THE MPs at the forefront of the investigation into the News of the World's phone hacking scandal have been accused of nauseating and irrational behaviour.
Leading advocate Paul McBride said they were indulging in a McCarthy-type witch-hunt.
He said: “The nauseating spectacle of Keith Vaz apparently acting as a moral lightning rod for press freedom has only been dwarfed by the equally repellent Chris Bryant and Tom Watson, whose visceral hatred of the Murdoch group is bordering on the pathologically irrational.”
He said the “custodians of our free society” were MPs who for the last five years have been the subject of significant and important investigative journalism regarding their expenses and their private lives.
Mr McBride, one of Scotland’s top criminal lawyers, has been hired to represent Andy Coulson, David Cameron’s ex-press spokesman and former News of the World editor, and the paper’s Scottish editor Bob Bird.
Mr Coulson and Mr Bird denied any knowledge of wrongdoing at the paper when they were questioned at the Tommy Sheridan perjury trial over claims his phone had been hacked.
Mr McBride, writing in our sister paper The Sunday Herald, said: “If news-papers are not allowed to do their job properly and are heavily regulated then the only people who will benefit will be the corrupt and the hypocrites.”
Mr Watson, whose was praised for his forensic question of the Murdochs at Westminster last week, said: “The issues are too important for me to respond to this type of visceral rhetoric from a high-rolling lawyer. Needless to say it will not distract me from pursuing the truth behind what has been going on.”
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