Hacked Off

Even a heart as small and black as mine has its cockles, and this has warmed them rather nicely. Unless and until Iain Duncan Smith is forced to claim housing benefit or a de-secularised Britain shows its respect for Christian tradition by burning Baroness Warsi at the stake, I doubt there will be much to match it for pure, glowing satisfaction. Journalists at the country's most prominent right-wing scumbag sheet after the Daily Mail, Daily Express and Hansard are rushing to join a trade union and consult a human rights lawyer. Geoffrey Robertson QC, author of the excellent The Case of the Pope, has published a column in the Sun's sty-mate, the Murdoch Times, suggesting that a ruling by the European court of human rights may have some sort of relevance. Fortunately for the journalists, this ruling predates the Human Rights Act; otherwise the cognitive dissonance would be screeching around Wapping breaking windows like a Penderecki lullaby. Of course, I have every sympathy with efforts by journalists, even scumbag press journalists, to protect their sources and thwart their repulsive employer; but it's a smug sympathy nevertheless.