Having claimed newspapers and policemen among its victims, the hacking scandal is now moving on to politicians, says Benedict Brogan in The Daily Telegraph.
The prime minister, David Cameron, is the number-one target. Despite promising that he would never “prostitute himself for the sake of a few headlines”, he ended up “enslaved to News International”. His problems are twofold. Stories of family walks with Rebekah Brooks and canapés at Murdoch garden parties suggest he was too close to the media baron – although arguably he just repeated Labour’s past mistakes. But links with tainted former News of the World employees Andy Coulson and Neil Wallis demonstrate a lack of judgement. Worryingly for Cameron, his own side has “suffered from a strange timidity… Simply too appalled by the way their leader had got himself mixed up with News International, Tory MPs and ministers were noticeable by their reticence”.
Tory MPs might be staying quiet, but Labour is loving the scandal, says Rachel Sylvester in The Times. It is one of those moments “when it’s better to be in opposition than in government”. Normally opposition leaders are hamstrung by the fact that they can speak but have no power to act. But now that’s good news for Ed Miliband. “He has the chance to tap into public outrage with his words, but does not have the responsibility of having to deal with legally contentious issues.” A scandal about institutions abusing their position tends to benefit the opposition leader. “You have no power – except to put yourself on the side of the powerless.”
All in all, the crisis has breathed new life into Miliband, who, “after months of floundering”, is finally “setting the agenda”. In contrast, Cameron has been slow to react and “forced to play catch-up”.
The full damage of ‘hackgate’ will take “some time to show through to its full extent” says The Economist. Prime ministers don’t normally lose their credibility in one go, it erodes in fits and starts. As this crisis drags on “in the form of criminal investigations and the public inquiry, it could do Cameron much harm in this slow way”. But he is not “the only politician to have cultivated ties with the Murdoch clan”. Admittedly, he went a step further by bringing a tainted figure like Coulson into the heart of government, but the “weary” public suspicion that “political and media elites as a whole” are to blame might save him. “If all are guilty, nobody in particular is.” Public indifference may also help. It’s possible voters “are not as engrossed by the scandal as journalists and politicians”. People being “squeezed by a struggling economy” might feel more intensely about rising energy bills.
Cameron must get through this affair unscathed, says Brogan. “A worse crisis” – Europe and America’s debt problems – “faces both him and us”. That “may prove a far more severe test”.
The dangers of curbing the press
As the hacking crisis continues, the freedom of the press is looking shaky. “Some politicians and powerful individuals with an interest in a servile media are using the hacking crisis to cripple freedom of speech, to advance their own ideological agendas and to damage commercial journalism,” says Allister Heath in City AM. But while there have been some corrupt practices for which specific people need to be punished – “the media and the police need to be thoroughly cleaned up, and cosy, crony relationships with politicians must be smashed” – we don’t need a new set of legislation to do this. In most cases the laws are already there, they just need to be enforced. Above all, this crisis doesn’t suggest “that free speech should cease, that newspapers should be licensed, that robust opinions should be replaced by compulsory ‘balance’… that foreigners should be excluded from media ownership, to cite just some of the self-interested positions being spouted by critics”.
Politicians, “often with more to hide than straying footballers”, will be only to happy to oblige the public and impose tougher rules and legislation on the media if they are given the opportunity, says Mary Riddell in The Daily Telegraph. “If the current crisis results in a press that publishes only matters in the public interest, the upshot will be a cross between Woodworker magazine and a court circular recording the cordial trysts between politicians, media moguls and all the untouchables of public life.”
The British press is already struggling to survive the competition from free media so the government should be coming to its aid, not hounding it, says Alexander Lebedev in The Guardian. Instead of blaming everything on Murdoch and driving away other rich media backers, “let’s provide for dozens of competing Murdochs shining lights in dark corners”. If we want newspapers that can uncover stories and scandals – “stories that don’t mean you just ask someone a question and assume what they’re saying is true” – then we need “very skilled, very determined reporters and some very rich men”, says Christina Patterson in The Independent.