...that came quick, didn't it? Next stop Downing Street?

Apologies!

I joked a week ago this is like All The President's Men but blimey, it looks more like it by the hour. God help Rupe if the FBI find anything. When corporate baddies get caught in the US they crucify them. Weird how looking back only a few weeks Murdoch was basically ignoring this!

Politicians, The Police and The Media.

Politicians and The Police have not played a blinder.....but the real bastards are the media.

For me, it's a pity, and it will probably muddy the water vis-a-vis the NOTW, The Sun, The Daily Mail etc. etc. etc.

it transpires, over the coming weeks that Cameron knows more than he is letting on, then he is a gonner. Even so, simply due to guilt by association, he will not be re-elected. My guess is that there will be a leadership challenge before the end of the year.

I did like the tweet from Justin Edwards (appropriately off of The Thick of It) which said "Given how far it's spreading, SURELY it must be possible to involve Piers Morgan in all of this?"

someone on the news today saying how the Rebekah Brooks arrest on a Sunday was a ploy by the police to deflect attention away from their wrongdoings and back on to the evil empire.
Then the Met Chief resigns. Well that didn't work, did it?

He has gone so early, there must be something coming. He resigned to protect his gargantuan pension and pay-off.

as I've hacked my own phone and listened to my own voicemail. I am so sorry and will devote much time to making sure this never happens again.

Can I have a £3.5m quid payoff?

..........Rosebud..........

...is busier than a one legged man in an arse-kicking contest keeping the PM out of the country as much as humanly possible. I think, given how fast this is spreading and given the current anxiety by all concerned not to look too cosy, there's a big window of opportunity for some real shit to spill.

Dave's touching cloth. He has to be.

Everyone deserves a second chance.

© D.Cameron

.... is now leading with "Pressure on the PM". How long before his own backbenchers start to really put the knife in? He's not a leader who's popular with his grassroots party, after all.

What I'm finding most interesting in all of this, apart from the scale of the 'scandal' and it's potential to completely change the face of politics as we've been used to it for the last couple of decades, is how many of the major players in all of this are close friends, across all three of the 'bodies' involved. Media and police and politicians all going out for dinner with each other, being guests at mutual friends' weddings etc etc. It needs one of those old Rock Family trees to make sense of the relationships.

Here's some more information on the way things are all tangled up.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8644462/Phone-hacki...

As another aside, various conspiracy theorists are bandying the word 'mason' around at the moment. Given the links between all the players involved, you can't but help thinking that maybe it's time to invest in a tinfoil hat.

And there is something reptilian about Rupert these days. You wouldn't be surprised to find that these dinners between Cameron and NI involved large trays of live mice being served up...

....will Inspector Knacker eventually turn up at premises in the Islington area asking to see a relatively short, well-spoken gentleman with a bemused expression about an 'industrial scale' wave of 'Phone Hepping' - aka sending podcasts full of Nick Lowe, seasick steve and erudite, witty banter about popular culture to the unsuspecting mobile phones of countless innocent members of the public?

It's more than the defining story of our age - it also serves as a parable for itself. You couldn't have made it up.
Well you could, but you'd have been branded a left wing conspiracy nut.
The same thing struck me just as Richard Bacon said it on a certain social networking site - all the institutions failed us - it's like living through successive series of The Wire.

Surprise surprise

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14181344

Just wait until news of a big cover-up breaks, possibly later this week. It ties in News International, The Met, and members of both the current and previous governments.

through the looking glass here people

From The Guardian (18:04 BST, 18/7/11): "

News of the World phone-hacking whistleblower found dead"

Sean Hoare, the former News of the World showbiz reporter who was the first named journalist to allege Andy Coulson was aware of phone hacking by his staff, has been found dead, the Guardian has learned...

Hertfordshire police ... said in a statement: "At 10.40am today [Monday 18 July] police were called to Langley Road, Watford, following the concerns for the welfare of a man who lives at an address on the street. Upon police and ambulance arrival at a property, the body of a man was found. The man was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after. The death is currently being treated as unexplained, but not thought to be suspicious."