Informational Buccaneering

Business family values vied with celebrity hanky-panky at the Old Bailey yesterday as the father-in-law of a TV chef pleaded guilty to hacking the emails at his son-in-law's company. The father-in-law had been fired and was allegedly looking for pictures of his girlfriend; but since the lady in question is apparently of interest neither to the Home Office nor to the Home Secretary's co-employer Rupert Murdoch, the father-in-law was unable to muster a convincing defence of either national security or freedom of information. Nor, strangely enough was the dead-eyed warden of HM Prison UK, nor any flunkey or minion thereof, called to testify concerning the much-vaunted social benefits of breach of privacy. Given the blatant miscarriage of justice, it surely cannot be many days before we hear that Vladimir Putin was running the trial all along.