Bryant: phone hacking may be worst corporate corruption case for 250 years | Media | guardian.co.uk

Chris Bryant, the Labour MP, has claimed that in light of recent revelations the News International phone-hacking scandal could turn out to be the biggest case of corporate corruption in the UK for more than 250 years.

Bryant told a Westminster Hall private members' debate on media regulation on Tuesday that his "poor researcher" had counted 486 lies told to parliament by News International, the police and other organisations about phone hacking and related investigations.

The Labour MP, who received £30,000 in damages from NI in January to settle his News of the World phone-hacking claim, also said evidence given to the Leveson inquiry on Monday suggested that a "culture of mass corruption was intrinsic to the Sun's modus operandi".

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Although that revelation yesterday added yet another interesting line of inquiry which I hope will bear fruit and lead to deep time prison sentences for some, another one looks particularly bad for Rupe

Liberal conspiracy - Tim Fenton - Murdoch's US troubles keep getting worse

Deadline Hollywood has revealed that the Met has advised Hollywood music agent Julie Colbert that her phone may have been hacked. Ms Colbert may not have been of interest to Rupe's troops, but one of her clients - singer Charlotte Church, who has just settled out of court for a sum rumoured to be not unadjacent to £500,000 - certainly was.

Ms Church had stayed at the Colbert house for some months as a means of putting some distance between herself and the pack of hacks and snappers that had been in constant pursuit back in the UK. Ms Colbert had travelled extensively between Los Angeles and London, so it's possible that her phone was hacked in the UK.

But Mulcaire's notes apparently contain several US numbers.

These include Ms Church's publicist Kevin Chiaramonte, who works out of New York, and that of Ms Colbert. As Bloomberg has diplomatically put it, "The presence of the U.S. phone numbers in Mulcaire's notes also may complicate the company's effort there to contain lawsuits".

We all know that the thumb of money lies heavily on the scales of justice, most especially for the owner of Faux Noose, but then again it certainly looks interesting


keep to the Fen Causeway