Quintin Jardine's blog

The analogy doesn’t fit all the way through, but I’m beginning to think of Henry II when I see Rupert Murdoch on today’s news bulletins beating his breast and making brief, chaotic public apologies. No turbulent priest has been dispatched, but the aftermath is shaping up to be the same. ‘My words were misunderstood and misinterpreted by people who acted with excessive zeal’. No doubt this will be his story when he makes his pilgrimage to Westminster and presents himself before my old acquaintance Whitto’s select committee on Tuesday, to be ritually and painfully scourged by its un-monastic members. Like Henry he will survive, and who knows, may also be played by Peter O’Toole in the movie version.

But will the highest standards of British journalism survive, or are they already dead? Everything is distasteful about this saga. I heard it described today as the story that won’t go away. No it won’t, for Murdoch’s rivals won’t allow that. Previously cowed and intimidated by the biggest baddest dog on what used to be Fleet Street, they are turning on him in a frenzy that is as self-righteous as it is vicious. It is also very dangerous. If phone hacking is that easy, I for one do not believe that it has never been done for the benefit of any newspaper other than those owned by News International. As for bunging police officers for information . . . don’t make me laugh.

Objectivity seems to have disappeared from the agendas of some formerly unimpeachable journalists. I won’t go on about Robert Peston, who by now must have caused more viewers to change channel than any other TV reporter, but his colleague Nick Robinson seemed to me to have his story written even before he went into the room for his unusually aggressive grilling of Dave Cameron last week . . . pre-prepared also, for he seemed to have an extra camera in there filming his questions to give his piece added edge in the bulletins.

I’m a terrible old cynic, but I know this; at the end of the day, the political machine always wins, even if it has to shed the odd cog now and then. So, the ladies and gentlemen of the non-Murdoch UK media should be very careful where they step. This knot is going to take a while to unravel, but it’s pretty certain that the present Press Complaints Commission, which is less of a deterrent to media misbehaviour than my dear old cat is to mice, will be replaced by a new body, one with tiger teeth. The more moral outrage they generate, the sharper they will be. They say they represent the views of the public, but don’t believe that for one second; it’s not your axe they’re grinding, its their own, and the whetstone is jealousy of News International.