Independent journalist and MP Tom Watson release book on phone-hacking

Alleged attempts by News International to cover up the extent of the phone-hacking scandal are set to be exposed today by Independent journalist Martin Hickman and MP Tom Watson.

A new book ‘Dial M for Murdoch’ alleges that pressure was applied to MPs not to investigate the phone-hacking scandal.

The book also gives an account of the extent of the Murdoch empire’s power in British public life and how he was able to exert such a strong influence on British politics and policing.

Also included in the book are the allegations that:

*The office of former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks was bugged.

*Glenn Mulcaire allegedly went to work for a private security consultancy headed by Lord Stevens, the former Metropolitan Police commissioner.

*That at the News International headquarters the company ran an email server where messages deleted from their main server were stored.

*Campaigning MP Tom Watson was approached by alleged intermediaries at NI with a deal in which it was claimed they would ‘give up’ Andy Coulson.

*The book also alleges that the Director Of Public Prosecutions regularly met with NI executives, before and after the investigation.

Tom Watson, speaking at a press conference to launch the book today said,

“We conclude that the web of influence which News Corporation spun in Britain, which effectively bent politicians, police and many others in public life to its will, amounted to a shadow state.”

The Independent will be publishing extracts, as well as details of the claims made in the book.

Click here to read more about the book

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• Basilthedog

  Shabby behaviour. Here we have an MP who was exposed as an expenses cheat, subsequently took a (vengeful?) high profile lead of the Parliamentary investigation  into the newspaper phone hacking row and who is now looking to make money out of it by writing a book! Perhaps he should have spent more time looking after the welfare of both his constituents and his family. 

• Martin Bacon

  Are you James’s dog or Rupert’s dog?

• http://www.facebook.com/people/Simon-Jones/100003660954594 Simon Jones

  Basilthedog, completely agree. Watson is a disgrace. For someone of his ilk to start casting aspersions upon anyone else is risible.