And on it goes.....

The internet and satellite TV mean I have been able to watch the UK phone hacking scandal unravel blow by blow. It really is remarkable technology and of course it is this same technology that is at the centre of this sorry tale. I watched the appearances before  parliamentary committees of the senior police officers and the Murdochs live on the BBC TV. I gave up on Rebecca Brooks due to tiredness. All I can remember is her hair - as we would say in London, what a Barnet! I can follow events on The Guardian's website which has an excellent rolling blog and I have always had respect for The Telegraph's journalism so I dip in there and  also The New York Times which has broken important parts of the story. I can even tune into BBC Radio 4 which really is Nirvana! I am in small town Thailand, about 100 km west of Bangkok and I am as well informed here as I would be if I was in London itself.

It seems that the real problem here is that eleventh commandment has been broken: thou shalt not get caught! That arguably is the most important commandment of the lot in so far as public life is concerned and God help you if are caught. So what I have been watching really is the high and mighty of British public life performing a damage limitation act. I don't really have any problems with the Murdochs. I was quite impressed by Rupert's performance even at 80 years old, and hearing him assuredly tap his finger on the table as he spoke made me think of what a formidable operator he would have been in his day. I have difficulties with James Murdoch's transatlantic tones; not a real American accent, affected and insincere. I was amused to learn that Murdoch Jnr is renowned for his temper: not a trace of it on show in front of the cameras. And I would love to work in a company where £1 million settlements are almost seen as petty cash amounts and don't need authorisation or scrutiny higher up the chain. I suspect we will  learn  a lot more about News International skulduggery in the coming months.

If I was a police officer I would couch any failings in the language of operational priorities and the fight against terrorism: this makes it rather difficult to get excited about celebrity phone-hacking. I am pretty sure they were complicit with News International. Yates of the Yard had me laughing when he said he was simply a "post box" when he forwards an application to Scotland Yard's Human Resources from the Deputy Editor of the Sun's daughter. If so why didn't the candidate use any of the other post boxes, like the ones which are painted red and have "LETTERS" embossed in big bold letters on their outsides? Or even an electronic post-box? Clearly if it comes to HR via a senior manager it will be given preferential treatment and to suggest otherwise is disingenuous. I am prepared to believe Yates of the Yard was a decent cop because his record shows he has pursued a lot of bent cops in his time. But I reckon they all got it wrong here and probably thought they were home and hosed.

David Cameron really troubles me. It has emerged that Andy Coulson was only given cursory vetting both on his appointment to Conservative Central Office and also in respect of his job as PM's most important media advisor. Now in both instances it is not the case that Andy applies for these jobs as advertised and is then put through an assessment process similar to the other candidates. In both instances there were no other candidates. Coulson was sought out for these positions and in fact he was Cameron's man for both jobs. Dave wanted this guy presumably because he thought he was the top man. There surely has to be a connection between Cameron's aspirations in this respect and his decision to downgrade the vetting process. In other words Cameron must have known Coulson would not be cleared if full vetting took place. So to circumvent this Cameron authorised a basic security check and got his man. So I don't believe Cameron is in the clear on this issue. In fact I don't really think Cameron can recover from this. I think the damage has been done and he will simply be an ineffective Prime Minister.

This throws up the prospect of what damage Coulson can do to his former employers in the event he is the subject of criminal proceedings and needs to defend himself. I suspect the solution there will be not to prosecute him on the basis of insufficient evidence. We shall see. It's all great stuff and I sense we are only just getting started now.