Sketch: Hacking away
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Tuesday, 21, Jul 2009 12:00
By Alex Stevenson
They huffed and they puffed, but MPs just couldn't blow the News of the World's house down.
There was little love lost as the culture, media and sport committee probed current and former journalists from the red-top over phone-tapping allegations.
After hearing claims made by the Guardian newspaper's Nick Davies last week, MPs turned their focus on the accused in over two hours of agonising awkwardness.
Did others at the tabloid apart from jailed ex-royal editor Clive Goodman know he had been phone-hacking? The defences were probed, poked and examined, in any way committee members could think up.
They found much of what was said deeply dubious. Tom Crone, the legal boffin behind News Group Newspapers, was singled out for special disbelief.
Adam Price presented a story about a message sent from one prince's mobile to another. Surely the only source could have been from phone-hacking? Mr Crone said he had "absolutely no recollection" about the story. "I do not remember page seven leads," he added contemptuously. Page-seven journalists in the room shifted uneasily in their seats.
More baffling to the committee were the explanations about a basic journalistic practice - asking junior hacks to transcribe tapes as a way of passing the time.
The junior journalist in question, Crone explained unapologetically, was in Peru. Cue laughs of amused disbelief. "We didn't send him there," he protested.
Current NOTW editor Colin Myler was dismissive, explaining this was a very ordinary practice. He helpfully said there would be junior reporters back in the office transcribing the current discussion about junior reporters transcribing tapes.
The purpose was not to create some sort of hall-of-mirrors confounding the committee, but it had that effect on at least one journalist. Committee members did well to stay seated, such was the dizzying effect.
And so it continued, with Myler launching a passionate defence of his poor persecuted rag. "I do not know of any newspaper that has been so forensically investigated over the past four years," he lamented as his voice rose to Shakespearian levels.
"How much more does the News of the World staff, accused of systematic illegality, have to [endure]? Where is the evidence?"
It was a theme to be returned to again and again, with Myler throwing in variations based on attacks about MPs' expenses. This gained some traction, especially given the committee's failure to understand a junior journalist would be forced to type as part of his job.
"We've just had two months of expenses," Myler grumbled, clearly being of the view that the implications of wider knowledge of Goodman's activities were absurd. If you share a Commons office with someone who breaks the law, he suggested, does that mean you too are guilty? The analogy drifted angrily on. No one seemed especially satisfied.
Personal animosity made the tensions worse. The session started with a face-off between Crone and Labour MP Tom Watson, who are currently embroiled in a legal dispute. Crone demanded Watson leave the room. Watson, backed up by committee chairman John Whittingdale, bristled in response. "I happen to think this is News International trying to interfere with the work of the committee," he said, looking hurt. "I think this is improper."
There was more to come. The second half of the session was interrupted when NOTW's managing editor, Stuart Kuttner, had his own little spat with Philip Davies. Davies' crime, it appeared, was expressing an opinion which Kuttner disliked.
"I am concerned that Mr Davies has in effect been acting as judge and jury and has already made his mind up as to the reliability of anything I say," Kuttner moaned. MPs reacted as you would expect them to. "I'm glad you find it a laughing matter," he protested.
Whittingdale laid down the law. "This is not a court and members of parliament are entitled to hold opinions," he explained gently. Davies himself thought the claim was "quite extraordinary". Kuttner gave up the ghost shortly afterwards. "I hear what you say and thank you for your comments," he said, his tail well and truly between his legs.
Amid all this acrimony there was very little for Andy Coulson, the ex-NOTW editor whose subsequent position as David Cameron's chief spin doctor, to worry about.
Most of the time he sat there in placid silence as Kuttner bobbed and weaved in his slightly outraged way. When Coulson was called on to answer questions he played the repentance card time and time again.
"I think it's right when people make mistakes they resign," he said sadly to himself. And later: "I've thought long and hard about this since I left the News of the World."
He may have admitted he could have done things differently, but Coulson's approach summed up MPs' miserable failure to get very far. "There is no point in speculating on what I don't know," he said at one stage. Where, in short, was the evidence?
So the session appeared a monumental waste of time, with committee members merely succeeding in generating vast amounts of acrimony from Rupert Murdoch's men. With the Metropolitan police not willing to play ball, this is one story which – like the big bad wolf - may have blown itself out.