Shereen: End of the world
Well, what can we say about last week! Only one story in town on Sunday's show: the end of the World. As the was published we had a heated debate in the studio about the rights and wrongs of tabloid journalism, the too cosy relationship between politicians and media moguls, and the role of the police in the whole scandal.
My guest , a Sun columnist, was angry that so many of his colleagues had lost their jobs. And he rounded on other journalists from the so-called quality papers who he accused of being sanctimonious and disingenuous by trying to distance themselves from the murkier practices of some of the tabloids.
There has been a lot of mud slinging and political point scoring this week but there were two moments which for me cut through the empty platitudes and well and truly skewered those who delivered them.
The first came from Hugh Grant on Question Time. Responding to Douglas Alexander's moralising spiel on the Murdoch empire, he said "Weren't you at Rupert Murdoch's party three weeks ago?" Ouch! Douglas's face was a picture.
But more powerful than that, and this goes to the heart of what this whole thing is all about, was Sean Cassidy the father of a 7/7 victim on Five Live talking to a News International executive. The executive said they would be contacting the families to apologise to them. Without skipping a beat Sean shot back, "Well you've got my phone number."
Visit Shereen website to listen again to the show and an extended interview with Dougie MacLean below:
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