James Murdoch at the CMS Committee Again

This further to my post for Teudsay 6th September, 'Phone Hacking Latest.'

James Murdoch gave evidence at the Culture, Media & Sport Committee again today.

During his testimony, it seemed that everything wrong that had happened at The News of the World (that it did is not in dispute, just what James knew about it & when) was somebody else's fault: either that of his subordinates, Tom Crone & Colin Myler, for concealing the extent of the phone-hacking from him; or of the Met Police, for saying they were satisfied there was nothing further to investigate (John Yates on the other hand when giving evidence to the Home Affairs Select Committee insisted that New International was at fault for blocking his investigation - & this is a running feature in much of the testimony so far in Hackgate, everyone insisting it is someone else's fault); or of News International's lawyers, again for not informing him of the evidence they had.

James giving testimony came across to me as a fluent liar, but that is not enough, it won't do. There was a mass of evidence that phone-hacking was widespread at NotW but miraculously James saw none of it, he claimed. He kept asserting that before Summer 2011 he had no knowledge of the extent of phone-hacking - he thought it was limited to Clive Goodman - & I simply don't believe him. James gave his evidence with great confidence & aplomb, but the substance of it didn't make any sense. He seemed to be giving it in Mirrorland, where almost everything he said the opposite was actually the case. The idea that James signed off on the settlement for Gordon Taylor without requesting or seeking any further details as to why the case would inevitably be lost if it came to court, as he stated over & over again in his evidence today & in July, is incredible, in the strict sense of that word.

James is either complicit in the cover-up or incompetent/negligent. I can only presume that he prefers to be seen as the latter.

Other aspects:

It was fantastic when Tom Watson said to James: "Have you heard the term omerta - the code of silence ?"

The For Neville Email is like the Grassy Knoll in the JFK Assassination, it keeps cropping up.

A parallel between Hackgate & the Eurozone Crisis is that they have both passed the point where nothing surprises me anymore.

One link between Hackgate & Watergate is that illegal surveillance & the attempt to cover-up the fact that it had happened is at the centre of both scandals. In this regard Derek Webb, the surveillance expert used by NotW who has just emerged, reminds me rather of Gene Hackman's character in The Conversation.