This time Mr Miliband used his pooled interview to call on News International boss Rebekah Brooks to “consider her position” – code for resign – because she was editor of the News of the World at the time 13-year old murder victim Millie Dowler’s phone was hacked by her reporters, messages deleted to make space for more frantic calls only to be hijacked and diverted to NoW column inches, and an exclusive interview with the distraught parents secured on the basis of the false hope engendered by that very interference.
But unlike some of his fellow party members and former Cabinet colleagues he did not direct his fire at News International owner Rupert Murdoch himself.Labour backbencher and uber-Twitterer Tom Watson candidly admitted on Newsnight that all party leaders – including Ed Miliband – are too scared or too much in awe of Mr Murdoch and all want either his patronage or not to be attacked by his titles.
The story, almost a Marshall McLuhan template in its self-referential nature, was first broken by Flat Earth News author Nick Davies on The Guardian’s website, picked up on Twitter and Radio 4’s PM, and gradually snowballed.Alastair Campbell – the original broker of New Labour’s cosy relations with News International all those years ago – tweeted several hours into the Twitter frenzy to ask what was the NoW story that had everyone in such a, well, twitter.
This prompted a certain amount of disbelief among some of his already indignant followers that he was not plugged into it from the very beginning. He subsequently made up for lost time by blogging about how any failure to order anything but the fullest inquiry into press abuses by Prime Minister David Cameron would be a sign of weakness.
At the time of going to press Rebekah Brooks – best mate of the Blairs but now even more of a best mate of the Camerons – who was editor of the paper that exploited the Dowler family’s grief for circulation gain was using the BBC’s business editor Robert Peston to say how she will not resign. She is as outraged as anyone else and has ordered the fullest inquiry. She even sought mitigation by citing her Sarah’s Law anti-paedophile campaign – in full swing during the Millie story in 2002.
Actor Hugh Grant, who wrote about tabloid phone tapping and stalking for the New Statesman and has since been a highly articulate commentator on the subject on the BBC, said this may be a turning point because it had become clear that the targets whose privacy had been consistently and industrially stolen for profit were not just the rich and/or famous. Asked on Radio 4’s World At One if he had any confidence in Ms Brooks supervising the internal investigation he replied that it was like asking him if he thought Hitler would be a good person to clean up or take care of the Nazi party, “it is absurd”. Referring to her own protestations of ignorance about phone tapping and those of her successor Andy Coulson over the royal phone bugging Clive Goodman/Glen Mulcaire scandal Mr Grant said they “were either the worst editors in the history of journalism or liars”.
The affair looks set to collaterally taint and damage the reputations of many people – including many News International workers further down the food chain – while leaving the guiltiest culprits unscathed. The day before the scandal broke the NoW brazenly published an article about how Levi Bellfield’s defence counsel had brutalised the Dowler family during the trial and included a stout call to arms by so-called Victims’ Advocate Louise Casey which can only now make her cringe in embarrassment at how she was used.Following the conviction of Millie Dowler’s murderer, Levi Bellfield, last month the judge was forced to abandon his trial for the attempted kidnap of 11-year-old Rachel Cowles, the day before he snatched Millie, because of reckless contempt of court and prejudicial reporting by the tabloids.
This week on the same day most of Fleet Street was surfing the outrage and indignation of the Dowler affair – The Sun and the Daily Mirror were being prosecuted for contempt of court coverage of the Joanna Yeates murder. The boss of the Press Complaints Commission, Baroness Peta Buscombe, answered to charges of being unfit for purpose by The Independent co-owner Evgeny Lebedev by saying that News International allegedly told it “lies” during the PCC’s own toothless and ineffectual inquiry into phone hacking.Meanwhile, Robert Peston News International’s direct line to the BBC, tweeted that executives there have told him they fear that there may be far worse revelations to come.
That may be adroit crisis or expectation management or it may be true. The fact that Sky News political editor Adam Boulton – whom we now know courtesy of Alastair Campbell was prepared to take over from him in Downing Street but wanted to wait to make the most of his share options – was dragooned into interviewing a heavyweight News International troubleshooter on his lunchtime programme showed how serious the corporation thinks the issue may impact on the Sky takeover.
But Twitter storms die down, outrage fatigue, short attention spans and novelty displace older threads – or at least have thus far as a now somewhat humbler newspaper columnist called Johann Hari might attest. Or this could be the NoW’s Gerald Ratner moment in which an established brand is rendered toxic by the hubris of its bosses.
Either way, both Business Secretary Vincent Cable – whose own hubris and boastfulness led to him losing oversight of the News International BSkyB bid – and Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt insist that the Dowler scandal has no bearing on the bid which is, courtesy of Mr Cable, decided on the narrow grounds of media plurality and not a “fit and proper” owner criterion. Mr Cable thought it best that he refrain from public comment on the current row.
