The Accused

By John Prescott / @johnprescott

I’m still pretty stunned by the Guardian’s revelations that the News of the World under Andy Coulson hacked into my phone. I’m even more amazed to discover that I was just one of 3,000 targeted by this paper and Murdoch’s News International.

I see Coulson is trying to distance himself from the report by saying he wasn’t at the paper when the payout was made to Gordon Taylor. That’s not the point. You were there when the crime was committed. And as Andrew Neil said tonight of Coulson’s News of the World on Newsnight:

“This was a newsroom out of control. We know from your story, it has become a default position to go to these guys and get information this way.

“Everyone who knows the News of the World, everybody knows this was going on. But it did no good to talk about it. One News of the World journalist said to me tonight, it was dangerous to talk about it.

“If this behaviour was systemic in the newsroom, why would you not know about it, why would you of all people, not know about it. Either you’re incompetent or complicit.”

This really does call Cameron’s judgement into question in hiring Coulson. McBride rightly got the sack after those childish emails. In fact, Cameron claimed the incident showed there needed to be a ‘change of culture’ in Downing Street.

But the systematic illegal hacking of upto 3,000 people is in a different league all together. Allowing the man who allowed that to happen into No10 would be deplorable.

So the question Cameron must answer is ‘do you back him or sack him?’ By the fact his people are briefing that he’s “very relaxed” about the episode, we sadly have our answer.