- this post was first published on the Guardian's Comment is Free on Wednesday 6th JulyOnly a full inquiry with wide-ranging powers can uncover the truth behind the News of the World phone-hacking scandal.

It's progress, but there is a lot unresolved and we can expect plenty of obfuscation and bluster, because – look at the body language and the delays – ministers really do not want a proper, independent public inquiry into phone hacking. Nor, for that matter, do some of their predecessors from the Labour era.

It is a measure of the insidious influence of Rupert Murdoch that his company's shame has the capacity to embarrass not one but three prime ministers, all of whom, miraculously, have counted Rebekah Brooks as a friend, while cabinet ministers going back a dozen years or more (some of whom were hacked themselves) have as much to fear. None of them fancies a trip into the witness box.Read the rest of this post...