Did I Say "Huge" ?

It's an emergency.

Isn’t it nice to have something to talk about besides debt and bomb-ravaged children?

Prime Minister David Cameron on Monday bowed to opposition pressure and called an emergency session of parliament as the spiralling phone-hacking scandal claimed the scalp of Britain's top police chief.

[...]

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Paul Stephenson resigned on Sunday over the force's hiring of [a] former deputy at the shuttered News of the World, but took a parting swipe at the prime minister's own ties to [Murdoch’s Andy] Coulson.

"I don't believe the two situations are the same in any way, shape or form," Cameron told a joint news conference in Pretoria with South African President Jacob Zuma when asked about Stephenson's comments.

Raw Story

Oh, there may be a few similarities, Mr. Prime Minister. At least the one: that Murdoch’s people likely have some pretty incriminating blackmail evidence against you both, which is how they came to have your nuts in a sling.

With the scandal coming to the door of Scotland Yard, Stephenson resigned but defended his "integrity", while pointedly comparing the Coulson issue with the force's employment of Neil Wallis, a former executive editor at the tabloid.

Stephenson added that he had not made Wallis' employment public because he did not want to "compromise" the prime minister.

And where is Monty Python? Aren’t the British funny?

Another senior officer at Scotland Yard, John Yates, who decided in 2009 not to reopen the investigation into the News of the World, faced calls for his resignation on Monday from the civilian body that oversees the force.

Yeah, and let's find out just who actually "decided" not to reopen that investigation.

To recap:

Scotland Yard chief Paul Stephenson resigned on Sunday over the force's hiring of a former executive at the News of the World, but delivered a parting shot at the premier's own decision to employ an ex-editor of the tabloid as his media chief.

His shock announcement came just hours before police bailed Rebekah Brooks -- who resigned on Friday as head of Murdoch's British newspaper arm -- after she was arrested on suspicion of phone-hacking and bribing police.

[Prime Minister] Cameron heard about Stephenson's resignation while flying to South Africa where he began a trade visit. The Conservative leader had already decided to cut short his visit to the continent from four days to two as the scandal swirled.

In Britain, Home Secretary Theresa May attempted to distance Cameron from the furore which has shut down the News of the World, thrown Murdoch's global business into crisis and implicated British politicians and the police.

"I think the Met is different from government. The Metropolitan Police are in charge, and responsible for, investigating alleged wrongdoings at the News of the World," May said told the BBC on Monday.

"I think it is important to keep a line between the investigators and the investigated."

Raw Story

Oh, so very rich, that is.

May defended Cameron's judgment in hiring Andy Coulson, the former News of the World editor who went on to become Downing Street media chief but resigned in January. Coulson was arrested over the scandal earlier this month.

"David Cameron himself has made the point that he gave Andy Coulson a second chance, that second chance did not work and Andy Coulson resigned again," she said.

It wasn’t from lack of trying on the PM’s part to keep him his job in government.

[Police Chief] Stephenson was felled by reports Sunday which said [he] accepted a five-week stay earlier this year at a luxury health spa where [Neil Wallis, Coulson's former deputy at the paper], who himself was arrested last week, was a PR consultant.

The police chief denied any wrongdoing.

Of course.

Murdoch's US-based News Corp. is in crisis, having also had to abandon its bid for full control of pay-TV giant BSkyB and accept the resignations on Friday of Dow Jones chief Les Hinton, who had worked with him for 52 years.

[...]

Separately [Rebekah] Brooks, one of Murdoch's closest lieutenants, was released on bail at around midnight (23:00 GMT Sunday) after 12 hours of questioning over the scandal.

Her spokesman David Wilson said she had been instructed to report back to a London police station in late October.

[...]

Brooks, 43, is the 10th person and most senior Murdoch aide to be arrested over the scandal so far. At a previous hearing in 2003 she admitted the paper had made payments to police.

And now that the ex-Murdoch reporter who was providing the lion's share of evidence has been found dead, I wonder what our Ms. Brooks will be thinking about between now and October.