The British Conservatives are hopeful as well. Somehow the argument that there was an isolated case of phone hacking sounds flimsy. The Guardian:
The News of the World is believed to be planning to settle a court case which threatens to disclose further evidence of the involvement of its journalists in illegal information-gathering by private investigators.
According to one source at the paper, executives have devised a plan to block the case by offering money to the celebrity PR agent Max Clifford to persuade him to settle his legal action over the illegal interception of his voicemail messages.
The Clifford case is potentially important for Andy Coulson, media adviser to the Conservative leader David Cameron, who edited the News of the World at the time of the illegal interceptions. The paper's then royal correspondent, Clive Goodman, and a private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, were jailed in January 2007 for intercepting the voicemail of a total of eight victims, including Max Clifford. Coulson and the paper said they knew nothing about the illegal activity by Goodman and Mulcaire. Coulson resigned on the grounds that he carried ultimate responsibility.
Since then it has emerged that other News of the World journalists were involved in handling illegally "hacked" voicemail messages and that there were numerous other victims.
