Who else knows how to tap phones?

Our last commentary predicted that more heads would roll, and that the issue of phone tapping would grow rather than fade. Well, the editor of the News of the World was duly relieved of her position after former colleagues belatedly pointed the finger at just how widespread the practice had been. Several other senior figures are out too, but not young James Murdoch who apparently knew nothing about all this naughtiness. Mmmm.

Father Rupert has had a custard pie in the face while giving “evidence” in the Parliament of Parliaments, which whilst reprehensible in principle, was hilarious in reality. Wife Wendy’s leap to belt his assailant duly drew comparisons with Bruce Lee, as if only Chinese ladies are capable of defending their old fellas in times of need.

More seriously, many more people have got on the compensation band wagon, with hundreds of thousands of pounds being paid out to numerous politicians, celebs and others in the public eye.

What has not yet happened is the brown stuff hitting the fan in the USA, but it may well do so soon.  Former Sun editor Piers Morgan’s boast that he had heard of a tape of a phone call between Paul McCartney and his former wife may kick it off, now that Morgan has become a CNN chat show star in the States. Odd that Morgan made this boast some years ago and no-one thought to ask, “How come?” The point is that phone tapping is a far more serious offence, so far, in the US, and prison beckons perpetrators.

And from here we simply have to move, logically and remorselessly, to the inevitable question – if the News of the World was doing it, and The Sun was doing it (though it has not been shut down) are we to believe the apparently simple ability to tap a phone was confined to journalists who worked in these two papers, and not to any other journalist, within or without News International?  That journalists switching jobs failed to use this skill for the benefit of their new employer?

Even more interestingly, if it is that easy and they could tap the Prime Minister's phone, they could tap anyone's.  Now here’s the thing – if you could do this and were in a less than ethical frame of mind, whose phone would YOU tap for personal gain? A celebrity’s so that you could sell the story for a few thou?  Or senior City figures embroiled in takeovers or other major events affecting share and money markets?

And another unthinkable thought: do you believe that in this age of global shrinkage, of instant communication, of a social community of two billion users, there is not a journalist, or anyone else for that matter, who does not know how to do this in New Zealand?

I offer the thought free of charge to the Tui ad agency.