I was watching a news magazine programme last night. And up to that point had never heard of Rebekah Wade. Perhaps someone could tell me if, when you give evidence to a parliamentary committee, you are immune to prosecution. Because it says a lot about how woeful parliament and the PCC are, if newspaper editors feel free to openly admit to bribing the police for information in the past and their intent to do it in the future and the only consequence is an MP pointing out that its illegal.

When I was responsible for IT security in a government office the most effective means I found to make people aware of their responsibility to secure their systems was to do a bit of what the Guradian calls “hacking” and what the BBC calls “tapping” to demonstrate to them how foolish they had been. I hope the rather thick/lazy victims of this business have leaned a valuable lesson.

As far as responsibility goes – Coulson resigned because of things he should have been aware of – perhaps Gordon Brown should look back at the McBride business and follow his example.