While I applaud John Whittingdale and the Culture Media Sport Committee for their work on making the libel courts a level field of play and for proposing a set of effective teeth for the clapped out PCC, I have to ask myself why in this morning’s Guardian, Whittingdale downplays the importance of their having doggedly pursued the truth about the Screws’ phone-hacking scandal and identified the possibility that senior executives on a paper in Britain’s largest group of national titles may have been complicit, thereby liable to the legal penalties of those who were charged and jailed for phone-hacking.
   You wouldn’t have too be much of a cynic to think it likely that people from Conservative Central Office have been leaning on the (minority) Tory members of the committee to leave Andy Coulson alone.
   But it would be far safer, in the long run, for senior Tories to ask Coulson to step down, at least until every last investigation has taken place, than to let him stay until they are indelibly tainted by his presence. After all, he hasn’t been doing such a great job with the leader’s image over the last month or so.
With so many Screws’ phone-hacking victims waiting in the wings to sue (and there are hundreds of them), there’s a very good chance that – sooner or later - one of the targets won’t be fobbed off, as I hear Max Clifford will be, with a large purse of gold.

Another confirmed phone-hacking vicitm who won’t be calling in the services of the High Court is Aussie super-body, Elle Macpherson. Why would she, when the Screws , in their tacky little Sunday mag, CRAPULOUS generously gave her a multi-page spread , with an elaborate photo-shoot and a healthy number of name checks for her range of knickers – Elle Macpherson Intimates? (There – she just got another one!)
 I dare say Ole Rumplechops (who’s right on top of this potentially disastrous embarrassment), encouraged a large ‘expenses’ cheque for her, too – almost certainly more than she’d have got from Mr Justice Eady for Invasion of Privacy (Max Mosely only got £60K by going to court, but the Screws paid c.£800k to make Gordon Taylor and his friends go away.) Max Clifford won’t come cheap, either. So the Screws may not have been nicked (yet) but it’s costing them plenty to keep out of the High Court, where they’d have to reveal all sorts of nasties. Poor Ole Rumplechops  – throwing all that money away when he’s so close to retirement.  

Pursuing the truth to the end will take strong principles and big bollocks –       
Who’s got ‘em?
Lembit Opik? Not really.
Boris Johnson? I doubt it.
Tessa Jowell? Who knows? (David Mills might.)
George Galloway? Let’s hope so.

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The Commons Culture, Media, Sport Select Committee would like to talk to Rebekah Brooks, the titian-tressed scrapper who has been suprema of News International since last September. If she complies with their request to see them – and she will try very hard to wriggle out of it – it is to be hoped that she’ll shed more light on criminal activities at the News of the World than did Senior executives Tom Crone (Head of Legals), Stuart Kuttner (ex-Managing Editor), and former editor Andy Coulson, when they were called to give evidence over their phone-hacking to the Committee last summer. She may also remember more than Les Hinton, who was in her current chair when the raiding of the Royal voicemails came to light in August 2006. In September he spoke to the Committee by video link from New York, where he is now boss of the Murdochs’ Wall Street Journal. He had no recollection about key decisions, such as were the hackers paid off after being sacked for their criminal activity.

To the intense frustration of the committee and of those who care about the quality of British journalism, all the witnesses turned out to be suffering from an acute attack of contagious amnesia and truth frugalness. [See my blog] For these are people who have made their careers at Rupert’s Red Tops, delivering ‘journalism’ of such obfuscation and dishonesty, for so long, that it’s far too late to kick the habit.
   In a pitiful attempt to mislead the committee, they all ‘forgot’, or just ‘didn’t know’ any details relating to the events that culminated in the jailing of their Royal Editor, Clive Goodman and Glen Mulcaire, a Private Investigator contracted to the paper.
   In October, the Committee, determined not to be fobbed off with the persistent ducking and diving of the Screws bosses, formally posed a number of questions for them.
Among several anomalies that had arisen, they wished to know “the grounds on which advice was given to settle the claims [allegedly] made by Goodman and Mulcaire and the level of payments made”.
   Rebekah Brooks has now submitted her response. (This was viewable on the Committee’s page at www.parliament.uk up to 13th Jan.) Written in characteristic News of the World house style and buried in a miasma of obscured truth and elusive fact, it fails to answer either of these questions.
   With unexpected eagerness, she puts her hand up in conceding Goodman’s alleged claim for unfair dismissal. As they had “failed to meet minimum requirements” in relation to a dismissal, any affected employee would be entitled to bring a claim, “with a potential compensatory award of up to £60,600 (in addition to any contractual notice pay entitlement).”
But she also tells the Committee that the paper settled before a case was heard by any tribunal. The hypothetical sums and conditions she cites have no bearing on what they actually paid Goodman for signing “a standard-form News International compromise agreement,” – a euphemism for gagging agreement – and this despite the breach of his employment contract through his proven criminal activity. 
   The decoys and the irrelevant waffle in her answers were composed in order to put Rebekah Brooks’ pursuers off the scent; but, like much of the content of the News of the World, the result is ham-fisted, half-baked and easily seen through. There is an almost engaging naivety to her signing off. “… We trust that the answers given in this letter can now bring matters to a close.”
   Keep trusting, TestaRossa! Most observers will understand the subtext to her answer…..

You might think we gave them lots of money to shut them up and stop them telling the rest of the media who within the Screws hierarchy knew they’d deliberately broken the law by hacking into voicemails to get cheapo front page splashes, but you can’t prove it – so there!

The simple fact is that Goodman and Mulcaire were jailed for what they did. It follows therefore, that any other members of the Screws staff who were party to it are also liable to criminal prosecution and a jail sentence, including Andy Coulson and Stuart Kuttner.
The committee have shown commendable resolve in their pursuit of the truth over these activities.

They have a clear right and a public duty to insist on clear, frank and truthful answers from Rebekah Brooks.

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