I’ve learned that News International CEO Rebekah Brooks will not now be appearing in front of the House of Commons Culture Media Sport Committee to answer direct questions about the News of the World’s widely reported criminal phone hacking activities.
          This is bad news, particularly when the committee has shown commendable determination in trying to extract the truth from the paper about who in that organisation – management and hacks – knew what had happened, who sanctioned it and whether or not, as many suspect, it was endemic.
          Some cynics may see a connection between the facts that committee chairman, John Whittingdale is a Conservative, and his party’s Central Office, through the Machiavellian activities of their chief press officer and former Screws editor, Andy Coulson, have come to an understanding with News International, by which the Sun newspaper has switched allegiance from Brown to Cameron (for all the help that will be), in return for who knows what?
          This may lead the cynics to think there has been encouragement not to put pressure on Brooks to come and see the committee.
          I don’t think so, but the committee really has the Screws on the run and it would be a disatrous waste of their efforts, having got this far, they gave up now. We most of us understand that a stage may be reached in circumstances like this when it is so troublesome and difficult to extract the truth, that crimes go uninvestigated and unpunished – like those of the perpetrators of the massive Lloyds scam 30 years ago, or the activities of some bankers just two years ago. But to let a major British media group get away with blatantly breaking the law would be unforgivable. Sadly, and for myserious reasons, the Met are very reluctant to pursue further investigations.  

Brooks, the “Testarossa” (like the motor, highly tuned and temperamental) – is the ultimate UK boss of the Times, the Sunday Times, the News of the Screws and the Sun, and she’s a busy woman.
          Perhaps she won’t come, not because they haven’t asked her quite firmly enough, but because she’s too frightened of what she might say. Even her slipperiest, hardest-nosed, most rhino-skinned Screws execs tripped themselves up as they ducked and dived their way around the truth in the face of some serious probing from committee members Adam Price and Paul Farrelly.
          Or perhaps the committee think she’ll do as her underlings have done, and block every question with a ‘don’t know’ or a ‘can’t remember’.
          They could be right, and another session could be a waste of time. Certainly the written answers she’s already submitted are evasive and fail entirely to satisfy the questions put to her. (see yesterday’s blog)

It’s clear that crimes were being knowingly committed and it is out of the question that the two jailed scapegoats, Clive Goodman and Glen Mulcaire, were the only people who knew what was going on. John Whittingdale and his committee must continue to pursue her relentlessly until they have genuine, satisfactory answers and the names of the culprits.

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Like most reasonable folk that live in Britain, I admire and am grateful for the commitment and self-sacrifice made by those tens of thousands of genuinely public-spirited policemen who do what they can to maintain the rule of law in this country.

It’s right that exceptional acts of personal bravery shown by individual police officers in the exercise of their job should be recognised and honoured, as indeed they are at the annual Police Bravery Awards ceremony. But for some of the recipients of these awards it must be disappointing that this event should be deeply tainted by a commercial sponsor, particularly one so deficient in integrity and moral purpose as the Sun newspaper.

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I’ve predicted for months, and it’s now been confirmed by what the Independent describes as ‘senior party insiders’, that top Tory spinner, Andy Coulson will not be going to Downing Street if/when David Cameron wins the General Election next spring.

Although there are no complaints about his performance, it was always going to be too ticklish to harbour the man who was in charge of the reporters at the News of the World who were jailed for shamelessly raiding the voicemails of the princes and their staff at Clarence House, particularly as  Cameron will be going round to brief Her Majesty at Buckingham Palace each week.

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It’s not surprising, I suppose, that the furore over Damian McBride’s emailed smear plans, sent from No10 should evoke a hard-hitting response from Charlie Whelan, Gordon Brown’s own spinner during the ’90s. Seeking an Achilles Heel among the Tory image makers, Whelan homed in on the unwholesome presence at Central Office of their current spinner-in-chief and media wizard, a man very accustomed to propagating nasty stories about well-known persons, Murdoch golden boy and former editor of the News of the Screws, Andy Coulson, who, Whelan reminded Patrick Wintour in the Guardian, had been forced to resign after denying all knowledge of a Screws Private Investigator tapping into Clarence House mobile voicemails. I imagine David Cameron is thinking hard about retaining the services of a man who might find the temptation to slip back into his old habits too hard to resist,  potentially causing Cameron as much embarrassment and “Sorry” saying as Brown the Frown has undergone this week. They say Rebekah Wade’s shortly to clamber a few more rungs up the News International ladder. If I were Andy, I’d get into her slipstream now, ready to replace her shapely bum on the editor’s chair at the Sun.

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Last week, at the London College of Communications, Sun editor, Rebekah Wade delivered the annual Hugh Cuddlip lecture to students of journalism.

In the old days, one of the first things they taught young hacks on the Chuffing Sodbury Argus was to make sure they always spelled the punters’ names right. Not, it seems, any more at the London College of Communications, the country’s premier hack school, who announced their up-coming lecturer as “Rebecca” Wade. I wonder if she was cross. You don’t go round spelling your name “Rebekah” unless you really care.

That, however, is not the point. More interesting perhaps are the criteria by which speakers are chosen to deliver this important lecture (past deliverers: Alastair Campbell, Paul Dacre, Andrew Marr and Michael Grade.) What, you might ask, could the editor of one of the most dishonest, self-serving and prurient of British tabloids have to tell any aspiring journalist that might enhance their future career, other than the clear knowledge that, if all else fails, you can always sell your soul?

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