The head of Scotland Yard resigned yesterday, hours after former News of the World editor Rebekah Brooks was arrested as the scandal over phone hacking at the now-defunct News Corp. tabloid widened.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson stepped down because of "accusations" about police links to News Corp.'s U.K. unit and its hiring of a former journalist at the tabloid as a consultant.
SFGate
This show how absolutely pervasive the corruption of New Corp has become in England. The nearest US analogy would be the head of the FBI being tainted.
British Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday called for an emergency session of Parliament to brief lawmakers on the spreading phone hacking scandal, trying to gain control of a crisis that is threatening Rupert Murdoch's media empire, the upper echelons of London's police force and the country's leader himself.
Parliament is due to break for the summer on Tuesday after lawmakers grill Murdoch, his son James and his former British chief executive Rebekah Brooks about the scandal, but Cameron said "it may well be right to have Parliament meet on Wednesday so I can make a further statement."
Yahoo!
There are very few UK politicians whose lips do not carry the fragrance of Rupert Murdoch's dingleberries. Cameron is not among them.
Opposition leader Ed Miliband said Cameron needed to answer "a whole series of questions" about his relationships with Brooks, James Murdoch and Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor later hired as Cameron's communications chief.
"At the moment he seems unable to provide the leadership the country needs," Miliband said.
What I wonder, not being adept in UK politics, is if a vote of no confidence can be called. That would result in fresh elections just a few months after the last set, and possibly result in a reversal of the economically disastrous austerity plans undertaken by the Tories.