At last Labour feel they can make some valid contribution to the phone-hacking scandal without relying on the histrionics of Bryant & Prescott. But it remains to be seen if they will take an official handle on the news that Sir Gus O'Donnell blocked attempts by former PM Gordon Brown to hold judicial inquiry.
According to the Guardian, GB tried just before the general election to hold a judicial inquiry into allegations that the News of the World had hacked into the phones of cabinet ministers and other high-profile figures. Peter Mandelson was said to have had his calls intercepted by the News of the World when new evidence of the illegal practices emerged. O'Donnell told Brown that it would be inappropriate to hold a judicial inquiry so soon before the election. The general, but unspoken, feeling elsewhere in the civil service at the time was that the PM wanted payback for Murdoch’s involvement in having the Sun switch political allegiances.
Murdoch’s army of critics want the government to refuse the controversial purchase of BSkyB by News International until allegations of “hundreds of hacked phones” have been fully investigated. However it the bizarre situation reported this morning is that culture secretary Jeremy Hunt has been advised that he cannot take the scandal into account.
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