Three Conservative MPs have joined calls to see Piers Morgan answer questions about phone-hacking. Last week the Liberal Democrat MP Adrian Sanders implicated the Mirror in the hacking scandal:

“…the Daily Mirror, when under the auspices of Piers Morgan, is suspected of using voicemail interception to reveal Sven-Goran Eriksson’s affair with Ulrika Jonsson. Given that there are questions over Scotland Yard’s handling of the current case, it is essential that its actions are reviewed independently and that future action against suspected phone hackers does not remain solely the domain of the Met.”

As Lord Justice Leveson prepares his inquiry, a long list of witnesses will be drawn up. This must include executives, editors and hacks of the News of the World’s rivals. This is about more than Murdoch now. 

Member of Parliament, Aidan Burley, told Guido:

“In the light of these new allegations about telephone hacking during his editorship of the Daily Mirror, Piers Morgan should be called to the phone-hacking inquiry to face questions on oath.”

Nigel Adams MP added:

“If evidence surfaces that Piers Morgan had some knowledge of phone hacking while he was in the newspaper industry, it would of course seem sensible to ask him to appear before the inquiry.” 

Douglas Carswell MP also called for Morgan to appear before Lord Leveson’s inquiry:

“Piers Morgan needs to come and explain what he knows about the vile practice of phone hacking and if he knew it was taking place at the Mirror.  No celebrity is too grand to come and answer questions.”

And it’s not just lawmakers who are on Morgan’s case. Kevin Bakhurst, the BBC News Channel’s boss told Guido this morning that the BBC was actively pursuing the Morgan story and he had already invited Piers to explain on air via Twitter. Sky News have also given him an opportunity to clear his name live on Sky. Never like Piers to ignore some airtime…

UPDATE: Another Tory MP weighs in, with Louise Mensch stating:

“At the very least Mr Morgan should answer the allegations put forward by a prominent UK blog. It is also clear to me that the inquiry must cover not only News International, but Trinity Mirror Group, Associated Newspapers and other tabloid organisations.”

UPDATE II: In New York Business Insider says:

“It’s sounding less and less likely that CNN’s Piers Morgan is going to manage to stay free of the Murdoch phone-hacking scandal engulfing Britain…
…CNN had no comment when we reached out to them yesterday regarding the report.”

Imagine a secretive organisation whose members have privileged access to Downing Street. Imagine that the members of this organisation receive information covertly. Imagine that the rules of this organisation force the members to withhold information from outsiders if the Prime Minister tells them so to do. Then consider that the members of this closed, opaque, secretive organisation are supposed to hold politicians to account on behalf of the public. After 208 years it is time to end the Lobby system.

The gentlemen of the Lobby drink in subsidised bars, from which the public are excluded, with the politicians they are supposed to hold to account on behalf of that same public. Cowardice and cronyism runs right through the Lobby because they are fearful of being taken off the teat of pre-packaged stories served to them.  That is not journalism, that is copy-taking, this blog was established in part because Guido believes the Lobby system fails the public. The Fourth Estate may not have a formal constitutional role, but the role is real. The role is not to produce “client journalism”.

Peter Oborne in his brilliant Triumph of the Political Class characterises the Lobby system as having produced a tame “client media”. He is absolutely right, the Lobby is far too cosily embedded in the politico-media system, far too close to their subjects, with the likes of Nick Robinson flashing his taxpayer-financed credit card to pour the better vintages down the throats of ministers who have their lunch on the BBC telly-taxpayers. The same ministers who had their expensed groceries sent to their mortgage subsidised home at the taxpayers’ expense. The system stinks, those who are supposed to be watching over politicians – journalists – and the politicians themselves, are the only ones who benefit from the system staying the same.

Two years ago the then PMOS, Simon Lewis, and the then chairman of the Lobby, Jean Eaglesham, announced that the system of Downing Street Lobby briefings was to be reviewed “in light of the changes in the reporting of the work of government in an increasingly fast-moving and on-line media world”. A working group of six lobby hacks and five government spin doctors was to come up with recommendations to be implemented last year. No one from the fast-moving online media world was on the working group. Did anything change? No.

Tom Watson has just called for an end to the Lobby system and off the record briefings. Cameron has said he supports all contacts between politicians and newspaper executives being a matter of public record. More transparency is clearly a good thing. That transparency should be applied to the Lobby system…

See also: In 2007 Guido filmed this polemic against the Lobby system for Newsnight:

Won’t be able to try again for six months, but that sort of delay would have happened anyway. If Murdoch was to sell his remaining UK papers and try again, there would not be the plurality issue. Breaking…

The above is Piers Morgan’s own diary entry from a decade ago, dated January 26, 2001. It is taken from his 2005 account of his days in newspaper journalism, The Insider: The Private Diaries of a Scandalous Decade:

“Apparently if you don’t change the standard security code that every phone comes with, then anyone can call your number and, if you don’t answer, tap in the standard four digit code to hear all your messages. I’ll change mine just in case, but it makes me wonder how many public figures and celebrities are aware of this little trick.”

So Piers admits it made him wonder if celebrities were aware of “this little trick”. In March 2002, just one year later, this “little trick” was used by the Daily Mirror against Sven and Ulrika to produce a story that won the “Scoop of the Year” at the British Press Awards the following year.  Piers Morgan was at that time the Daily Mirror’s editor…

Across the Atlantic the Morgan hacking story is spreading with  Drudge pushing it, as are:

• Morgan Dragged into Scandal – The Express
• Is CNN’s Piers Morgan Next? – Business Insider
• Is Piers Getting Dragged In? - Media-ite
• CNN’s Piers Morgan Linked to Phone Hacking – B-Net
• UK Blog Accuses Morgan - Media Bistro

More follows…

Murdoch’s News International was on the ropes, blows coming from left and right, his power waning. What better time for Brown, still bitter about the day of his conference speech switch of support by The Sun to the Tories, to exact his revenge. But in true Jonah Brown style, he couldn’t even hit the back of the net of an open goal.

Pretending to merely “comment” on two-bit allegations he himself fed to the Guardian, he ignored the fact that the PCC rules allowed the Sunday Times to use subterfuge in the public interest, and he flew a kite with the unsubstantiated medical records claim. Something he had to row back from in yesterday’s interview.

You can bet rivals at the Guardian, The Telegraph and the BBC didn’t expect the Sun’s original source, another father of a child with cystic fibrosis, to be willing to sign an affidavit swearing he had never seen the medical records. Only Gordon could fail so spectacularly to score an open goal and he has managed to derail the Guardian’s campaign – because of him News International have a hook to fight back on and they are with today’s Sun front page. If Gordon wanted he could have gone to the PCC and invoked  6 (v) of the PCC code, which would have killed the story, or complained afterwards. If Rebekah Brooks made him cry it seems odd that he subsequently went to her wedding, attended her birthday party and got Sarah to host a “girls” sleep-over at Chequers with Rebekah Brooks and Wendi Murdoch. A big round of applause for Jonah from Wapping.

*Source for Gordon’s “I will destroy you” threat to Murdoch is the founding chairman of Sky and former editor of The Sunday Times, Andrew Neil.

It turns out other news is happening this week that doesn’t involve mobile phones. Guido thinks two polls in as many days that have shown half of the country are prepared to leave the EU would normally get more traction. This week the government forced a statutory instrument through Parliament, with the slimmest of majorities, that will see us giving more money through a £9.2 billion increase to the IMF, than we cut in the first round of spending cuts. The public is getting sick of it.

A YouGov@Cambridge/PoliticsHome poll poll showed that if there was an in/out referendum tomorrow 50% would vote to leave and just 33% to stay. Remarkably this is almost identical to yesterday’s 49%/25% Angus Reid poll. As Greece continues to burn money, Italy teeters on the brink and Ireland has its credit rating reduced to junk status, the public are finally waking up to the problem. Every cloud…

CNN’s Piers Morgan defends phone hacking to Richard Bacon…

“…my problem with all the phone hacking victims, they’ve all used the media over the years to feather their nests, buy their houses, flock their movies, sell out their concerts, and now they’re squealing like little pigs over the media..”