Morning Report – July 21st

Is it over? Is the rolling news cavalcade that was phone hacking now behind us? Perhaps, for a few days at least, that’s true. Details are still trickling out, but it’s more a case now of peering behind the curtain of Cameron’s Premiership and seeing what a tangled mess it all is. The Guardian reports today that Andy Coulson was never given top security clearance while working at No.10. His security clearance was two levels below that of Alastair Campbell, which will of course beg the question, why? It also seems increasingly clear that David Cameron did, in fact, have conversations about the BSkyB bid with senior News International executives.

Elsewhere in the Guardian today, Norman Tebbit – a man who never resists the temptation to kick someone when they’re down – says it’s the PM’s inability to think things through that is the real problem. Ouch.

So with phone hacking dropping off the top of the news agenda, we can now turn to two hugely significant issues which have been largely overshadowed. Ed Balls has lashed out at the government for a “lack of leadership” over the EU debt crisis.

And in The Times (£), David Aaranovitch tackles the thorny issue of whether or not we should give to the starving people of Somalia. Normally that would be a no-brainer, but the area is of course controlled by pro Al-Qaeda militants. Aaranovitch says we should give anyway. And he’s right. You can donate to the DEC here.