Brown and Miliband(jnr)'s cowardice left many innocent people open to having their privacy violated

Ah how have I come to that conclusion ?

Well first let me tell you an abridged personal story.

Many years ago I was the victim of an assault by someone I knew, but wouldn't be seeing again. The question was do I involve the police ? The temptation not to and get the whole thing out of the way was immense, but then I remembered that the same character flaw that had cause the incident I was involved in would no doubt lead to other people suffering similar assaults - so I called in the police as I felt it wouldn't help me, but was my duty to protect others.

A similar thought process of civic responsibility should have been going through Gordon Brown's mind when as chancellor he was told of the appalling breaches of privacy carried out against his family ( the Brown's son Fraser with whom we all had great sympathy - as I said at the time ).

What he hasn't understood is it was his duty to act, not just for his own sake, but also for the other victims he would have known would follow.

He had the authority, considered the issue. He even says now he was in favour of a judicial enquiry, and yet he didn't act. Its not hard to speculate why.

Ed Miliband was Gordon Brown's close disciple and in the cabinet when these things were discussed. ( I don't know if he was in the particular meeting when they were discussed ). He had the opportunity to protect the public, murder victims, the families of dead soldiers and airmen, but he chose to do nothing.

And now we have the hypocrisy of Brown and Miliband launching their crusade against New International.

They have a lot of questions to answer. The only question is with News International cowered who's going to ask them ?

Update: Its starting

Questions are being asked about Brown's version of events.

Andrew Neil has been helpfully putting the boot in all day: see this, this and this.