Screwed? The worst sort of news

By Julian Ware-Lane

The News Of The World is one of the exemplars of the gutter press. It is a miserable read that barely fits the description of ‘newspaper’. Its race to the bottom style of journalism meant that I avoid it more often than not.

Now, if Guardian reports are to be believed, they have managed to scrape the barrel lower than ever before. Something like three thousand individuals have had their privacy violated in pursuit of salacious stories designed to sell not educate.

Outrageous and yet somehow unsurprising, this story completes a hat-trick of sordid tales linked one way or another to the political class. Damian McBride and Smeargate, MPs expenses, and now the dirty laundry antics from the kings of dumbing down.

The Leader of the opposition is ‘relaxed’ with the fact that one of his closest aides is implicated in this sorry tale. I hope that he does not sack Andy Coulson; there is symmetry in the fact that the sleazy ex-editor has charmed his way into the affections of a shallow salesman.

Is there a lesson to be learnt from this? I think there is. There has been talk recently about the democratic deficit. Those for whom the fourth estate is a chattel are unaccountable, and often tax-avoiding on a scale makes the combined score from all the flipping MPs look like a mere bagatelle. Without introducing burdensome regulation, state-control, or reigns on investigative journalism, something has got to be done.

These modern day Citizen Kanes in the media make and break careers and decide elections, and yet have questionable loyalty to the UK. Perhaps it is time to investigate their tax statuses.