And so it continues

As much as some of the NI journos like to insist that the phone-hacking scandal has pretty much run its [original] course, even they have to accept that the fallout continues to widen into new areas of speculation. The unpredictable way in which new threads appear however means that politicians (hacked or otherwise) are no longer leading on stories – if only because they are proving to be a lot less reliable than ‘industry’ sources.

Labour is desperate to throw up inconsistencies between what David Cameron and Jeremy Hunt had to say about what would be appropriate circumstances for the PM to be talking to anyone in the Murdoch empire about the acquisition of BSkyB. Few are listening.

Nick Robinson prefers to ponder the possible scale of immersion of Chancellor George Osborne in the murky world of Murdoch hospitality. He writes:

“For days Team Osborne have been assembling a list of his meetings to publish. A decision has now been taken to incorporate them with a list of all cabinet ministers' meetings. I have been enquiring for some days when this will be. One, in particular, will be worth looking for.

It's a dinner in New York at which Rupert Murdoch and George Osborne were both guests in the run-up to Christmas last year - that's around the very time that Vince Cable lost responsibility for the BSkyB decision.”

Meanwhile tory MP, rock chick by marriage and Have I Got News for You guest Louise Mensch (nee Bagshawe) is refusing to repeat allegations that former tabloid editor Piers Morgan had admitted to using phone hacking to get stories. Mensch declined to repeat the claim without the benefit of parliamentary privilege and is wisely keeping schtum from now on.

It takes the Independent in its leading article to highlight how much of what has happened is not so much the result of a obsession by politicians with the media but that both fields of endeavour are so prone to professional crossover.

They remark: “Even if Mr Coulson is never charged with a crime, the Leveson inquiry and the police investigations guarantee that his name will return time and again to the headlines, and the Prime Minister can do nothing to wrestle himself free. His preoccupation with public relations helped to make Mr Cameron who he is; from now on, it will burden, if not break, his premiership.”

Such observations may be based upon the kind of 20-20 hindsight mentioned in debates but they are no less accurate for that. The question however is whether any inquiry can adequately nail or even suggest how the incestuous means by which PR pervades political thinking at all levels can be curbed. We can all probably guess the answer to that one.