The Guardian newspaper is whipping itself and its readers into a frenzy of righteous indignation over illegal hacking committed by the News of the World in order to obtain stories. Yet the Guardian has published a huge number of stories that came  from illegal hacking. In the Guardian’s case the hacking was of United States government computers. And the Guardian didn’t use private detectives as a source, they used WikiLeaks. Moral double standards displayed here perhaps?

And today the Guardian was forced to apologise to News International. It had accused The Sun of hacking into the medical records of Gordon Brown’s sick son. Which turned out to be a complete lie.

Now to Gordon Brown. He said that he wanted to have an inquiry into the News of the World, but that civil servants stopped him. This is the same Gordon Brown who destroyed our economy with profligate spending when civil servants had tried to stop him. So he is stretching our credibility with this one.  Brown’s attempt at this newspaper inquiry came in early 2010, just before the general election, when Murdoch switched his support from Labour to the Conservatives. An amazing coincidence. Why didn’t Brown ask for an inquiry in 2006 when the Information Commissioner presented two reports to the House of Commons detailing illegal newspaper activity? And why didn’t Brown ask for an enquiry in 2007 when Andy Coulson resigned from the News of the World over phone hacking? Surely not because Murdoch was supporting Brown in 2006 and 2007?

For this and other reasons Nick Clegg says that Gordon Brown is trying to “rewrite history”. Anyone familiar with the way Gordon Brown blamed the bankers for the disaster to our economy caused by his own financial ineptitude will be familiar with his tendency to do this.

A lot of people are assuming the mantle of moral indignation and are riding the bandwagon of the witch hunt right now. Usually for their own selfish motives. MPs, especially, can see it as a way of putting their own expenses scandal behind them. But what we have is an erosion of faith and trust in the pillars of our society. Parliament, the police and the press all seemingly corrupt. What institution is left that has any credence?