Hacking Yearbook

Phonehackgate was first broken by the Guardian back in 2009, and at the time this blog recognised the potential of the story, while a variety of Murdoch cheerleaders were trying to dismiss it as a “non-story”, and even attempting to characterise it as some kind of rotten lefty payback for Damien McBride’s emails. But 2011 was the year that the thing blew up in their faces.

First off came the departure of Andy Coulson, in the wake of support from the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his tame gofer Henry Cole at the Guido Fawkes blog, the Laurel and Hardy of the blogosphere, and a last minute intervention from Ben Brogan, political editor of the Maily Telegraph and modern day Ron Hopeful, who talked up Coulson’s career the day before it ended.

But it was in July, on the second anniversary of the original Guardian revelations, that the whole rotten edifice came crashing down around the ears of Rupe and his troops, and their still adoring followers, as the arrests began. Those at the top of the Met were not immune, with John Yates and Paul Stevenson being caused to pass through the exit door.

The twinkle toed yet domestically combative Rebekah Brooks also fell on her sword after overseeing the closing of the Screws, followed by faithful Murdoch retainer Les Hinton as resignation fever crossed the north Atlantic, and here we saw the potential for investigation into the activities of the Murdoch empire in the USA, given the Screws’ inside track on Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s phone calls.

And so it was that Rupe and Junior arrived at the Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Committee session, and were grilled at length by Tom Watson and even Philip Davies. But the bizarre depths had not been fully plumbed until a token nutter interrupted proceedings, only to be felled by a right hand by Wendi Deng and jumped by several of the Met’s finest before being nicked and detained.

There have been attempts to throw the investigation off the scent. Much store has been set by those in the right leaning part of the blogosphere in getting some rotten lefties – which thus far means Piers “Morgan” Moron – as a way of settling the score, but what is now accepted is that the Murdochs are on the hook with no end in sight, because their hacker, Glenn Mulcaire, kept records.

When Zelo Street began its Murdoch Is Served series of posts, I couldn’t have imagined that by the end of this year, it would be on to number 63. And that’s without all the items on the various sideshows. Here’s to post 100 sometime next year.