Suborning the nation

suborn vt (MF suborner, fr L subornare) 1: to induce secretly to do an unlawful thing: INSTIGATE 2: to induce to commit perjury; also: to obtain perjured testimony from a witness. (Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary).

Well, that about covers it. After the events of the past two weeks, it feels as if just about the entire UK has been suborned. The pile of victims is starting to mount: Rebekah Brooks is out of a job at News International, and both she and former News of the World editor Andy Coulson have been arrested; sadly, a former journalist from the NotW was found dead yesterday in his apartment, almost certainly as a result of suicide; and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson has resigned, as has one of his deputies, John Yates, with at least three other senior officers under investigation.

It's nowhere near over yet. Revelations of a you-couldn't-make-this-up variety are still occurring on a daily basis. There are reports today that police are examining a computer found dumped near Rebekah Brooks's home. More unbelievably still, Rupert Murdoch just uttered the word "humble" at the start of his appearance before a parliamentary committee.

So who's next for the firing squad? There's a general consensus that James Murdoch will not survive the week as CEO of News International, though given his father's performance today (one Twittered description, not the cruellest: "addled"), that might be a risky move. Even if James does go, it's unlikely that the possible arrival of his older brother Lachlan and hatchet-faced sister Elizabeth would signal much of a change of course.

Then there are the politicians, none of whom has so far been irretrievably damaged, unless you count Gordon Brown, whose spittle-flecked rant in Parliament last week did no end of harm to what remained of his reputation. That may change. Sky News reported last night that the odds on David Cameron having to resign over the scandal have tumbled to 8 - 1. One man working hard to shorten those odds even further is former London mayor Ken Livingstone, who came very close to suggesting to the same station last night that Cameron had attempted to exert improper influence over the decision of whether to allow News Corp. to buy all of BSkyB (a takeover bid that has been abandoned by News Corp. since the scandal began). Cameron and Rebekah Brooks are, of course, personal friends as well as being part of the "Chipping Norton set", both being residents of that fantastically self-regarding Cotswolds town. (Another member of the "set": Jeremy Clarkson. Be very afraid).

Livingstone, planning another tilt at the London mayor's job next year, is also trying to besmirch the current incumbent, Boris Johnson. Over the weekend Ken idly suggested that BoJo has held many meetings over the past year with individuals who are now neck deep in the mire, and wondered aloud how voters would feel if the Mayor had been consorting with known armed criminals! As with the insinuations about Cameron, Livingstone made no attempt to offer any evidence, but in the current fraught atmosphere, that seems unlikely to make any difference. A more troublesome fact for Johnson may be that the soon-to-depart Met police chief, Paul Stephenson, was his personal choice for the job; indeed, BoJo turfed out his predecessor in order to give Stephenson the job only a couple of years ago.

So there we are. The world is teetering on the brink of another financial crisis, and the UK government is having to spend all its time on a tawdry scandal. And with a year to go before the Olympics, the biggest security challenge in peacetime British history, the Metropolitan Police is leaderless. A fine mess.