I agree. The trouble is that we live in a society where there literally is one law for the rich, and one for the poor.

If we accept that phone hacking or what came before has always existed, why did it suddenly come to all this furore?

Because in 2006, a Royal phone was hacked and the might of the top Yard was unleashed on the perpetrators. The private detective and royal reporter were soon arrested and sent down for a few months.

The Yard were in possession of thousands of other cases were ordinary people had been hacked but didn't bother to pursue those, one law for the rich and one for the poor.

Yates and the other talking heads tried to cover up and were caught out. None of them had the guts to tell the truth: Princes William and Harry are more important than us ordinary folk, we don't count in the bigger way of things.

They missed the name Dowler on their long list of people who had been hacked and are now paying the price.

I just loved hearing that Rebecca what'sername had admitted at the last investigation that they had paid the police.

No great hurry THERE to do the right thing, eh?

Not so, the current crop at the top mostly got that high because they were rubber heelers in their careers, specialising in nicking their own. They might struggle with nicking criminals, but they are experts in internal affairs.

A few bent coppers will be in court long before the journalists who paid them. As for the real crooks, the organisers - their chances of being prosecuted are minimal.

You have to be kidding. I remember someomne saying it was very, very hard to get a bent copper, because they knew how to work the system, and they knew to keep their mouths tight shut.

I once asked a policeman who was an old friend, how important that was. He said that if all crims kept their mouths shut, they would be hard pressed to jail 20% of what they did at present.

In the 60's, Scotland Yard were found to be controlling the pornography industry and a squeaky clean Commissioner was brought in to clean it up. He succeeded and the lives of Londoners became a bit more fraught.

Squeaky clean boy scouts were brought in to run the police. The villains realised what was happening and bank robberies went through the roof. They were robbing security vans on a daily basis, knowing that their natural enemies, the flying squad, had been disbandoned.

The government had to bring them back and give them special powers. They shot a few robbers and fitted up many more. It worked and the robberies stopped.

Inevitably, a few of those brave men confronting armed robbers helped themselves to
some of the recovered proceeds.

More squeaky clean boy scouts were brought in and the lives of Londoners became even more fraught.

That's the reality, elderly people are confined to their homes after dark and police officers are so influenced by the boy scouts leading them that they have resorted to 'fire brigade' policing.

Like the reporters, most of the MPs, and the rest of the UK, they don't give a *****.

I remember a report that said this would be hard to do, the ledgers recording the names have the old favourites such as Micky Mouse and Superman and were probably chitties for cash payments, although when paying compensation it was done by cheque.

considering how long the lid has been kept on this over the years, will people now start talking ? I doubt it.!

it may come down to checking out certain people with expensive spending habits, with things like villa in Spain, expensive boat etc

probably be a few more places on the market

Looks like our Rupert is a very worried man,
..to such an extent that he is now beginning to grovel.
First a personal apology to the Dowler family.
Now huge ads in rival rags saying sorry.

I suppose its quite understandable as he sees his world beginning to collapse around his lugs.
More of his senior management team jumping overboard.
The threat of more disclosures with regard to the Sun in the UK plus the investigation in America.
Also demands that he be stripped of the remainder of his Sat/TV business and consequently the massive profits it generates.

In the States he's desperately trying to convince the Yanks what a fantastic forthright character he is, whilst in the UK he is now regarded as the lowest form of life at the bottom of the pond.

Does this not worry anybody though? The power that open, free, mass communication can be damaging for any business now. It's fair enough that it seems NoW has been brought to justice here, but think about Rebbeca Brooks in US who was attacked, mistakenly by thousands. It just takes a celebrity endorsement these days to send a business under.

Does it worry your company or you and your own business?

Not at all, but then I don't bribe coppers, don't hack into people's private messages and so on. Why should anyone be allowed to do that and go on their merry way uncaring.

If the Murdoch empire crashes, I won't be in the slightest bit sorry.

why should it ??
I\we are not in the business of digging into other people's dirty laundry to find out about their indiscretions or inner thoughts.

There is enough to worry about with the snoops at GCHQ and Menwith looking for terrorists and insurrection without fuelling it ourselves.

I am sure there is more than one person who has been doing the snooping. You will probably find that there are several people doing it along with hacking emails etc.
When is it going to come out that the Murdochs and their close friends have been hacked ?

Mind you it is far better for the health than by the old method - of going through the rubbish bins in the dark of night.

Lynch mobs are easily formed and hard to abandon. If I was Rebekah Brooks, I would stay away from places like Hartlepool.

She's more likely to be mistaken for a witch than a monkey I would have thought.

I'm not disagreeing with NoW, what they've done is unforgivable and it's unlikely this will affect a small business, unless they've done something terrible. Though, I do think everyone should be entitled to a fair trial.

I love using Twitter, but I'm not sure I agree with it's uses sometimes. Think about the companies that inadvertently advertised with that paper and resulted in being hacked by so-called "cyber warriors". If a paper like NoW, what could be next. Insider trading at another bank, meddling in the government. Spies? Let's be fair, very little behind the scenes in the big corporates and in government would win them the fair play award.

I think journalists should be regulated, that's for sure, though it's funny also to see the Daily Star cleaning up some of NoW's market, by advertising themselves as the "Sunday Newspaper you can trust"! I used to set aside 10 mins each weekend to read their apologies section.

One poor paper gone, a terrible paper takes it's place. Certainly agree on the health issue

The translation of the apology in the newpapers today:



PS For the lawyers around...its a joke. It is not mine. In fact freddyflintoff tweeted it!

Unfortunately for them they commited the cardinal sin of breaking the eleventh commandment.

THOU SHALT NOT BE FOUND OUT.