News of the World - part 2 - phone tapping

"What is given with one hand is taken away with the other."

After winning the Tommy Sheridan appeal - see separate post - the NOTW is now under reinvestigation by the Metropolitan Police re widespread phone hacking.

This has been investigated once before but the difference this time is that Ian Edmonson, Head of News at NOTW has been sacked and the new evidence the police are looking at appears to have come directly from the paper.

While celebrities such as Sienna Miller and Steve Coogan are perhaps satisfied at this turn of events it is not know what Rupert Murdoch, owner of News International and therefore NOTW proprietor has to say.

Possible he has retreated to his his secret hideaway in a hollowed out volcano and is lining up minions to be ceremonially flogged.

News of The World - part 1 - Tommy Sheridan

So Tommy Sheridan, late of the Scottish Parliament, Scottish Socialist Party and the Big Brother House is now in jail.

It is good to know that the lofty reputation of Scottish politics is being upheld as stories of swingers parties, perjury claims and phone tapping swirl around the Web c/o this trial.

The background

• Allegations were made that Sheridan took part in swingers parties while a Member of the Scottish Parliament.
• So Sheridan sues the NOTW for defamation in court and wins.
• Followed by further allegations that Sheridan committed perjury to win his case.
• Then Sheridan is found guilty of perjury and sentenced to three years in prison.
• Result - all the Scottish political journalists have a good laugh behind the scenes and Scotland's reputation as a serious, independent, political entity takes another bashing around the world.

David Hume

Footsteps of David Hume reflects on the impact of politics, celebrity and gossip on society.

David Hume (7 May 1711 – 25 August 1776) was a  Scottish philosopher, economist, historian and essayist.  He is particularly known for his philosophical empiricism.

Regarded as one of the most important figures in the history of  the Scottish enlightenment he would probably approve of the widespread availability of education and methods of communication in the modern world - and despair at our obsession with celebrity.