If Thy Right Wing Offend Thee

In light of their exceeding innocence, Britain's First Family have decided to close the News of the World. This Sunday's edition will be the last, and hence hopefully a sales-boosting collector's item; more importantly, a highly visible target for protest against the Murdoch tar-and-feather empire will disappear thanks to the lack of a red-topped rag among the usual Sunday bull, at least until the fuss dies down. After somebody's idea of a decent interval the Minister for Cultchah, Meedjah and Rebekah, Jeremy C Hunt, will be able to hand over the chunk of Britain's broadcast media that is the price of Rupert's tolerance this year, and then no doubt it will be safe for a Sunday edition of The Sun to be issued so that the moral character of the Sabbath may be retained. Certainly there is a sort of integrity in James Murdoch's firing everybody regardless of their involvement or otherwise in any criminal activity; few have maintained for longer or louder than the Murdoch press that laws for the rich lead to unfortunate consequences.

Daveybloke, despite his long and intimate association with the Murdochs' Cuddly Coulson, has apparently been a bit gove-lansleyed by the whole nasty business. He came back from Afghanistan, doubtless expecting the chance for a bit of a posture as the Bloke That Supports Our Boys, and instead found himself being beaten to the top of the moral molehill by a Labour leader who can't even win an argument over the NHS. It has since become more or less apparent that Daveybloke has conceived a vague inkling that an inquiry might be a good idea, and possibly another inquiry as well; perhaps after the pattern of one or other of the various Iraq inquiries, so that all the right people can be properly vindicated. Doubtless we shall soon be hearing much about the cost of such things to the taxpayer; but, given Daveybloke's moral and political ties to Britain's First Family, his ambivalence is understandable. Whatever may or may not have been done by his favourite editor while she was cut off from all communication in Italy, Daveybloke is hardly the sort of bloke to object to anyone's using dead children for personal gain.