Why are Crone & Chapman testifying while on a Murdoch earnout silencer?

“Don’t yer dare say a f**kin’ word, mites…”

There are times when I despair of the Parliamentary Committee system.

A fortnight ago, The Slog posted as follows in relation to the Newscorp Inhouse Pension Bribe Scheme:

‘Newscorp legal chiefs Tom Crone and Jon Chapman are on ‘leaving bonuses’ of £1.5m and £1.6m respectively….which they won’t get until after they give evidence to the Culture, Media & Sport Committee. So one might expect that such huge sums of money will weigh heavily on their veracity as they offer testimony about who knew what and when among the Wapping Liars.’

I’m not trying to claim the credit here: Private Eye had this story before I did. But how long does it take the buffoons who convene these sessions to work out that any evidence tainted by seven-figure sweeteners is about as useful as a fart in a colander?

No doubt the CM&S are delighted with their day’s work today: they will now recall James Murdoch….allegedly. But this entire charade raises two obvious questions:

1. Why were these witnesses not interviewed under threat of funds sequestration if they dissembled….as they very clearly did, playing cat-and-mouse in particular with Tom Watson’s perfectly straightforward questions?

2. Why isn’t today’s evidence simply forwarded to the CPS for processing, and James Murdoch arrested on charges of perjury and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice?

I recognise that some feel I have a hair trigger – that I asked two months before he had his collar felt why Andy Coulson hadn’t been arrested. But this is the nature of our elite-protecting, rich-protecting, power-promoting secretive system of government: without regular, steel-tipped boots up the arse, the buggers would do nothing.

And as for ‘Barker’ Mensch….don’t get me started. I think she watched too many episodes of Perry Mason when she was a kid. Sadly, it taught her nothing about how to corner a witness. It was a case of more showboating on shoddy briefing….and thus, a long career in Camerlot clearly lies ahead of this accomplished self-publicist.

Our tax monies are being expended to put on a show which – be in no doubt – would not be necessary if the police did their job without fear or favour, the CPS had any money or balls, and the Justice System as a whole worked. We should make our feelings as citizens known about this sort of MP-aggrandising amdram nonsense: we are, after all, dealing with the Wapping Liars. Amateurs they aren’t.

That the WLs are still ‘at it’ (as old-fashioned Scouse coppers were wont to say) is borne out by more news of attempts by Newscorp to threaten, blackmail and generally extort their myriad enemies into submission. The solicitor for the Dowler family has passed information to police regarding an alleged dossier compiled by private detectives on him and other lawyers working on damages claims against the late and (apart from Toby Young) entirely unlamented News of the Screws.

The lawyer concerned, Mark Lewis, said he had seen the dossier, thought to have been compiled by private detectives, on him and several other lawyers. He said: “Someone thought it was a good idea to see if they could get information. It is entirely reprehensible and completely wrong. It doesn’t scare me, it doesn’t bother me, but it is an apparent attempt to try and gain an improper advantage.” He said the file appeared to have been assembled between December 2010 and January this year. Which – let’s face it – is pretty recent.

Cue more risible Murdoch protestations of fully cooperating, zero-tolerance policy towards wrongdoing, humility, bollocks, bollocks, eeeuuuwoooruughhooouwiee…my God, that’s better: nothing like a good vomit at the end of a long day.