Who watches the watchmen?

The Paul Richards column

The only phrase in Latin I can recite with confidence was learned, not from the endless hours in a classroom declining verbs, but from Watchmen. I queued outside Forbidden Planet in Manchester to get my copy of the graphic novel signed by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons in 1987. The phrase comes from Juvenal’s Satires (book IV, lines 347-8, since you ask) and it is the famous question ‘Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?’, or ‘who watches the watchmen?’

Who indeed? The emerging picture from the News International hacking scandal (at last a scandal truly worthy of the -gate suffix) is one of a culture and practice of tabloid news reporting untroubled from any regulatory, legal or moral constraints. The industry’s regulatory body, the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), is a voluntary body, without statutory authority, funded by the newspapers themselves. Its chair Peta Buscombe, a Conservative Peer, has been giving interviews expressing outrage and frustration at the activities of News International executives, reporters and their private investigators. But she has no legal powers. It’s been like watching a bee trying to sting an elephant. If anything comes from hackgate, then proper statutory regulation of the news media in Britain must be it.

I went through the thick of the expenses scandal which rocked politics three years ago. One thing I learned is that you can’t predict what will happen next. This scandal is just getting started. It is the purest form of chaos theory: the tiniest detail may cause the greatest consequences. The rapidity of fresh revelations – as I write it appears that war widows were hacked – is head-spinning. The absence of moral boundaries is truly astonishing. In the expenses scandal the details were comic (duck houses, wisteria cutting, etc). This time the details are sickening. Ed Miliband was pitch-perfect, both in his television interviews and at PMQs. Like Blair reacting to the murder of Jamie Bulger, Miliband reflected the emotion of the nation.

We don’t know where it will end, or whose heads will roll. But in these early stages I’m going to stick my neck out and suggest five outcomes.

First, as I say above, the PCC will cease in its current form as a regulatory body. It has all the utility of a chocolate fireguard. It is over two decades since the Calcutt Commission established the PCC, following years of tabloid abuse and outrage. David Mellor MP famously said the press was ‘drinking in the last chance saloon’, and they’ve been there ever since. It’s time the last chance saloon was issued a demolition notice. We need a new regulatory body, on a statutory footing, with the power to issue fines and other commercial penalties. We need new watchmen.

Second, Rupert Murdoch will restructure the troublesome British outpost of his empire. A few heads will roll to underline his seriousness. Perhaps the News of the World will rebrand under a different masthead. His bid for BskyB may well be delayed or deferred. But there will be no seismic changes to the pattern of media ownership in Britain, I’m afraid. No ‘one-man, one-newspaper’. No break-up of News International. No return to the days of Reynolds News and the Daily Herald. Sorry.

Third, as a direct inverse to the expenses scandal, this scandal will enhance the reputation of Parliament. The emergency debate yesterday was the perfect example of Parliament speaking for the country, and not playing catch-up. In particular, it vindicates the often-lonely campaign ruthlessly pursued by Tom Watson MP. Tom has used every parliamentary procedure and process to keep phone hacking in the public eye. He has shown the dogged determination of Chris Mullin seeking to free the Guildford Four, or Woodward and Bernstein pursuing the Watergate burglars. He was right all along.

Fourth, the advertising spend of big companies will come under greater public scrutiny and accountability. Within hours, thanks largely to Twitter, the major advertisers who pay to appear in the News of the World, had suspended their ads. Those that are still making their minds up are rightly under enormous pressure. Crowds are not merely wise, they are powerful. The advertising industry will have to adapt post-hackgate just as fundamentally as Fleet Street.

Fifth, the Labour Party must calibrate its reaction to the scandal. It cannot be a free-for-all of score-settling against every tabloid newspaper, or a revenge for the Wapping dispute. Labour’s pursuit of the guilty men and women must be forensic and rapier-like, not a bludgeon against every red-top. Robin Cook would have got this: his detailed unpicking of complex scandals was always more effective than the red-faced bluster of some of his colleagues. All this talk of ‘Labour starts a war with News International’ is as dangerous as it is inaccurate. Not every politician fiddled their expenses, and not every journalist has hacked Milly Dowler’s mobile. To get to the truth, and to punish the guilty, we cannot tar every journalist with the same brush. The reality is that this Sunday, like every Sunday, millions of people will buy the News of the World because they enjoy it.