Murdoch's Strategy

Murdoch's strategy will, I think, be as follows:

1. Play for time (if Cameron persists in pushing the judicial inquiry into the distance that will help)

2. Widen the net (if it turns out that the Mail, Express, Mirror, etc, were all up to the same tricks that will lessen the pressure on News International.

3. Specious justifications - The Sun, for example, is apparently arguing that its motivation for publishing the story about Gordon Brown's child was to raise public awareness of cystic fibrosis (rubbish).

4. The take-over of BSkyB may have to be postponed to another day; in the meantime The News of The World can be re-launched as The Sun on Sunday.

5. A few token heads may have to roll.

The Evil Empire is in trouble but sadly it is, I think, not the end.

Also: a judicial inquiry may not be the remedy everyone thinks; even now Cameron will be looking for a Hutton-esque "safe pair of hands".

Two gems: (1) A letter in The Guardian giving some advice to Rebecca Brooks: "If the Murdoch's suggest a yachting holiday: don't go" (2) Keith Vaz summing up the police's rather inadequate efforts: "More Clouseau than Columbo". But then which former Commissioner of the Met was it who said it would be a fine thing: "If the police arrested more criminals than it employs"? Setting the bar low, but a bit too high for the Met.