‘extra’ sexual services to guests. Having made his investigations, Thurlbeck carelessly forgot to ‘make his excuses and leave’ (in the time-honoured News of the World manner). Instead, no doubt to his eternal regret, he made his excuses and came. He was  caught on film begging the couple to have sex while he stood at the foot of their bed, exposed what, in its primmer days, the News of the World would have called his ‘manhood’ and indulged in an unmistakable act of onanism. Since the film was posted on the internet to the delight of his fascinated colleagues, it was inevitable that sooner or later the moniker ‘Onan the Barbarian’, bestowed on him by an uncharitable ex-colleague, would stick.

Telling lies to judges in court is an imprisonable offence.

If Rebekah decides he has to go, he’s going to cost Master James an awful lot in ‘be discreet’ money. We’ve never heard how much his former dodgy colleague, managing editor for 25 years, Stuart Kuttner was awarded when he was sacked (to get this arch-organizer of illicit practices out of the way before the dung hit the windmill).

Have the MET raided his gaffe yet, I wonder? Not too late, DAC Sue Akers.

What next?

If Ian Edmondson was involved, so was Andy Coulson

If Andy Coulson was involved, so was Rebekah Brooks.

If Rebekah Brooks was involved, so was Master James.

And if they were, it’s very likely that Les Hinton, CEO of The Wall Street Journal (the brightest bird in Rupert Murdoch’s bush), was involved, too, becasue he was Executive Chairman of News International at the time.

 And then there’s the Fake Sheikh, the nation’s most mendacious hack……

Watch my next blog….

It all smells pretty nasty, Young Vagina, so chuck away the nose peg, and send Ol’ Rumplechops and his billions packing. If you don’t, you’ll look as big a fool as your boss does just now over his ‘loyalty’ to Andy C.

And you don’t want that, do you?

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?

 Answer: Because that executive is Les Hinton, former Executive Chairman of News International in London, at the time when two men were caught and jailed for phone-hacking, of which, he claimed at the time and since to the Commons CMS Committee, that he, the editor Andy Coulson, and every other executive and senior journalist at the paper had absolutely no knowledge.

Now that it’s clear that dozens of senior staff and employees of the paper not only had knowledge of what the ‘one rogue journalist’ was doing, but were all busy doing it themselves, it begins to look as if perhaps Les did know more than he was admitting, perhaps even to the extent that he could be deemed complicit – even a co-conspirator in plans to invade the voice-mails of hundreds, possibly thousands, of targets deemed newsworthy by the paper.

 As current head of a newspaper which is the most illustrious in the News Corp stable and is also Rupert Murdoch’s most cherished possession, one can imagine that there is serious pressure on Hinton not to be shown to be party to such sordid little crimes. That was why he is taking such an interest in this and no doubt all the dozens of other cases which are ranged up against the News of the World by those seeking recompense for the paper’s criminal violation of their right to privacy.

 Best of Luck, Les!