Jonathan King on Leveson: 'Dacre was mumbly and Steve Coogan needs a haircut'

Jonathan King, not as Lord Justice Leveson

Jonathan King talks to Madame Arcati about the Leveson Inquiry which is examining UK media regulation, ethics and practices in the wake of the phone hacking scandal. What does he think of Paul Dacre's performance in the witness box? Which newspaper editor has the worst hairstyle? And what does he hope to bring to the party if called to give evidence? Read on....


Q: Darling, you've applied to be a 'core participant' in the Leveson Inquiry - I may have missed it, but what's the outcome? Or if there is no outcome, when will you know the decision?


JK: The outcome was pretty rapidly NO, I'm NOT a Core Participant Victim (not yet proved to be a hacking victim, in the fairly narrow confines of the Inquiry description) but will hopefully be called as a Witness in the next couple of months.


Q: Can you tell us the gist of what you'd like to say to Leveson? For instance, would you mention how Andy Coulson at the News of the World rigged a photo of you in a park to make it appear you were ogling young people?


JK: Very much - the "Pervert in the Park" doctored photo is prime evidence of how one single witness for the NOTW (Editor Andy Coulson), denying they did it, was enough to convince the head of the committee examining it at the PCC (Les Hinton - then boss of News International, owner of NOTW) that the paper had NOT breached the PCC code. The executive "meant" to be in charge of my complaint was Stephen Abell - now Chairman of the PCC. My evidence alone could shut down the PCC.

I believe my entire prosecution is incredibly illuminating to the Inquiry regarding the relationship between Police and Media. Whether GOOD (Crimewatch) or BAD - my case shows how a case can be constructed and get to a conviction with no evidence - just one person's word against another's. Likewise the fascinating "Matthew Kelly" incident, just days before my appeal was due to be heard. I've had first hand experience. For example - how precisely did The Sun hear about my arrest (they were at my front door within minutes)? And was a photographer really strolling through Hyde Park at just the moment I was there being interviewed for a TV show?

Q: What do you think of Leveson so far? Do you think the judge should be careful of saying over and over again that he thinks most of the journalism out there is good and valuable?

JK: I'm thoroughly enjoying the Inquiry. Leveson himself has won a JK Best Supporting Eyebrows Oscar. But yes, his determination to be fair at all points, whilst laudable, is also illustrative of how the law suffocates truth with boredom, even if it doesn't intend to. I fear that the Inquiry might err towards condemnation and restriction of the media where it needs to focus on how the whole system has been broken.

Q: Which witnesses have especially improved or damaged their reputation as a result of appearing at Leveson?

JK: I seem to feel differently to everyone else. I'm a fan of Kelvin's, so I'm biased. I thought Richard Desmond was very good and quite funny whereas Paul (Dolly) Dacre was mumbly, irritated, truculent and snappy. I'm glad Steve Coogan won all that money - maybe now he can afford a decent haircut. Talking of haircuts, virtually EVERY Editor has ghastly hair. Richard Wallace of the Mirror is tonsorially extraordinary. Hislop was fun. Waxie Maxie is clearly not a well man. He dressed for a funeral, kept chewing and gurning, shifting and looking uneasy. I fear he won't be with us for much longer; such a shame. He's kept us all entertained for so many years.

Q: Will Leveson make much of a difference in the end?

JK: I don't think the Inquiry was intended to. It was set up by Spoonface Cameron to make him appear (in the media) to be strong and forceful (bombing innocents in Libya wasn't doing it). I think Leveson himself has every intention of improving things and he can if he doesn't allow himself to be steered into the wrong direction. After all, the horrendous crime of giving the parents of a dead teenager false hope for a few weeks (can anyone explain why that is SO dreadful?) may shock us all (in the media) far more than the inefficiency of our civil servants but the broken system needs far more than a Band Aid and the media is the least of our problems. The millions of our tax monies spent on an Inquiry might have been better wasted prosecuting football managers or paying banker bonuses.

Q: And finally, what's the Inquiry room like? Any BO?

JK: Far smaller than one thinks, no smells or farts but lots of computer screens - apt. The Royal Courts however are glorious - I'll turn it into a hotel any day if they'll let me. It's wasted as it is. To think, my lips have now sipped from the same glass as Hugh Grant, Paul (Dolly) Dacre, Heather Mills and the McCanns! And my buttocks have graced the same seat as Neville Thurlbeck. Isn't life a fascinating parade of excitement.

Thank you so much for your time.

Natalie Rowe and Molly Parkin meet in a shop and discuss George Osborne and toff sex

George Osborne and Natalie Rowe
back in the early naughty 90s

What is it about my darling (everlasting) fiancee Molly Parkin and shops?

Only the other day she told us about her encounter with Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and their kids in Ad Hoc, the King's Road cutting-edge fashion store. Now she tells me that about 18 months ago she chanced on another noted beauty of some notoriety in a shop - Natalie Rowe, the lady and 'dominatrix' who claims to have kept the smile on George Osborne's fresh, shiny face long before he unleashed austerity upon us as Chancellor.

This unscheduled meeting took place in King's Road newsagent Lucky Me Enterprise. 'It was early evening,' says Molly. 'I understand now she's a regular customer there. I went in to buy my chocolate eclairs and rubbish celebrity magazines. And this beautiful creature wearing a wonderful perfume approached me and said, "It's Molly Parkin isn't it? I'm one of your biggest fans - I love your writing and reading about you...". And then she told who she was - Natalie Rowe.

Molly Parkin

'She had such glamour, translucent skin and a beautiful mouth, and laughing eyes. An educated girl, an upper class Chelsea accent; high bohemian. She waited for me to make my purchases and then we walked out together and along the King's Road in the Sloane Square direction. I asked her what she did for a living - I didn't recognise her name or recognise her from the famous party photo [above] of her with George Osborne when he was a 22 year-old Oxford graduate.

'She said: "You've not heard of me? I used to be a madam, I ran Black Beauties." And I said: "Oh, I always wanted to be a madam!" I'd conducted orgies in New York and at my old house in Cheyne Walk in Chelsea. She told me she'd sold a story to the Sunday Mirror about George Osborne, and mentioned something about the News of the World and phone hacking (when Andy Coulson was editor) and how George was denying using cocaine at one of her parties [which he has repeatedly denied since].

'I asked Natalie: "Did you fuck him?" She replied: "Absolutely".

'I said that he's a typical Old Etonian, isn't he. [Osborne did not go to Eton, btw] In my experience, Old Etonians have a predilection for vice girls. I told her of an Old Etonian I'd known, an aristocrat, and how he'd asked me to wear a tightly belted mackintosh in a bed with rubber sheets - he loved the feel of them - and I'd asked him, "Are you incontinent?" He'd given me a vintage yellow Rolls Royce and had champagne delivered to my door every morning. He even gave me diamond rings which I gave to mother. Sadly the rings were stolen by a window cleaner.

'We laughed a lot talking about Old Etonians and their love of exciting sex which some call kinkiness and then she told me that publishers had approached her to write her story - I know she mentioned Bloomsbury, which surprised me, as publishers of Harry Potter.

'We must have talked and laughed for about half-an-hour. She said, "I love talking with you and would love to talk again." We hugged and parted our separate ways. I felt we were sisters under the skin; she's a sweetheart.'

Natalie sounds adorable. Do get in touch if you read this, poppet. Certainly bachelor George had great taste in, er, interesting friends.

PS If you're famous and see Moll in a shop, do go talk to her. I'm all ears!

The News of the World: Time to bring it back!

One of the joys of being me is that I can change my mind without shame. So while it is true I rarely ever had a good word to say about the late News of the World, I now say this: bring it back! I don't make this plea because I think it was especially brilliant: its absence simply draws attention to the sheer awfulness of the survivors.

The Sunday Mirror is a thin soup of nothing-in-particular and lame commentary - who cares what the pompous teeth-bearing TV newsreader Mark Austin thinks about anything? Its TV supplement Celebs is printed on nasty cheap bog roll paper and makes the Screws' Fabulous look like Vogue. The People may still interest a few pre-internet thugs who use ITV Teletext to find last minute holiday bargains. The Sunday Express at least has a short story - amazing. The Mail on Sunday is no substitute: its market is quite different and lacks the essential celebrity smut the Screws served up with a side dish of moral nosegay.

No, bring it back. What I need is prurient eye-anchoring to fill the 20 minutes I dedicate to breakfast cereal and two black coffees on a Sunday morning. If the Murdochs think the brand irreparably toxic then retitle the paper as part of the exorcism. The World might work. Yes, call it The World. Most of the staff could be brought back, even Carole Malone from her rhetorical hells, and saved a fate in Finland or wherever. Its return need not stop Twitter's @exnotwjourno2 from writing her Hackgate play.

I'm astonished James Murdoch didn't think of this himself. How much is he on?

Hackgate: The Sunday Times and the gigglers

I bought the Sunday Times for the first time in ages yesterday, thinking I might find contrition over Hackgate on every page. And how wrong I was! Chortles, chortles everywhere. The diktat from on high is plainly to laugh off the scandal, to treat it with amused patience. News International's many critics are not the enemy: they are source material for knowing giggles. Which brings us straight to AA Gill.

Dispatching him to review the parliamentary select committee's bungled inquisition of the Murdochs was a clever move. Such is Adrian's unstoppable eye for physical imperfection, he could mirth up Treblinka. Tom Watson, we are reminded, claimed £4,800-worth of food exes in one year (cue fattist joke); and the committee chairman's reaction to the pie splat was the 'horrified demeanour of a dowager duchess who has discovered a naked Zulu in her bath.' Ah yes, a naked Zulu. Foreign.

None of this gentle knockabout will have exacerbated reader-hernias, but the branded (ie Gill-ish) comic intention, harnessed to a practised prose power, was sufficient to maintain a virtual smirk. More to the point, this souffle propaganda posed no threat to Gill's long-term contract with the paper.

Close by was Adrian's pal Jeremy Clarkson who has already told readers that one of his best friends is Rebekah Brooks. Buried in his usual auto-throwaway shtick was his take on Hackgate: 'The people who knew the person who once met someone at a party who may or may not have illegally listened to Sienna Miller making a hair appointment.' Giggles! Renew that man's contract!

Over on the next page, an interview with Chipping Norton resident Alex James by Giles Hattersley lay in wait. Young Giles kicked off about Hackgate's Chipping Norton set - 'The Camerons, Rebekah Brooks and the junior Murdochs, all hanging out in the Cotswolds, being fabulous and powerful in... honey-coloured homes.' Y'know, bit like Dallas, but with the oil flowing copiously at Wapping. This was mild court foolery, licensed, liveried impudence. Yet the Sun would never have permitted it.

Boldest of all the gigglers was the anonymous author of the Wendi Deng profile, the 'Crouching tiger, hidden big hitter'. She was described as the 'quietly dutiful wife of Rupert Murdoch'; and readers of Private Eye's latest Murdoch pisstake, featuring Wendi and her reputed Anglo-Chinese joke pronunciation, will be interested to learn that she does indeed call Rupert 'Lupert'. Irksome pre-marital gossip was rehashed; even Murdoch's hostile biographer Michael Wolff got quoted without insulting epithet. We were told that the old man's habit of banging the table as he talks 'must get on [Wendi's] nerves at the breakfast table'. I don't doubt it.

Certainly the ST's Hackgate damage limitation strategy is cleverer than the Sun's, but then the market's different. A well-informed readership wouldn't tolerate express attempts to justify, extenuate or downplay journalistic illegalities. Instead, we get the worldly yawn veiled in toothless irreverence, the 'Oh yah, yah. Next!' treatment. The emperor's nakedness is observed without drama; the sense of a passing fuss about nothing in particular is implied in sundry asides. A case of hoped-for Hackgate death by wisecrack.

Put another way, the gigglers made their own case for the abandonment of press self-regulation. Pronto.

@ExNOTWjourno2: Mystery 'M' of Twitter who knows all about News International

Who is the mysterious @ExNOTWjourno2 who has been dropping prophetic cryptic clues on Twitter about the phone hacking scandal? I have no idea. But having once been myself an anonymous supplier of juicy nuggets, who fooled hundreds of gullible London hacks by dint of intimidating talent, I cannot but be intrigued. 'She' answers to Marie and signs off as M. So we're looking for a man who likes Sudoku.

Her bio reads: 'Journalist @ NOTW for last 5 years. Axed to save skin of Rebekah Brooks! Enough Is Enough Of This Horse Sh#t !'

'What is the Colour Of Justice?' she tweeted around 10am today. This afternoon we heard the news that the boss of Orange had resigned. Could Hackgate (and justice hue) have something to do with Orange? Enjoy the game if it's not a con!

Some tweeters claim that M with her capitalised clues has anticipated many of the major happenings in the unfolding scandal. She claims to be on a revenge mission ever since the Murdochs shut down the News of the World and made her redundant. Apparently she declined to sign a gagging order yet it's news to me that redundancy offers have been made to ex-staff. I could be wrong.

The news today that Hackgate whistle-blower, and former Screws showbiz hack, Sean Hoare, has been found dead in his home in un-suspicious circumstances, prompted M to write: 'RIP Sean.. Now i'm really going to go for the jugular... I Don't Feel I Can Continue.. Sean would want me too... This isn't right possums. This situation has spiralled out of control. I will ensure the people behind this pay.'

Of the select committee inquisition due, she growls: 'I have a front row seat for tomorrow possums.. It's going to [sic] ad a bloodbath. NI thwarted the first investigation.'

Another prediction? 'It's Only Monday.. You wait until Thursday.' I'm not sure Madame Arcati can take much more excitement.

Clemency Jopling and her erotic musings on Rupert Murdoch

Clemency Jopling of yesteryear

Delighted to see that the erotic fiction author Clemency Jopling has set up a blog called Clemency Jopling's Erotic Jottings: she vows to write 'about anything erotic that seems likely to amuse, arouse, or interest the reader.'

In dubious fulfilment of this promise, she naturally name-drops the less-than-nubile Madame Arcati in a posting on the Dignitas pin-up model Rupert Murdoch. Apparently I am a 'scarred and grizzled' veteran of Fleet Street - even if finding one wrinkle on my moist flesh would challenge the talents of the late hawk-eyed Helena Rubenstein - which I think may be misrepresenting my varied background. Like a humming bird I have dipped my beak in many a career bloom so that versatility is my key quality.

In her next work of fiction, she may wish to focus on a passionate liaison, that transgressively crosses the age divide, between an 80 year-old media mogul and his worshipful, flame-haired CEO, 40-something. The trauma of ED might be highlighted in graphic scenes of phone hacking vacuum pumping.

Those unfamiliar with Clemency's oeuvre may wish to immerse - Amazon. Her titles include Mr Biddulph Sees a Ghost (The Erotic Adventures of Mr Biddulph) and Mrs Smith's Academy IV: Zuleika's Correction.

Rupert Murdoch arrested: the words we dare not speak for some reason

The end of the News of the World: let me savour those beautiful words. Allow me to roll those delicious vowels and consonants over my tongue. Never did I imagine Madame Arcati would outlive the corrupt farrago that became the Screws. Of course, the Sun on Sunday, or some such, will serve as replacement, though its SOS acronym is perhaps too ironic to prevail.

Rupert Murdoch is lauded for his dark genius in pressing the nuclear option and distracting us for a few seconds as we mouth silent shock-horrors and wonder what will happen to Carole Malone and her 'hell' tropes. This is not genius but guile, though I must admit he caught me and the rest on the hop.

Actually his true genius is more subtle, entirely mercurial and located in an omission. We debate the heinousness of his past editors and journalists without ever entertaining the idea that he, Murdoch himself, should be arrested, tried, and if convicted, jailed. Every line of police inquiry should not end just at the point of executive control of corruption - such as with the Andy Coulsons or Rebecca Brookses - but should journey on to the fount, the inspiration - to the baby factory of journalistic nightmare. To Rupert.

Book after book by ex-Murdoch editors chronicle the same story: of a bullying, manipulative proprietor ever pushing back the boundaries of decency and legality in his Borg-like mission to reduce the world to a mindless form of voluntary moronism, with programme guides. Rebecca Wade nee Brooks became what we see today by imitation of her boss. She and others translated his desires via practical, modern-day methods. Did he ever give any thought to how stories were obtained as he licked his cash-fingers? The DNA of this hideous chapter in British journalism may be traced to Old Rupes and what he expected by way of results.

What he knew or didn't know precisely is neither here nor there. He was happy to shovel the profits even when, as years ago, he knew something was up. Now with his usual ruthlessness he dumps 200 staff on a heap. Some will make it to SOS of course.

But he remains at large.

Rebekah Brooks and Milly Dowler: Simple, just apply the Sharon Shoesmith test

The matter of Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News International's UK ops, and what as editor of The News of the World in 2002 she may or may not, or ought to, have known about the Milly Dowler phone hacking outrage, bears an uncanny resemblance to the matter of former Haringey boss Sharon Shoesmith and what she knew or ought to have known about Baby P.

Brooks, nee Wade as editor of The Sun in 2007, was merciless in her persecution of Shoesmith, holding her to account because she was a highly paid executive presiding over a tax-funded, dysfunctional children's service. Personal knowledge was an irrelevance. In a fateful twist that involves a child-victim, Brooks now finds herself in a not dissimilar situation, trying to save herself by making a virtue of her ignorance when she presided over what was plainly a dysfunctional newspaper.

Surely, in deciding whether Brooks go now, or when she's pregnant next year (see the current Private Eye for more), we should apply the principle she championed against Shoesmith: take personal responsibility because she was there. Like Shoesmith, Brooks was on a huge, perks-fattened salary, in return for her management skills. Indeed, Brooks' salary and perks far exceeded Shoesmith's.

Like Andy Coulson at the Screws, Brooks raised the stakes and imposed a bullying staff culture which made failure a no-option. Cheating was an inevitable consequence of her mindless careerism and pandering to Murdoch. She was happy to take the credit for her newspaper when promotion was dangled before her, but not the debit when disgrace is the alternative.

So Rebekah, practise what you preached against poor old Shazza.

Celebrity power: Hugh Grant and Jemima Khan save the New Statesman

Jemima and Hugh save mag

Even the ancient legend that is Madame Arcati finds herself astonished. I thought I'd heard and seen it all. Hugh Grant - yes, the man who is the current incarnation of British movie upper class cock-cunter - has saved the New Statesman. His naughty article on how he stitched up a former News of the World hack (see previous post) on illegal phone hacking in the Murdoch empire is now trending on Twitter. This is thanks to the feature going online (not from purchase!) - drawing in tens of thousands of new readers and reinventing the magazine in the process.

The mag now understands that celebrity power is its future, particularly since it is Stephen Fry who's leading the battle tweet (with a link to the mag that doesn't work). I tweeted first, natch. Also, countless people now know of the skulduggery at the Screws even though much of Hugh's nuggets are not new.

And all this occurred on guest editor and socialite Jemima Khan's watch. Frankly, if you haven't done a Hello! spread, just fuck off. Celebrities' low carbon spotlights make a spectacle of everything adjacent. NS ed Jason Cowley must stand down in favour of Jemima. Now. She can make him travel or beauty ed or whatever. Keep him 'appy, as they mispronounce in northern soaps.

BJ (Before Jemima), the NS squeaked. AJ, it roars. I do not recommend a BJ situation.

Now, it is true I ran a very rude piece about Jemima only the other day. But part of my function is to fill the sails of the zeitgeist so that we may journey forth. Suzanne Moore was right to highlight the total neglect of editorial low-class urchins without a job or famous parent. Jason was right to bring in Jemima. This paradox must not cause us sleepless nights. Jemima can be installed and she will hire more under-privileged urchins.

Problem solved.

PS My thanks to the New Statesman's Helen Lewis and Duncan Robinson for giving me the precise figure of Hugh Grant hits on the NS website: 'A lot'.

Hugh Grant, the former Screws hack and the haunted pub in Dover

The Castle Inn, Dover

It's certainly the most delicious media story of the year (to date). A major British actor bugs the hack who once bugged him. Their topic of conversation: illegal phone hacking. Part of the transcript of Hugh Grant's highly revealing taped conversation with former News of the World whistle-blower Paul McMullan is now online at the New Statesman website: click here.

Priceless nuggets include Andy Coulson's alleged complicity in phone hacking, the PM's unhealthy proximity to Rupert Murdoch moll Rebekah Brooks (who, as one witty Arcatiste has pointed out to me, looks more like Robert Plant every day) and how Murdoch wickedly plays his multi-media games with celebrity pawns - the Nicole Kidman/Moulin Rouge! tale is a thing of beauty.

Grant travelled to the Dover pub/hotel McMullan runs, The Castle Inn, where all was revealed; and he generously encourages readers to pay the establishment a visit. It sits on the corner of Dolphin Lane and Russell Street. Click here to read about the colourful history of the 18th century coaching inn: it is of course haunted, and the medium Derek Acorah will want to know about the 'creaks, icy blasts and apparitions' should he ever be called in for a spot of exorcism.

I only mention all this because I want to see Mr McMullan safe and secure in his new business, out of harm's way and solvent. He is a very important source for future scholars of the worst scandal ever to hit British newspapers. Long may he thrive.

Andy Coulson recruited by organisation that wants media to 'protect truth'

Sheer bliss that Andy Coulson, lately of 10 Downing St's spin dept (and ongoing cynosure of phone hacking claims [denied] arising from his tenure as editor of the never-boring News of the World) has been recruited by the One Young World organisation as a media consultant. No, I'd never heard of it either.

Apparently it encourages young people to think they are world leaders and arranges conferences where they can meet actual world leaders, like Desmond Tutu, to talk about whatever. Provided you were born in or after 1985 and have €3,000 to spare, you, too, could attend its Zurich summit in September if lucky to talk about whatever.

Its global aims appear laudable. With Coulson in mind, I was particularly drawn to its media mission statement which reads: 'In the belief that freedom of speech promotes a successful society, we call upon: The media to use its influence and power to help protect truth and personal freedom.'

Protect truth? Ah yes, Coulson will know all about that.

Andy Coulson and a 'noxious odour' from Number 10

Andy Coulson

The Daily Telegraph's inestimable chief political commentator Peter Oborne turns his attention once again to the matter of Andy Coulson.

Oborne identifies the former News of the World editor, and now the Prime Minister's head of communications, as one of the sources of a "noxious odour" emanating from Number 10 - a stench renewed by a claim that a senior Screws' editor appointed by Coulson is allegedly implicated in the illegal phone tapping of actors Sienna Miller, Jude Law and others.

Against experience and logic, Coulson maintains he had no personal knowledge of phone hacking at his paper, a claim which as Oborne puts it, "makes no sense to anybody with experience of how newspapers work." He adds: "This situation is very serious because it has the potential to do grave damage to the Prime Minister’s reputation not just for sound judgment, but also for probity."

An excellent commentary. Read here.

Andy Coulson: 'Top News of the World exec approved illegal phone hacking'

Lawyers have secured startling new evidence that 'implies' that a senior editorial executive at the News of the World approved the illegal hacking of voicemail messages from the phones of Sienna Miller, Jude Law and others. The Guardian publishes details of these fresh claims and more: click here.

Former Screws editor Andy Coulson, who is now the Prime Minister's media boss at No 10, and others at News International, have always contended that only Clive Goodman, the Screws' former royal correspondent, used private investigator Glenn Mulcaire to hack mobiles.

The Guardian reports that Scotland Yard has had this new evidence in its possession for years but failed to investigate it. Only a few days ago the Yard gave Coulson the all-clear.

The paper also reveals that 'The new evidence discloses that it was Neville Thurlbeck who signed the formal contract paying Mulcaire £2,019 a week to work exclusively for the News of the World.' Amazingly, Coulson knew nothing of this, or so he claims.

More than 20 former News of the World employees have alleged to the Guardian, the New York Times and Channel Four's Dispatches programme that Coulson knew of the use of phone hacking at the paper - which he still denies. And more than 20 celebs are now in various stages of litigation against the Screws and Mulcaire over breach of privacy.

If the paper settles each of these claims as generously as it did Max Clifford's then it faces a £20m legal bill before costs.

Andy Coulson: The endearing qualities of No 10's man-child

Andy Coulson: The PM's Forrest Gump

Let it not be said Madame Arcati is mean-minded.

Allow me to be among the very few (outside No 10 or Wapping) to congratulate the Prime Minister's media adviser, Andy Coulson, on his exoneration by Scotland Yard from any complicity in the News of the World's ongoing phone hacking scandal: he may have once been the paper's control-freak editor, who diligently and sensibly close-questioned his journalists on story sources, but somehow or other he never got wind of the fact that many of their exclusives came courtesy of illegal phone tapping.

I am awe-struck by the subterfuge of his former staff. How they must have laughed behind their editor's back in night-time pub marathons. What a push-over! So naive! Born yesterday! I am almost tempted to think well of David Cameron for taking pity on such a dickhead: I didn't realise the Tories practised positive discrimination for the, er, incognisant. Coulson is now arguably one of the most powerful unelected members of the Old Etonian plutocracy. I have a fond regard for pet owners of underdogs.

Scotland Yard proved to be slightly more than helpful in threatening to put on criminal caution any witness against Coulson. No wonder Sean Hoare, a former Screws hack, declined to repeat the claims he made to the New York Times - that Coulson well knew of the phone hacking and authorised it. Why should Hoare expose himself to prosecution in the face of No 10's media machine, their many friends in the compliant Tory print press or rent-a-quote bloated bigmouth Kelvin MacKenzie? No reason at all.

I note also that the wrongly maligned Coulson, in Tommy Sheridan's ongoing perjury court case in Glasgow, has denied ever being a bully at the Screws. I have no reason not to believe him except that last year one of his former sports hacks, Matt Driscoll, won a record £800,000 at an east London employment tribunal for unfair dismissal. A major cause of Driscoll's woe was Coulson, apparently - a claim evidently believed by the tribunal.

After the case, Driscoll reportedly said:  "If I were him [Coulson], I would find it very hard to look in the mirror. I was subjected to unprecedented bullying and he did nothing to stop it, if anything he accelerated it. I didn't do anything wrong."

If I were Coulson I'd take steps to win back that £800k for his former boss Rupert Murdoch given his now established blamelessness, his utter Forrest Gump-like obliviousness to abuses at the News of the World.

To have such a man-child at the heart of government endears him to me in a way that is hard to express. I just hope he gets wise to Nick 'dead' Clegg before the rest of us do.

Tory spin doctor Andy Coulson to earn £2,375,000?

Yes, why did the Prime Minister omit his spin doctor Andy Coulson's salary from his latest stunt - the listing of the earnings of public sector drones on more than David Cameron himself? As Lord Prescott points out in a letter to No 10, it is said that Coulson is on £475,000 a year, dwarfing any other figure disclosed today. Over five years he will take home £2,375,000 - not bad for a man who cost his last employer Rupert Murdoch about £1m for bullying a member of his News of the World staff (£800k damages alone, a record sum for the type of case), and presided (while mentally absent) over the paper's illegal tapping of hundreds of celebrity phones - with another £1m loss to Murdoch when Max Clifford was bribed to go away.

Screws gives Max Clifford £1m+ to go away - relief for Andy Coulson

The News of the World has paid Max Clifford over £1m to drop his legal action over alleged phone hacking by the paper. As the Guardian reports, "The settlement means that there will now be no disclosure of court-ordered evidence which threatened to expose the involvement of the newspaper's journalists in a range of illegal information-gathering by private investigators."

That's Andy Coulson off the hook again. The Tories' chief spinner would have been dragged into court and subject to rigorous cross-examination on the topic of what he knew or what he claimed not to know as the Screws' editor about the illegal activities of his own scurvy, lying crew.

I don't blame Clifford for taking the bribe - there's no other word for it. He's inflicted damage. Why would a newspaper part with yet more substantial cash to shut someone up? This "donation" to the Tories saves the Murdoch paper embarrassment. It saves the Tories embarrassment.

The Murdoch newspapers will keep quiet on this episode praying no other big name follows the Clifford example. If this isn't corruption at the heart of our media I don't know what is.

A 'bullying' Prime Minister, but what of Andy Coulson?

Tory leader David Cameron calls for an inquiry into Gordon Brown's "bullying" conduct towards his staff with the suggestion he's unfit for high office. Quite right. But what a pity Cameron didn't call for an inquiry into - and has not publicly addressed once - the bullying conduct of someone very close to himself, the Tory media boss Andy Coulson. Last year, the former editor's bullying of a sports reporter cost the News of the World £800,000 before costs - a record award for workplace bullying.

Sadly The Times, which laudably publishes a leader today on the bullying claims against the PM - labelling bullies "weak" - was not moved to comment on Coulson's offence at the time.

Come to think of it, why hasn't the National Bullying Helpline - which has confirmed Number 10 staff concerns about the PM - made an issue of Coulson? Questions, questions. Rhetorical.

Dapper Dicks: The penis gets the Barbie treatment

The first thing I heard today was the president of Mattel telling me that Barbie was aspirational and about to embark on her 125th career. Then this afternoon I popped over to the site of the world's handsomest novelist, Gavin James Bower. His latest post is about Dapper Dicks, a company that designs clothes for the penis. Barbie and Dapper Dicks made for a nice synchronicity. Let's dress up our playthings.

Dapper Dicks have all sorts of looks for the phallus: the piratical, the dandiacal. The fireman. And others. I quite like the pinstripe suit. Jackets can accommodate a 7" girth. Hats are available. "Dapper wear must be removed prior to intercourse," we are warned. I suppose some people need to be told this.

I utterly applaud this sartorial initiative. For too long the penis has been a synonym for stupidity: we speak of dickheads and people talking cock. So-'n'-so is such a knob. Now's the chance to rebrand a much maligned tool and give it a good styling, like popping Vinnie Jones into a Brooks Brothers. In time we may see Anna Wintour in the front row at Dapper Dicks runway shows. Anything's possible.

Jonathan King and how Andy Coulson 'doctored a photo'

Jonathan King's autobiography 65 My Life So Far is on sale from December 6 - his birthday. I shall be reviewing it, of course. With former News of the World editor Andy Coulson in the news, it is apposite to publish an alleged example of his work at the paper, especially now he's the Conservative Party's boss spin doctor. In his new book, King publishes two pictures of himself seated in a park: he contends the right pic was doctored and published by the Screws, to make it seem that King was ogling a boy. The left pic is the true view, he claims. The Press Complaints Commission rejected King's complaint. It was unfortunate that, as King himself says, the PCC chairman at the time was Les Hinton, Coulson's boss. In this instance justice did not seem to be done.

£800,000 for journalist bullied by Andy Coulson - now the Tories' top spin doctor

The News of the World reporter who was bullied by former editor Andy Coulson and his staff side-kicks has been awarded nearly £800,000 for unfair dismissal and disability discrimination by an east London employment tribunal.

Matt Driscoll will pick up a record £792,736 from Murdoch's News International which with legal costs stands to lose over a £1 million on this case alone.

The tribunal found that Driscoll had been subject to "a consistent pattern of bullying behaviour". "The original source of the hostility towards the claimant [Driscoll] was Mr Coulson ... ". The Guardian reports, "The judgment singled out Coulson for making 'bullying' remarks in an email to Driscoll after the first formal warning, letting him know that he thought he should have been sacked."

Madame Arcati has long campaigned to raise the profile of this case, long after other media went silent. Coulson is the Conservative Party's top spin doctor. Despite Tory pledges to fight bullying in all its forms, Cameron has clung onto Coulson - and no doubt an absence of a media clamour for Coulson's removal will be a comfort. Bullying is the common coin of newspapers. The culture of newspapers promotes bullying. The attributes of the bully are required for editorial preferment.

Ironically, last Sunday, the News of the World went big on its own anti-bullying campaign (schools only, natch) - how hollow that looks now. The Screws these days is an archaic spectacle - a tawdry palace of hypocrites and liars, sad middleclass hacks at a chav masquerade as they clamber and shit all over each other in their prefab open-plan coop. I can't think of a more disgusting publication.

As for Coulson - go! The People needs you! More at Bullying UK.

National newspapers' conspiracy of silence over this payout, click here