Rupert Murdoch

Editor, teacher?
A tidal wave of details concerning the News of the World phone hacking now engulfs us all. Will we survive? In the ultimate act of self-regulation the NoW was closed last Sunday on orders from Rupert Murdoch. It remains to be seen if those other bastions of self-regulation, politicians and the police, can match this act when their turn comes. Their records so far, on other matters, don't exactly inspire confidence. But you do get the feeling that this story has more than just one over-energetic tabloid, a few bent coppers and our political superiors to it.

If only!
Oh how complicated! The tale of Dr Vince Cable, (see right) the Business Secretary, has enough twists and turns to be, under normal circumstances, the plot of an airport novel. However, with air travel being especially fraught at the moment most readers might prefer the central character to be more deserving of sympathy. For Cable is just self serving and his own worst enemy. Funny how it goes but the last Business Secretary, Peter Mandelson, was the same and mad too. The Daily Telegraph did us all a service when it printed, leaked if you prefer, the details of the MPs expenses' scandal. Just to remind you it was Labour in government then and simple souls might have thought that they were motivated by politics alone; wrong, journalism was the driving force and the fallout, still evident, from that story did damage to parliament and not just one party.