Phone Hacking

January 22, 2011 By Malcolm Blair-Robinson

This story has now really taken off, yet I think it is of much greater interest to the media than to ordinary people. Evidently the police saw an enormous can of worms, involving various levels of spying on celebrities to pick up gossip to sell more newspapers, and thought they had better things to do with taxpayers’ money.

I am inclined to agree. I think we expect the police to act as a regulatory authority, which is not their function. There are too many new crimes and too many regulations with a criminal sanction. The police are there to protect us from harm and abuse, and when that fails, to catch the guilty. We should let them get on with that. The price of celebrity, for which the rewards in some cases are mind boggling to ordinary mortals, is to lead a life where all is revealed to the public eye through the media. That is what celebrity is.

These celebrities will have their tiffs and trysts, which keep their lawyers in third homes, expensive schools and so forth, but the rest of us can get on with our day. We do not want our police diverting resources from catching terrorists to chasing after voice mail hackers. Who cares what messages are left for these people anyway.