Murky media machinations

Labour MP Paul Farrelly's call for the task of reviewing the evidence to be handed to another police force should be supported.

David Cameron's statement that the CPS is currently assessing the information held by the Met is essentially a defensive stance.

It takes no account of criticism of the original Met decision or of suspicion that the Establishment is engaged in another cover-up rather than a forensic examination of what has taken place, with the intention of unleashing a rigorous investigation.

Many people believe that the Met decision to accept that phone hacking had been the responsibility of a lone News of the World journalist showed an unworldly naivety.

Former NotW editor Andy Coulson was forced to resign at the time and has since had to walk the plank a second time, leaving his job as Cameron's spin doctor, but he has consistently failed to answer questions as to how a reporter's stories could be published in a paper without the editor asking how they had been uncovered.

At the very least, fear of being sued for libel would have dictated a safety first approach.

But Coulson appears to have been content to sanction expensive payments to reporters' "private investigators" without asking what precisely they were offering.

Rupert Murdoch's son James, who is News Corporation chairman in Europe and Asia, also has questions to answer.

Primarily, he should be asked about the cheque for £700,000 that he is said to have authorised as compensation for alleged hacking to Professional Footballers Association chief executive Gordon Taylor.

The "lone rogue journalist" explanation defies logic and invites speculation that hacking was not only routine at News International titles but was endemic too at other papers able to pay the large sums necessary to buy such criminal behaviour.

The involvement of former prime minister Gordon Brown in the mix introduces a further element - the close and even symbiotic relationship between powerful media combines and elected governments.

Former Labour spin doctor Alastair Campbell, who morphed seamlessly from loyal acolyte of Robert Maxwell to accomplice of war criminal Tony Blair, insisted that new Labour cosy up to the Murdoch empire.

If Brown was indeed targeted by News International, this might appear disloyal, but it would simply confirm that politicians, even those previously seen as friendly to Rupert Murdoch, are expendable in the interests of the empire.

The close links enjoyed by Blair with Murdoch are now replicated with Cameron and with the same expectation of mutual benefit.

In these circumstances, Cameron's presence at a private dinner thrown by News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and attended by James Murdoch should set the alarm bells ringing.

The dinner took place days after Business Secretary Vince Cable had been stripped of responsibility for deciding whether the Murdoch empire should be allowed to buy the 61 per cent of BskyB shares not owned by Murdoch to give him exclusive ownership.

Cameron insists that the decision will be taken solely by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt, whose previous comments have been as positive about Murdoch as Cable's were negative.

That is as may be, but the stench of suspicion persists, demanding a lasting solution that curbs the unaccountable power of the media moguls.