The News of the World has been shown to have been phone hacking on an industrial scale. Last year, the Guardian had a spreadsheet with a list of over 30 celebs who have been hacked, and that didn’t even scratch the celeb surface, let alone begin to count the lesser mortals – like the families of murdered teenagers – who have apparently also had the full attention of the NoW turned towards their personal messages.

Rebekah Wade Brooks- now News International’s British Chief Exec – has made a statement containing a phrase which I must assume she meant literally – what with her being a newspaper editor and all.

“It is inconceivable that I knew or worse, sanctioned these appalling allegations.”(from the Guardian)

I agree it is inconceivable that the sanctioned the allegations of phone hacking. The phone hacking is, of course, another matter. She’s been the editor of the biggest selling “newspapers” in the UK. Surely she should know how to string a sentence together. Otherwise, I can only conclude that was an accidental, if rare, incidence of a News International employee telling the truth.

Some of us have long memories. And luckily, so does tinternet, so that I can throw this news item from 2005 into the fray.

The ethically-unimpeachable Ms Wade was arrested for beating up her then-husband, Ross Kemp.

Ironically, as editor of the Sun, she had masterminded a domestic violence campaign, according to the BBC. (The word “mastermind” was theirs), Also ironically, her career seems to have been based entirely on carrying out search and destroy missions against other people, largely on the basis of misbehaviours that don’t even begin to rival the heinousness of her own private actions.