So, Ed Miliband just used all of his questions at PMQs on the phone hacking business, and got...precisely no-where. First he called for a public inquiry. Then he called for Rebekah Brooks' head. Then he got bogged down in technicalities, and was jeered off - even John Bercow couldn't save him from that.
Today's PMQs has really underlined how predictable this whole mess has been. I mean, was anyone really that surprised to find out that there's absolutely no moral direction at the heart of the News of the World, or indeed News International? And was anyone really surprised that Cameron expressed outrage while at the same time shifting to protect his friends and backers at News Corp?
Cameron's answers had already been predicted by myriad analysts before the debate even began. As long as a police investigation is ongoing, the Government will resist holding a public inquiry. Cameron stated repeatedly that he doesn't want to hamper a police investigation by overlapping it with a public one, and this is a rather clever if predictable move - he's trying to put it off for a while, until public fury has cooled, evidence has been mysteriously shredded, and various News International execs moved on to new positions. And, most importantly, until after the BSkyB takeover has gone through - Murdoch is counting on that, and that means Cameron is too.
Chris Bryant is among a precious few who is actually talking sense right now. As I write, he's addressing a Commons debate about phone hacking and is essentially just giving them a bollocking, in his usual calm, even-handed tone. "The entire political system has failed," he says. And he's right. Labour and the Conservatives are equally guilty when it comes to crawling into bed with Murdoch and enabling his creeping stranglehold over our politics. Margaret Thatcher started it. Tony Blair expanded on it, even. David Cameron actually brought a News International executive into his inner circle in the form of Andy Coulson, who later had to quit over - you guessed it - phone hacking. Is Rebekah Brooks going to be next? Rebekah Brooks, who had David Cameron over for tea over christmas? This is a point that Chris Byrant has hammered home quite effectively during the current debate: politicians have colluded with those at the very top of the media, especially the Murdoch media.
The News International response has been fun, too. They claim that they have assisted the police in their inquiries at every turn, but all of a sudden they've found some new evidence to hand over. All of a sudden, now they've been caught out (again), there is a new raft of papers...containing even more incriminating material. A whole new can of worms has opened up, that they were hoping to keep under wraps. The list of hacking victims will be endless; that's what happens when you bring in a private detective. Their job is to compile information, so compile information they shall.
Of course, the information fuelling the present revelations was actually all included in the files handed over to the police. Which begs the question of why they never found it at the time - and indeed why nobody else did. We know the details of thousands of potential phone hacking victims were in the files - so why weren't all of them contacted at the time? The trouble is, looking back and raking up things like this is only going to slow down the present police investigation. If we have to have a police inquiry and then a public inquiry into the police inquiry, we're never going to get around to having a public inquiry into the actual problems at the root of it all. Which are clearly myriad. There's a danger of getting caught up in revisionism when really we have much more pressing matters at hand.
