Andy Coulson quits amid phone hacking scandal

ANDY COULSON, the red top scandal and showbiz journalist turned political advisor to the UK Prime Minister has quit over long-standing telephone hacking allegations.

"Unfortunately, continued coverage of events connected to my old job at the News of the World has made it difficult for me to give the 110 percent needed in this role," he said in a statement announcing his departure as well as his ability to perform outside of the confines of accepted mathematics and human endurance.

"I stand by what I've said about those events but when the spokesman needs a spokesman it's time to move on." So, say goodbye everybody, wave him out of Parliament and forward any questions you may have for him on to the former spokesman's spokesman. Or someone.

Coulson's illustrious political career came to an abrupt end in remarkably similar fashion to his journalistic one and lasted just about as long.

Back in 2007, four years after taking the role, Coulson resigned from his post of editor at the News of the World amid a telephone hacking scandal that involved the tabloid newspaper, the Royal family, and a private conversation.

Although the tabloid's royal reporter and a private investigator hired to take part in the investigation both received some prison time, Coulson did not, and he chose to resign before a formal investigation by the Press Complaints Commission could be conducted.

That investigation could have dragged Ruper Mordor, sorry Rupert Murdoch, into some rather public questioning by the PCC, so the timing was conveniently fortunate for those allegedly involved.

When the hacking scandal broke Coulson slunk into the darkness that is the opposition party in British politics, which at the time was the Conservative Party. Back then you might have thought that he was unemployable and that, if he was guilty of such underhanded activities, you wouldn't have wanted anything to do with him.

Well, you were not David Cameron, the now PM who gave the fallen editor a second chance and placed him firmly in the bosom of his team. A team that has held his hand and told him that things would be alright ever since.

Sadly, while yesterday's job title of Editor became today's chip paper, the allegations have never gone away, and Coulson has quit in perhaps the first documented - in some newspapers at least - case of there being smoke without fire.

The INQUIRER suspects that it won't be long until the gates of Hell are parted and another aspiring young wordmaster ascends to take the role of advisor and gain the ear of the Prime Minister. But until then we say, the spin is dead, long live the spin. µ