"Until now it has been easy to argue that Mr Cameron was properly grounded with a decent set of values. Unfortunately, it is impossible to make that assertion any longer. He has made not one, but a long succession of chronic personal misjudgments. He should never have employed Andy Coulson, the News of the World editor, as his director of communications. He should never have cultivated Rupert Murdoch. And – the worst mistake of all – he should never have allowed himself to become a close friend of Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of the media giant News International, whose departure from that company in shame and disgrace can only be a matter of time. We are talking about a pattern of behaviour here. Indeed, it might be better described as a course of action. Mr Cameron allowed himself to be drawn into a social coterie in which no respectable person, let alone a British prime minister, should be seen dead. It was called the Chipping Norton set, an incestuous collection of louche, affluent, power-hungry and amoral Londoners, located in and around the Prime Minister’s Oxfordshire constituency. Brooks and her husband, the former racing trainer Charlie Brooks, live in a house scarcely a mile from David and Samantha Cameron’s constituency home. The two couples meet frequently, and have continued to do so long after the phone hacking scandal became well known. PR fixer Matthew Freud, married to Mr Murdoch’s daughter Elisabeth, is another member of this Chipping Norton set. When Mr Cameron bumped into Freud at Rebekah Brooks’s wedding two years ago, he and Mr Freud greeted each other with exuberant high-fives to signal their exclusive friendship. The Prime Minister cannot claim in defence that he was naively drawn in to this lethal circle. He was warned – many times. Shortly before the last election he was explicitly told about the company he was keeping. Alan Rusbridger – editor of The Guardian newspaper, which has performed such a wonderful service to public decency by bringing to light the shattering depravity of Mr Murdoch’s newspaper empire – went to meet one of Mr Cameron’s closest advisers shortly before the last election. He briefed this adviser very carefully about Mr Coulson, telling him many troubling pieces of information that could not then be put into the public domain. Mr Rusbridger then went to see Nick Clegg, now the deputy prime minister. So Mr Cameron and Mr Clegg – the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister – knew all about Mr Coulson before last May’s coalition negotiations. And yet they both paid no attention and went on to make him the Downing Street director of communications, an indiscretion that beggars belief." "Labour MP Tom Watson, who has been highlighting the phone-hacking scandal at the paper for two years, said: "Rupert Murdoch did not close the News of the World. It is the revulsion of families up and down the land as to what they got up to. It was going to lose all its readers and it had no advertisers left. They had no choice." The News of the World, which has averaged about ?660,000 in advertising income each weekend so far this year according to industry estimates, was already facing a widespread advertiser boycott on Sunday." "The verdict is clear. Not only is Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation and its News of the World publication guilty of offending the moral fibre of the entire country, but its proposed acquisition of BSkyB is also a deal too far. The deluge of objections the Government has received over this proposed acquisition from ordinary members of the public in the past few days has proved that while the Coalition has little appetite to stand up to News Corporation and its UK publishing arm, ordinary citizens are not that squeamish. The weight of objections that Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, has received means his department has no choice but to delay granting final permission for the deal until it has sifted through the complaints. Hunt's decision had been expected as a formality next week. That then slipped to an expectation that it would come during the dog days of August while Parliament was on holiday to a realisation that the decision won't come until September at the earliest. Public opinion has therefore saved Hunt from the awful prospect of allowing the deal through while Murdoch's newspaper operations are at the centre of one of the greatest media scandals of recent times. The contagion now rife within Murdoch's UK empire will fuel deep frustration among the Murdoch family and its acolytes. " "A statement on the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) website says: This outrageous manipulation of the legal right to be consulted about redundancies shows the contempt that the Murdoch empire has for its loyal staff. True to form, he believes he can buy his way out of his obligations. This is an act of damage limitation to salvage Murdoch’s reputation and that of News International – both of

I have closed down ChainRing Transit Authority aka CTA... The long-term effect of my injuries from my cycling accident late last year has left me with limited mobility in my left hand and wrist. Wheel-building was my primary source of income which I am no longer able to do... building even a single set of wheels leaves me with crippling pain in the my left hand and wrist. So it was inevitable that I had to find another profession. I have re-trained as a personal trainer specialising in cycling and trekking... and have been enjoying my time back on the bike training other riders for cycle-touring and racing, along with helping trekkers prepare for adventures to such places as Mt. Kilimanjaro and Mt. Everest. I am also studying to recertify as a paramedic in Australia... so in February 2010 I officially took CTA off-line. I am still operating CTA as a part-time bike workshop for my closest customers and friends in Sydney. I will never be completely out of the bike business since cycling is part of my DNA. If you need to contact me... send me a message via Flickermail... I will respond at some point... I spend very little time on the computer anymore... a very good thing... so it is often weeks between times spent on Flickr. A special thanks to all the great friends that I have met and made through the CTA over the years... I enjoyed the ride... hope you have also.