Hacking inquiry – Hacked off

by Brian Cathcart (Picture: Howard Lake) So now we know the character of the relationship between the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport and News International, and it could hardly look much worse if he had been caught accepting brown envelopes full of used tenners. Jeremy Hunt (or, just conceivably, those acting directly [...]

by Brian Cathcart and Evan Harris Like all raw data, the Motorman Blue Book, published in a partially redacted form by Paul Staines on his Guido Fawkes blog, requires some introduction and explanation. If you consult it you might find the following guidance helpful. The Blue Book is one of four in the Motorman set [...]

by Brian Cathcart The New Yorker’s recent long profile of the Daily Mail contained a passing reference to something that may be worthy of a little more attention than it has received. Noting that the editor of the Mail on Sunday, Peter Wright, had stepped down, writer Lauren Collins observed: “His replacement, Geordie Greig, is [...]

The former chair of the Press Complaints Comission has answered questions on her handling of the phone hacking scandal. Under Baroness Peta Buscombe the commission produced a report in 2009 into allegations made against the News of the World, over which she later resigned. She said: “This is a report which with hindsight, and so [...]

The editor in chief of the Daily Mail has defended a statement accusing Hugh Grant of “mendacious smears” against his newspapers. Paul Dacre said Grant had attempted to discredit Associated Newspapers, owners of the Mail and Mail on Sunday, by telling the Leveson Inquiry he believed his phone had been hacked by journalists. Dacre said [...]

Jemima Khan has denied any knowledge of a “plummy-voiced woman” leaving Hugh Grant messages in her written evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. Khan, who dated Grant from 2004 until 2007, categorically denied having been the source of the story about a “plummy-voiced woman” who left messages on Grant’s mobile phone voicemail. The Mail on sunday [...]