It was Osborne who was responsible for persuading Cameron to hire Andy Coulson in the first place, and who invited News International executives to his 40th birthday party at the grace-and-favour country residence, Dorneywood.

Others in the pro-Murdoch camp include - astonishingly, given his responsibility to oversee the BSkyB bid - culture secretary Jeremy Hunt and his deputy, Ed Vaizey.

Cameron had the chance to distance himself last Friday, when Coulson was arrested, but chose not to do so. Some naively praised his readiness to stand by his mate. It would not matter if they were just mates, but the BSkyB bid makes Cameron's chummy relationship with Murdoch's executives different. Murdoch once came close to bankruptcy and his global assets are threatened again if he is frustrated over the BSkyB bid.

With MPs still smarting over the expenses scandal, it will be crucial that whatever is introduced really is about raising standards, rather than revenge. It was the Guardian which brought the News of the World to book, not Parliament or the police. Investigative journalism may be in the dog house at the moment, but it is still vital.

Another concern is what Murdoch might do with his newspapers if he is thwarted in his ambitions for BSkyB. Last week, the influential Conservative Home blog pointed out that, for all their faults, the Murdoch titles have always been a reliable counterweight to the influence of the left-wing Guardian and BBC. In the interests of balance and plurality, it urged David Cameron to have a care for the future of the centre-right press.

With Labour taking the lead against him, the News International titles are unlikely to swing behind Ed Miliband anytime soon. But the Sun and the Times remain forces to be reckoned with. A disgruntled Murdoch could yet cause a lot of trouble if he wants to.

Alternatively, he might simply decide to call it a day in this country. Murdoch is known as a newspaper man, but newspapers across the Western world are on the slide. He was distinctly unsentimental when it came to closing the News of the World and his investors are likely to be even less so.

Of all of Rupert Murdoch’s loyal lieutenants, none is more loyal, nor longer-serving, than Leslie “Les” Hinton.

A British citizen by birth, Hinton, like Murdoch, is a naturalized American who has been in Murdoch’s employ since he was a teenage copyboy at the media baron’s first newspaper, the Adelaide News in Australia. Among his duties then: fetching the boss’s lunch. As Murdoch marched around the globe acquiring news and entertainment properties, Hinton has been at his side. In all, he has spent 50 of his 67 years helping Murdoch build his conglomerate, News Corp.

Now Hinton’s role in one of Murdoch’s darkest passages is being called into question.

As a phone-hacking scandal continues to roil Murdoch’s operations in Great Britain, the spotlight has turned on Hinton, currently the chief executive of one of the jewels of News Corp.’s U.S. operations: Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal.

As the head of Murdoch’s British newspaper division, News International, from 1995 to 2007, Hinton oversaw the News of the World, the newspaper that allegedly pried into the phone accounts of hundreds of celebrities, politicians and ordinary Britons. Hinton testified before Parliament about the matter twice, insisting that the illegal activity had been the actions of a single rogue reporter.

The hacking story took another downward turn for Murdoch on Monday with allegations that his British papers targeted former British prime minister Gordon Brown before and during his term in office.

According to the Guardian newspaper, the hacking of Brown’s voice mail, bank account, legal files and family medical records involved not just his now-defunct tabloid, News of the World, but also Murdoch’s other British papers, the Sun, Times of London and Sunday Times.

The emerging question is whether Hinton knew about illegal activity at the newspapers under his watch. He has strongly denied that he did.

When he testified before a Parliament committee in March 2007 as head of News International, Hinton said he was “absolutely convinced” that the hacking was limited to one News of the World reporter. He didn’t identify the reporter, but it was clear he meant Clive Goodman, the paper’s royals correspondent, who had pleaded guilty to receiving information surreptitiously obtained from the phones of royal staff members.

At the time, Hinton also defended then-news editor Andy Coulson in his testimony. “I believe absolutely that Andy did not have knowledge of what was going on,” he said. Coulson, who resigned from the paper amid the scandal and later became spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron, was arrested Friday on charges related to the hacking investigation.

Hinton was one of five News International executives who had access to an internal investigation in 2007 that disclosed that the illegal behavior at News International’s newspaper was broader than the company had acknowledged up until that time, the Guardian reported Monday.

In 2009, Hinton testified before another Parliament committee that News International had gone to “extraordinary lengths” to investigate itself and had disclosed its findings. “There was never any evidence delivered to me that suggested that the conduct of Clive Goodman spread beyond him,” he said then.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/long-time-murdoch-associate-gets-drawn-into-newspaper-scandal/2011/07/11/gIQAYWWk9H_print.html

Metropolitan Police assistant commissioner John Yates faces a rough ride later this morning when he gives evidence to MPs on the home affairs committee about the phone hacking scandal.

Yates is the senior officer who in 2009 ruled out a fresh inquiry into phone hacking at the News of the World. Officers in charge of the original 2005 investigation, which led to the jailing of private investigator Glenn Mulcaire and NotW royal editor Clive Goodman, will also be questioned.

Some MPs suspect Yates's decision not to open an inquiry was fuelled by a desire to maintain good relations between the police and News International, the newspaper's parent company. Yates has said his decision was down to legal advice from prosecutors, the need to channel funds to fighting terrorism and a failure of NotW staff to cooperate.

But Yates has admitted that his performance on phone hacking was "pretty crap" – a statement that has prompted two MPs to call for his resignation.

It is not the first time Yates has faced a parliamentary committee after heading up a high-profile investigation. It was he who led the police probe into the cash-for-honours scandal in 2006 after it emerged that some people who had advanced loans to the Labour party subsequently received peerages.

With the row about News International phone-hacking and 'blagging' intensifying, follow all the latest developments as they happen...

Yates: I don't know what was in the 11,000 pages of hacking inquiries.

 Met's acting deputy commissioner John Yates say he is unaware of what is in the collected evidence and says he is 99.99% sure his own phone was hacked  

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/blog/2011/jul/12/phone-hacking-scandal-live-coverage

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-12/what-a-shocker/2792170

The shareholder action by the Amalgamated Bank and two pension funds in Delaware, where News Corp is registered, is again focusing attention on the Murdoch family's dominance of one of the world's largest media companies while owning only 12 per cent of it.

''These revelations show a culture run amok within News Corp and a board that provides no effective review or oversight,'' the lawsuit claimed.

When first filed in May, it claimed that News Corp had paid too much for Shine, a successful television production company that was founded by Mr Murdoch's daughter, Elisabeth. The lawsuit claimed the $US615 million price tag was ''artificially inflated'' to favour her.

John Hartigan, the CEO of News Ltd in Australia prides in his organisation being the "only media criticising the Labor government" as the media should... Excuse me, John, but much of the arguments used by News Ltd to criticise the government is BULLSHIT... Pure bullshit. The use of unfair, unsubstantiated and below the belt lies plus misrepresentating the truth is not the way a media organisation should operate.

News Corporation, which has its headquarters in the US, emphasises in its corporate literature that it has a global anti-bribery policy. "We don't offer, give, solicit or accept bribes or kickbacks, either in cash or in the form of any other thing or service of value," it says.

But evidence has come to light that News Corporation employees working for the News of the World bribed police officers in the UK. "What News of the World did would seem to fall squarely within the parameters of the FCPA," said Philip Raible, a media lawyer with Rayner Rowe LLP in New York.

The chorus of demands that News Corporation face an FCPA investigation has grown steadily louder in the US in the past two days. The former governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer, has called in Slate for an immediate investigation of the company for violation of the anti-bribery act.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/14/hacking-murdoch-paid-us-lobbyists

-----------------------

Welcome to Aussieland where bribes are not tax deductible but kickbacks are....

Ms Brooks, 43, said she quit to avoid distracting attention from News International's efforts to "fix the problems of the past".

She became a focus for criticism of the company's journalistic practices after it emerged that the News of the World hacked into murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler's phone while she was editor of the Sunday tabloid.

Ms Brooks wrote in her email to staff: "My desire to remain on the bridge has made me a focal point of the debate.

"This is now detracting attention from all our honest endeavours to fix the problems of the past.

"Therefore I have given Rupert and James Murdoch my resignation. While it has been a subject of discussion, this time my resignation has been accepted."

Labour frontbencher Chris Bryant, who has been a leading critic over the phone-hacking scandal, said Ms Brooks should have left before.

"I think it is right that she goes. I think she should have gone a very long time ago," he told Sky News. "Frankly, she should have gone when she said she had paid police officers for information back in 2003."

He added: "I thought it was disgraceful when the newspaper last week was closed as a way of trying to protect Rebekah Brooks and then Mr Murdoch saying that she was his priority.

"It felt like those in the boiler room were carrying the can for those who were really at the helm of the ship."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/press/rebekah-brooks-resigns-from-news-international-2314213.html

Scotland Yard's most senior officers tried to convince the Guardian during two private meetings that its coverage of phone hacking was exaggerated and incorrect without revealing they had hired Neil Wallis, the former deputy editor of the News of the World, as an adviser.

The first meeting in December 2009, which included the Metropolitan police commissioner Paul Stephenson, was two months after Wallis was employed by the Yard as a public relations consultant.

Wallis, 60, who was deputy to Andy Coulson, the NoW editor at the time of the phone hacking, was arrested on Thursday as part of Operation Weeting. Coulson has also been arrested and bailed.

Theresa May, the home secretary, has referred Scotland Yard's hiring of Wallis to the judicial inquiry on phone hacking which will be chaired by Lord Justice Leveson.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/15/phone-hacking-met-police-guardian

LONDON — For nearly four years they lay piled in a Scotland Yard evidence room, six overstuffed plastic bags gathering dust and little else.

Inside was a treasure-trove of evidence: 11,000 pages of handwritten notes listing nearly 4,000 celebrities, politicians, sports stars, police officials and crime victims whose phones may have been hacked by The News of the World, a now defunct British tabloid newspaper.

Yet from August 2006, when the items were seized, until the autumn of 2010, no one at the Metropolitan Police Service, commonly referred to as Scotland Yard, bothered to sort through all the material and catalog every page, said former and current senior police officials.

During that same time, senior Scotland Yard officials assured Parliament, judges, lawyers, potential hacking victims, the news media and the public that there was no evidence of widespread hacking by the tabloid. They steadfastly maintained that their original inquiry, which led to the conviction of one reporter and one private investigator, had put an end to what they called an isolated incident.

After the past week, that assertion has been reduced to tatters, torn apart by a spectacular avalanche of contradictory evidence, admissions by News International executives that hacking was more widespread, and a reversal by police officials who now admit to mishandling the case.

Assistant Commissioner John Yates of the Metropolitan Police Service publicly acknowledged that he had not actually gone through the evidence. “I’m not going to go down and look at bin bags,” Mr. Yates said, using the British term for trash bags.

At best, former Scotland Yard senior officers acknowledged in interviews, the police have been lazy, incompetent and too cozy with the people they should have regarded as suspects. At worst, they said, some officers might be guilty of crimes themselves.

“It’s embarrassing, and it’s tragic,” said a retired Scotland Yard veteran. “This has badly damaged the reputation of a really good investigative organization. And there is a major crisis now in the leadership of the Yard.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/17/world/europe/17police.html?_r=1&hp=&pagewanted=print

The MP who will lead the attack on Rebekah Brooks and Rupert and James Murdoch this week over their roles in the phone-hacking scandal has close links with the media empire, it is revealed today.

John Whittingdale, the Conservative chairman of the Culture, Media and Sport committee, admitted he was an old friend of Mr Murdoch's close aide, Les Hinton, and had been for dinner with Ms Brooks.

The Independent on Sunday has also learnt that Mr Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth, seen as the future saviour of the company, has also met Mr Whittingdale a number of times. Among her 386 "friends" on Facebook, the only MP she lists is Mr Whittingdale. He is also the only MP among 93 Facebook "friends" of Mr Hinton.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/revealed-senior-mps-secret-links-to-murdoch-2315111.html

LONDON — The commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police Services, Sir Paul Stephenson, resigned his post on Sunday just hours after his officers arrested Rebekah Brooks, the former chief of Rupert Murdoch’s media operations in Britain, as damage from a phone-hacking scandal moved to the highest levels of British public life.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/18/world/europe/18hacking.html?_r=1&hp

The Information Commissioner's Office has confirmed it has passed to police the files of an investigation carried out five years ago into the sale of private information to journalists.

The transfer of the files, from Operation Motorman, a 2006 inquiry into the use of private investigators by newspapers, which documented the practices of Stephen Whittamore and associates, marks the widening of the phone hacking inquiry to the broader issue of paying for confidential information.

The files were the basis for the information commissioner's report, in 2006, entitled What Price Privacy Now?, which identified 3,522 occasions when 305 journalists requested information that the commission believed was likely to have been obtained illegally.

The Daily Mail topped its list, with 952 identified transactions, followed by the Sunday People with 802 and Daily Mirror with 681. The Observer, published by Guardian News & Media, was further down the list, with four journalists said to have accessed information on 103 occasions.

The commissioner's office has not established that each piece of information was illegally obtained. But it has focused on information, such as car registrations and mobile phone numbers, which are often all but impossible to obtain without "blagging" or similar practices.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/21/phone-hacking-operation-motorman-files

Former staff at the News of the World are understood to be underwhelmed by efforts by News International to find them work after they were handed a list of potential jobs which included posts in Siberia, Russia and Dubai.

Some former News of the World journalists said that former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks' promise that as many staff as possible would be redeployed is proving an empty gesture as the vast majority of the alternative jobs being discussed are either non-editorial or entail a move abroad.

A job list given to ex-NoW staff include exotic positions such as oil reporter or "symbology analyst – Russian language" for parent company News Corporation's Dow Jones wire service and "materials manager" for Fox in Siberia.

"The idea that you would go from the News of the World to becoming an oil reporter for Dow Jones, a high end financial wire service, is laughable," said one former employee.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/28/news-of-the-world-staff-offered-siberia-jobs

Scotland Yard is investigating allegations that detectives working for its anti-corruption unit have been paid thousands of pounds by a firm of private investigators.

A parliamentary inquiry was told today that invoices, also seen by the Guardian, purport to show how a firm of private investigators made payments in return for information about the Metropolitan police investigation into James Ibori, a notorious Nigerian fraudster.

On Tuesday, the Commons home affairs select committee was told by a lawyer involved in the case that invoices showed about £20,000 of potential payments to police officers in what amounted to an undetected case of "apparent corruption right at the heart of Scotland Yard".

In recent weeks, as the Guardian investigated the allegations, the Met has sought to discourage the paper from publishing details about the case. But , after MPs heard the evidence, the Met dropped its previous insistence that there was "evidence that casts doubt on the credibility" of the allegations.

A police source with knowledge of the investigation, which has been ongoing since October, said developments over the last 24 hours had now led police to take the allegations more seriously.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/may/22/metropolitan-police-anti-corruption-allegations