NI sees 'external forces' behind hacking headlines

The Financial Times has an analysis Tabloid troubles today on the phone-hacking allegations engulfing Rupert Murdoch's News International.

It quotes one Murdoch insider stating: “I have never in my life felt more like I am in a John Grisham novel. A series of very, very significant errors of judgment have been made over something relatively unthreatening.”

The article also claims: "Inside NI, fingers point at external forces. The company sees an opposition Labour party eager to keep in the headlines a story that led to last week’s resignation of Andy Coulson, a former News of the World editor, as director of communications for David Cameron, prime minister. It thinks fee-chasing lawyers are trying to squeeze settlements from the empire. And it believes those rivals that have chased the story have had commercial motives. It includes the Financial Times in this group."

Andrew Neil is quoted saying of Murdoch: "He thinks the whole News of the World thing has been handled appallingly and he has moved in to do it himself, cancelled Davos and all that, but he fears that what they are doing now, being seen to clear out the stable, is too little too late. But he is a fighter and he is still trying to do it.

“You wouldn’t believe what a cultural change this [openness] is for News. Normally when they are up against it, they survive on a code of omerta. The problem for Rupert is that he has to be seen to be doing something, but he just doesn’t know where what he has set in motion will lead or whose job it might cost.”