Coulson, whether fool or knave, is a dead man walking. Next, hackers and the Met

Over on the Telegraph, their deputy editor makes a courageous defence of Andy Coulson.


The comment slot is graced by a fascinating insight from @Konnolsky, the Sage of Smolensk, and also by this tuppenceworth from yours truly:

Chris Huhne put it in a nutshell (audio, in March, on George Galloway radio): "Coulson is either a fool or a knave". Either he did not know of the illegal invasions of privacy on the NoTW (and did not have the expenses claims forms examined), or he is lying when he says he knew nothing. It is probably the latter:

Either way he is, as Sailor_Steve says in the Comments, Coulson is a dead man walking.

The next issue is the behavior of the press generally. It seems that the hacking is widespread in nearly all newspapers. It can be argued that some is in the public interest, but the gossip sheets have no such defence.  There is an Augean stable of illegal practice to be cleaned out. I suggest an amnesty might be a reasonable and efficient way to find out what has been happening, so that we can make a fresh start.

There is also the matter of failure of due diligence, or worse, on the part of the Metropolitan police. It is absurd that John Yates is still in charge of the investigation. Clearly, it needs to be handed over to another force.