Newspapers

There’s much thumb-sucking on the question of whether Rupert Murdoch is a “fit and proper person” to purchase the 61% of BSkyB he does not already own. I’ve defended Murdoch’s interest in the past (without, shockingly, ever being asked to write for any of his papers) and still see little reason why the deal should not go ahead. This has little to do with Murdoch but everything to do with the nature of the beast. Owning a newspaper is rather like running for the Presidency of the United States of America: the desire to do so is usually enough to demonstrate that the candidate or would-be tycoon should not be

Even by the debased standards of the tabloid press this Guardian account of how the News of the World intercepted and deleted messages left on Milly Dowler’s mobile phone days after the 13 year-old’s disappearance in 2002 must represent a new low. That’s assuming the Guardian story is accurate, of course, but there seems little reason, at present, to doubt it. It may be one thing to spy on movie stars and pop sensations; quite another, most people will think, to use the same “techniques” in the matter of a missing – and subsequently murdered – teenage girl. As Nick Davies and Amelia Hill report: [W]ith the help of its

It’s New Jersey so nothing should surprise anyone. Still, it turns out that the problem is that the cocaine has been cut with levamisole, a drug traditionally used to deworm livestock. So caveat coker if you’re in America this summer. Also, of course, one of the problems with illegal but popular markets is that the people who run them are so often so dashed unscrupulous… [Thanks to Jersey-girl RF for the tip-off]