From today’s Commons culture, media and sport committee report on “press standards”:
We have seen no evidence that Andy Coulson knew that phone-hacking was taking place. However, that such hacking took place reveals a serious management failure for which as editor he bore ultimate responsibility, and we believe that he was correct to accept this and resign . . .
The newspaper’s enquiries were far from “full” or “rigorous”, as we — and the PCC — had been assured. Throughout our inquiry, too, we have been struck by the collective amnesia afflicting witnesses from the News of the World . . .
In seeking to discover precisely who knew what among the staff of the News of the World we have questioned a number of present and former executives of News International. Throughout we have repeatedly encountered an unwillingness to provide the detailed information that we sought, claims of ignorance or lack of recall, and deliberate obfuscation. We strongly condemn this behaviour which reinforces the widely held impression that the press generally regard themselves as unaccountable and that News International in particular has sought to conceal the truth about what really occurred.
From an east London employment tribunal verdict in November 2009, via the Guardian:
The tribunal found in December 2008 that Driscoll had fallen victim to “a consistent pattern of bullying behaviour”. “The original source of the hostility towards the claimant [Driscoll] was Mr Coulson, the editor; although other senior managers either took their lead from Mr Coulson and continued with his motivation after Mr Coulson’s departure; or shared his views themselves. Mr Coulson did not attend the tribunal to explain why he wanted the claimant dismissed.”
So has Andy Coulson become a “Tory liability”, as Alastair Campbell argues over at the Guardian’s Comment Is Free? I think so — and I pity the “Garden Room Girls” at Downing Street who’ll have to work under him if the Tories win on 6 May.
Meanwhile, the sanctimonious bloggers on the right, who moaned and complained about Campbell, New Labour “spin”, Damian McBride, Derek Draper, “Bullygate”, blah, blah, blah, have remained largely silent on Coulson and co. Shame on them all.
Does any doubt remain that the residents of the Tory blogosphere take their marching orders from CCHQ?
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