If governments can nationalise economically bankrupt banks, set them on a right keel and then sell them back into the private sector once the bad practices have been purged, what about morally bankrupt newspapers? It was once unthinkable that the government should intervene in taking over ruined banks, but it spared Britain from the full force of the markets that crashed into Ireland.
On another note, Socrates via Plato is again proved correct: when under serious pressure (whereas good people will unite in the common cause), bad people will end up blaming or betraying each other. News International backed David Cameron at the last general election. Now, the disgraced company is revealing that under the auspices of Andy Coulson, News of the World paid police officers for information, a flagrant breach of the law; it calls into question the judgement of the Prime Minister in appointing to the role of communications chief a man who resigned over the initial revelation of phone hacking in 2005. It is all a conspicuous attempt to divert some of the attention they have received over their degeneracy, which now extends to hacking into the phones of those who lost loved ones in the Tube and bus bombings on 7th July 2005.