Originally Posted by Damien

Dan Hodges is a bit of a troll I think. I've seen him before somewhere, I think he was in The Guardian trying to defend a unpopular action in the comments under one of his articles. I attempted to find it again but he was written a few of them. That aside I think Livingstone has shot himself in the foot a number of times in this campaign. It's sad because, whatever he has now become, he did a number of good things for London and seemed to have a real passion for the place.

---------- Post added at 19:18 ---------- Previous post was at 19:11 ----------

I also don't think every action undertaken by News International has been bad. Certainly I think The Times escapes much of the wrong doing and is a good newspaper, one that is kept alive despite the fact it's losing money. As I said before I think some actions of illegality is acceptable if it's in the public interest. We don't want the government or authority to be able to hide behind laws they have enforced and thus allow them to cover up corruption and other types of wrong doing.

What News International did was not in the public interest. It was a routine abuse of privacy to conduct 'fishing' expeditions into the private lives of celebraties, politicians, and people in the public eye. Often just to get details of their sex lives.

I hope the inquiry makes a clear case for the public interest.