Forgive this slightly more exploratory FOTHOM diary. Rather than releasing a scoop, or the welter of news coming from other Hackgate stories (the drip drip of revelations continues as I hope others will attest in the open thread below), let's see if we can do some detective work on one important thread that links News International's illegal activities to the heart of the British government.
In this exploratory diary I'm very much following the lead of David Allen Green whose careful questioning and detective work did so much to expose the Nightjack story, and hacking at the Times.
Don't Call a Lawyer: Call Coulson
So, thanks to this weeks Leveson revelations, we now know that senior Tories were trying to shut down the police investigations from the get-go. We also know that Andy Coulson, former Editor and Deputy Editor of the News of the World during the height of its hacking activities was - when appointed as David Cameron's Press supremo - the go-to guy for anyone who got in trouble with the press, or indeed the police. This stunning little revelation comings courtesy of Bob Quick, a senior officer involved in the contentious arrest of Tory Shadow Cabinet Minister Damien Green in 2008 over allegations of leaking government documents.
According to Bob Quick's witness statement:
At the police station, Green went through the normal reception processes and in
accordance with standard procedure was asked to nominate a person to be notified of his arrest and to whom he would be allowed one phone call. Green nominated AndyCoulson and was allowed to make one call to Mr Coulson. At that time Mr Coulson was Director of Communications for the Conservative Party. Then, following a consultation with his solicitor, Green claimed to be too tired to be interviewed (at about 8.55pm). He later agreed to be interviewed but declined to answer any questions put to him. Upon being released from the police station Green attended the front of the Palace of Westminster and gave a live TV and press interview claiming he was innocent, that he had only been doing his duty as an MP and criticised his arrest.
So here we have it. Whatever the wrongs or rights of the arrest, Andy Coulson was the Mr Fixit for senior Tories. But bear with me while we go back and find how Coulson got this reputation.
The Chancellor, the Dominatrix, and the Spoiler
As I've documented in a previous diary (How Cameron got Seduced by Newscorp), Coulson resigned from the News of the World after the first hacking trial sentenced his employees Glen Mulcaire and Clive Goodman in 2007, and the became the Conservatives chief spinmeister in 2007 on the recommendation of the then Shadow Chancellor, George Osborne. And why did Osborne rate Coulson so highly?
Back in October 2005, when Coulson was running David Cameron's bid to become leader of the Tory Party, a potentially damaging story alleging youthful drug taking was about to be published in the Sunday Mirror.Natalie Rowe claimed she knew Osborne in the early 90s and saw him taking cocaine. However, that Sunday, the Sunday Mirror discovered it had been scooped by Coulson's News of the World:
On the day Miss Rowe’s “exclusive” interview appeared in the Sunday Mirror, its arch rival The News of the World ran the story as well.
It was accompanied by an editorial emphasising how Mr Osborne totally condemned drugs.
The tabloid, then edited by Mr Coulson, quoted him as describing his drug addict friend’s experience as a “stark lesson at a young age of the destruction which drugs bring to so many lives”.
The News of the World version was seen as a “spoiler” to the Sunday Mirror scoop and Miss Rowe assumed the News of the World had been tipped off a “spy” in her “camp”.
Despite the fact that Mr Coulson’s newspaper had published the allegations about George Osborne, the two men later enjoyed a cordial relationship.
It emerged recently that the Chancellor had even played a key role in recruiting Mr Coulson for the Conservatives.
This was the key moment Coulson charmed the leaders of the Conservative Party. He had performed the ultimate spinmeister magic, and turned a potentially lethal story for George Osborne into one where the dweeby guy looked like he had cool friends, and the cocaine allegations were defused. Cameron went on to win the leadership campaign.
But how did NoW scoop the Sunday Mirror? Perhaps Rowe's line about NoW being 'tipped off' by a spy in her camp is familiar. It's the first reaction of many of the victims of phone hacking, who assumed at first a close friend or family member had betrayed them.
So how did Coulson get his soft pedaled spoiler?
It emerged today that Glenn Mulcaire, very much active in Coulson's employ in October 2005, was regularly hacking the Sunday Mirror's senior editors
A handful of journalists working for Trinity Mirror's Sunday titles have been told that they may have been victims of phone hacking by News of the World, in an apparent sign that the Murdoch title sought to eavesdrop on to news being gathered by its principal competitors.
Lee Harpin, head of news at the People, is among three newsdesk executives at both that newspaper and the Sunday Mirror, who have been told by the Metropolitan police that their details appear in the notebooks kept by Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator who undertook hacking for News of the World.
Trinity Mirror – the owner of the People and Sunday Mirror – has long suspected that its employees were targeted given the intense rivalry that exists in the Sunday redtop market. But it is the first time the company has learned that any of its journalists or other executives may have been victims.
So the question is: did Coulson get the Osborne story through hacking? How did Osborne think he got the scoop? Why did Osborne recommend Coulson be hired by Cameron two years later though he had resigned from the News of the World because of the hacking revelations?
Andy Coulson was arrested and bailed by police last summer; he is now being investigated for both authorising phone hacking, suborning police officers, and potential perjury in a previous trial. Some I know who met him before Christmas said he is expecting a hefty prison sentence. His house is now on the market because News International refuse to help with his legal bills. Coulson is being hung out to dry....
But our Current Chancellor of the Exchequer recruited him. Our current Prime Minister hired him and took Coulson into the heart of Government despite several warnings about his shady connections.
How much did they know about how their Mr Fixit fixed things? If the Leveson inquiry is supposed to clean up the press and its relation to politicians, then our two most senior ministers should answer these questions under oath.
(Meanwhile please feel free to add any Murdoch related news to this thread) 8:00 AM PT: