The newsagents seemed to be carrying an unusually large stock of unsold papers when I went in there at about 2.30 pm, so perhaps the reaction to the 'phone hacking scandal' will produce widespread collateral damage. or perhaps it is just one of those days.
I am very glad that I am not one of those, in government, ‘the Murdoch empire’, civil service, judiciary or any other organisation which has to try to keep a cool head while the British public goes through what seems to be a periodical fit of morality, soaked in sentiment.
Of course the fuss is about something real, a very real discontent, but it is trying to identify quite what that is which is the problem, then trying to find the correct line of action which will magically calm things down sooner rather than later without making everything worse.
A lot of this is about class – would it be a good thing if this incident ends by leaving us with a journalist profession whose members are drawn entirely from the highly educated classes, with no taste for getting involved in anything lower class except in the manner of a visiting colonial potentate, condescension masquerading as concern.
Two interesting, if minor points. Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News International, still seems shy of appearing in public to put her side of the story.
And just last week I heard Kelvin McKenzie (former editor of The Sun) in a radio discussion on an unrelated topic. I thought I must have misheard the introductions – but no, it is just that he has reverted to his public school accent.
