As James Murdoch closed the most successful newspaper in the western world rather than sack a devious harpie, experts said that harpie must have some weapons-grade shit up her sleeve.

Professor Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, said: “Jesus fucking Christ, they must have killed a tramp.”

As one of his former top executives—once a close aide—told me, “This scandal and all its implications could not have happened anywhere else. Only in Murdoch’s orbit. The hacking at News of the World was done on an industrial scale. More than anyone, Murdoch invented and established this culture in the newsroom, where you do whatever it takes to get the story, take no prisoners, destroy the competition, and the end will justify the means.”

Then – in 1995 – Murdoch begins to change. He decides he likes Tony Blair and tells [Woodrow] Wyatt he may support him at the coming election. Wyatt can’t believe it. He had thought that Murdoch would always support the Conservatives.

And then Murdoch does something worse. He tells the editor of the News of the World to cut back on the column that he had allowed Wyatt to write every week.

Wyatt is in despair. There is a wonderful moment in the diaries when Wyatt sleeps all night on the floor of his study next to the phone waiting for Murdoch to ring.

He never does.

Media pundits say the News of the World’s seven million-strong readership will now divide into those who will spend the rest of their lives washing their hands 300 times a day and those who will continue to enjoy stories about fucking.

Wayne Hayes, media analyst at Donnelly-McPartlin, said: “At this stage it’s anyone’s guess, though one does have to question the commercial impact of Guardian readers boycotting the News of the World.

“Nevertheless I am sure those Guardian readers will cancel their Sky subscriptions the very moment the second series of Boardwalk Empire finishes sometime next year.”

“Good Lord, it’s my past,” Morris says as he leafs through a box filled with folders labeled “Manson Girls” and “Lobotomy.” Many of the boxes are cardboard coffins for movies he pursued for years but couldn’t fund.

Weiner needed a more private channel of communication for flirtations up to and including pictures of his package. Since the women followed him already, he could send them direct messages. But to receive their replies, he had to follow them in return. Only then could he engage in flirting or sexual repartee.

Weiner seemed not to realize the extent to which Twitter’s rules still made him vulnerable. The women were publicly listed among those accounts he followed. Since he only followed around 200 people, these new followers seemed out of place among the politicians, journalists, and celebrities on his list. It was all too easy for a political foe to notice that Weiner was adding young women (and in at least one case, a porn star) to his followers soon after a public exchange.’