A spit in the face of grief

Her belated and hypocritical remarks concerning the activities of her private investigator Glenn Mulcaire carry no weight at all.

It is obvious that Mulcaire's hacking of messages on murdered schoolgirl Millie Dowler's mobile phone was not an isolated aberrant occurrence but standard behaviour.

What Brooks really finds "unforgivable" and "almost too horrific to believe" is that she has been caught bang to rights, presiding over an ongoing festival of criminality masquerading as investigative journalism.

Her promise/threat that the "strongest possible action" will be taken if the accusations are proven is hollow.

It's another example of blaming her subordinates, as when Mulcaire and News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman were jailed in January 2007 for hacking into royal aides' message services.

The idea that a national newspaper editor would have published stories without checking where the information came from or would have sanctioned payment for expenses without question is laughable.

Miliband's welcome change of tack vindicates the campaign by West Bromwich East Labour MP Tom Watson to expose the nefarious role of the Murdoch media in Britain.

Watson addressed last month's congress of general union GMB in Brighton, ridiculing the News International claim that the hacking scandal was the responsibility of a single rogue reporter as a "big, fat corporate lie."

He illustrated the all-pervading lawlessness of the Murdoch empire by pointing out that one senior judge had explicitly accused a News International senior reporter as a blackmailer without any action by Brooks.

In addition, she had "openly, brazenly, arrogantly" told a parliamentary committee that her papers routinely paid police officers for information, which is illegal.

The MP, who himself won a libel case against the Sun as the victim of an untrue story, said that this massive transnational corporation had "systematically conspired to illegally, secretly, covertly invade the private lives of thousands of British citizens."

He made clear why the Murdoch media engages in this conduct, emphasising that it's "not about Hugh Grant's latest girlfriend. It's about power."

And that power is not insignificant. Politicians, the police and even the rest of the media have until now turned a blind eye to this rogue company.

A full month ago, Watson told his trade union audience that News International staff had tried to hack the phones of the parents of the children who were murdered at Soham.

Again there was no response from Brooks, police, politicians and other papers to this stomach-churning allegation.

Watson asserts that this phenomenon of good people doing nothing while evil people prosper is because there is widespread fear of Rupert Murdoch's News International.

The Murdoch stable and the Tory government enjoy a symbiotic relationship, where Cameron & Co ignore News International law-breaking in return for its papers' enthusiastic backing for George Osborne's obsession with dismantling public services.

Every Murdoch paper sold in Britain is a spit in the face of the grief of the Soham parents and the Dowler family as well as every citizen who depends on our public services.

It's time to demand no more police and political cover-ups of News International crimes and a full inquiry into the scale of and responsibility for the hacking scandal.