Old news

There is one crumb of comfort that Fleet Street can extract from the phone-hacking scandal: its own foibles still create a vastly bigger splash than do those of newer media. This week Facebook investors harangued the company’s chief executive for wearing a hoodie in meetings and Yahoo’s chief executive resigned after a shareholder questioned his claim to hold a computer science degree. But they hardly caused a ripple compared with the news that former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, her husband and five others are to be charged with perverting the course of ­justice.

The hacking inquiry has become like The Mousetrap: a show that never closes. Unlike The Mousetrap, however, it is showing simultaneously in three different West End theatres: the High Court, the Houses of Parliament and Westminster Magistrates Court. The proceedings have grown so far out of proportion to the offence that the Whitehall Theatre might be a better location: it has become a farce.