Analysis: Pacy account of the phone hacking scandal that has revived Labour MP Tom Watson's political career
Tom Watson, the Labour MP who has written Dial M for Murdoch with Martin Hickman. Photograph: Felix Clay for the Guardian
Tom Watson is the man who likened James Murdoch to a mafia boss last year, so when the Labour MP's book about the phone hacking scandal – jointly authored with Martin Hickman – was launched there was likely to be rhetorical flourish or two. In fact Watson worked to tone down the language – up to a point anyway.
"We conclude," he said at a Westminster press conference packed with British and foreign journalists, "that the web of influence which News Corporation spun in Britain, which effectively bent politicians, police, and many others in public life to its will, amounted to a shadow state."
It was not, when asked later, that he regretted the mafia accusation, just that he wanted to be more judicious; although anybody fearing that the political attack dog had gone soft on Britain's ruling media family will be wrong. Or as Watson put it: "Like the newspaper they have closed, the Murdochs have now become toxic" – a statement that in reality is not yet true, but might become so depending on how charges, trials or otherwise play out in the coming months.
Dial M for Murdoch has few new revelations within its pages. The fact that the News of the World targeted Watson and other MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee to see "who was gay, who had affairs" in 2009 – a subject not obviously of immediate interest to Sunday buyers of the red top – had some edge.
Read the full story at The Guardian.
"We conclude," he said at a Westminster press conference packed with British and foreign journalists, "that the web of influence which News Corporation spun in Britain, which effectively bent politicians, police, and many others in public life to its will, amounted to a shadow state."
It was not, when asked later, that he regretted the mafia accusation, just that he wanted to be more judicious; although anybody fearing that the political attack dog had gone soft on Britain's ruling media family will be wrong. Or as Watson put it: "Like the newspaper they have closed, the Murdochs have now become toxic" – a statement that in reality is not yet true, but might become so depending on how charges, trials or otherwise play out in the coming months.Dial M for Murdoch has few new revelations within its pages. The fact that the News of the World targeted Watson and other MPs on the culture, media and sport select committee to see "who was gay, who had affairs" in 2009 – a subject not obviously of immediate interest to Sunday buyers of the red top – had some edge.
Read the full story at The Guardian.
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