Labour leader Ed Miliband attended a string of News International parties and held talks with former chief executive Rebekah Brooks, records released today showed.

The phone-hacking scandal has convulsed the media. Now the industry must prepare to submit itself to a judge whose self-deprecation masks a rigorous line in questioning

With the pre-surgical Ed Miliband still deprived of sleep by that "life-threatening apnoea", it behoves us to help him through the befuddlement.

What is needed at this point in the saga, I can't help feeling, is neither a select committee nor a judicial inquiry, but family psychotherapy on an industrial scale. Take Liz Murdoch. If Liz's volcanic rage at being the biological daughter less loved by Daddy than the adopted sister with the Medusa tresses erupted with "Rebekah fucked the company", we must look to the distant past for the genesis of her filial anguish. I make no apology for repeating the anecdote, which is not only the most revealing snapshot of Rupert's soul, but may help us understand Liz's daughterly angst.

Fifteen months after becoming Prime Minister, David Cameron is discovering what it is like to be in office without having the power to control events. It happens to all premiers and it is incredibly frustrating.

2 July 2011

Gosh, I'm pleased I've never made Rebekah Brooks' Christmas card list. I'm proud I wasn't one of the ladies invited to Sarah Brown's slumber parties at Chequers.

Matthew Freud, the publicist married to Elisabeth Murdoch, has regained control of his eponymous public relations and marketing agency from the Publicis Groupe.

News Corp's bid to take control of BSkyB is a fierce communications, lobbying and legal battle taking place at the very highest level.