Rebekah Brooks has resigned from News International. After all the events of the past few days – the News of the World axed, 200 staff made redundant, Rupert Murdoch mounting a personal defence of her, David Cameron announcing a judge-led inquiry into the phone hacking allegations – this is the most unexpected.
It has been generally assumed that the reason the Murdochs shed the News of the World and dropped the BskyB bid was to keep Brooks in her post. She was what stood between them and the public’s wrath. She was editor of the paper at the time of the hacking allegations. If she took responsibility and went, there would be nothing stopping MPs, the FBI and the public in general coming for them.
But now she’s gone. All the furore yesterday about whether or not the Murdochs could be compelled to give evidence to the culture, media and sport select committee on Tuesday is now somewhat overshadowed. In her statement, she says:
“My resignation makes it possible for me to have the freedom and the time to give my full cooperation to all the current and future inquiries, the police investigations and the CMS appearance.”
There are two possibilities – either what Brooks is going to have to say to MPs on Tuesday is so terrible that if she were still part of News International, the damage to the company would render it definitely beyond any kind of resurrection, however hard Edelman tries. Or this is another ploy by the Murdochs to diminish the significance of their own appearance. Naturally, all eyes will now be on what the ex-News International employee has to say to the committee now she’s no longer sheltered inside the Murdoch empire.
Comments
notinyourparty / July 15 2011 9:09pm
In the early days of transatlantic crossings, sailing ships reached an area notorious for its lack of wind, known either as the "Doldrums" or "The Horse Latitudes". This was the place where the captains of the ships had to start jettisoning anything, horses, cargo etc that could go in order to guarantee the survival of the crew, since the crew or at least enough of the crew to work the ship would be needed to bring the captain to safety. This is Murdoch's horse latitudes, attacked here and investigated in the US be sure he will not hesitate to sacrifice anyone to keep himself out of the firing line, bottom line is though... Where exactly does the buck stop??