The dark side

Facial similarities and shifty body-language aside, there’s a growing number of hacks hoping that Phil Woolas and Andy Coulson get to share another common trait at the hands of the law. Among the usual suspects are the Guardian, Telegraph and Mirror but even normally supportive sources are taking a critical slant after it emerged how today’s news that the tory spin doctor had been interviewed by the Old Bill is a couple of days old. Hell hath no fury like journos kept in the dark.
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Likely Lads: Woolas & Coulson

Woolas is no loss to politics, his dreadful handling of the Ghurka issue and a series of other ministerial expediencies whilst in office showed his underlying shallowness. His eventual undoing for shabby election practices carries fitting echoes of how Capone was done for lesser crimes but done nonetheless. Few think that the member for Oldham East will be making a comeback now that Labour has effectively pulled up the ladder.

Whether a similar outcome will become Coulson’s just desserts is by no means apparent. One esteemed columnist reminds us that the former editor has never once been required to state on oath that he knew nothing about the widespread practice of phone hacking at the NoW newsroom. Otherwise someone would surely have raised the contradiction between this non-involvement in day-to-day staff matters with his close monitoring of an individual journalist’s activities to order to engineer his dismissal – as claimed in an employment tribunal into bullying last year.

The strange thing is that whilst heaps of journalists (plus a few bloggers) want to see Coulson’s head on a bloody spike, politicians seem less keen to get him kicked out of his Downing Street office. One Labour strategist insists that the longer Andy stays part of Cameron’s personal entourage, the better the chances of a few drips of poison splashing on the PM. When Coulson finally goes, and few think he can survive, the questions will be all about Cameron’s judgement for employing him.

Of course, the outcome all depends on who’s asking the questions – just as most of us can already predict the likelihood of a meaningful Labour post-mortem into how Woolas and his local party were allowed to so blatantly play the race card back in May.