To follow up Penny's point, the deleting of messages was not stupidity. It released space for more messages for the criminals to hack.

It is good news that Rupert came out so unambiguously in support of Rebekah. It means that when her goose is cooked, as it will be, the greater will be the damage to his own tarnished reputation.

In the end the most serious element of the saga will be the criminal relationships between police and NOTW staff. Rebekah told MPs several years ago that the NOTW had paid police for information, which under England & Wales law is bribery and corruption. Police took no action.

All the info now dribbling into the public domain about whose phones were hacked was seized by police five years ago (in the form of 11,000 pages of NOTW investigators' notes, containing 4,000 names) but again the police saw no need to pursue the matter.

When Tommy Sheridan challenged the NOTW in court and was ultimately jailed for perjury, former NOTW editor Andy Coulson gave evidence against him and stated on oath that he was unaware of any NOTW payments to corrupt police. Yet he had been sitting beside his boss Rebekah when she blurted out that such payments had indeed been made. Police meanwhile confirm that NOTW has mysteriously found emails "lost" at the time of the Sheridan trial indicating that payments were made to "a small number" of police officers.

Advertisers are falling away in fistfuls, aware that rival publications will next Monday publish rolls of shame, listing the advertisers still supporting the paper. (To see which are still backing Murdoch and to add to the public pressure on them, start here: Let NOTW advertisers know your view.)

Sidenote for Jenni G and Greg F: yes, Murdoch operates worldwide, but neither IS or Oz would allow him anything like the monopolistic grip he has on the UK media.

The most cheering aspect of the whole business is that it will rumble on for months and years, damaging the Murdoch and NOTW brands all the while. I suspect the NOTW title will eventually go under completely, which would be quite something for the biggest-selling English-language newspaper in the world. At the very least it is having its Perrier moment.

Hats off to Tom Watson MP, Chris Bryant MP and Private Eye who are among the brave few who have risked the wrath of Murdoch to expose his sleazy empire.