Dear Mr Murdoch

Dear Mr J. Murdoch,

Based on your testimony at the Commons Enquiry yesterday (UK Time), can you please write me a cheque for £700,000? I won't complicate things by telling you what for, or by giving you any legal documents to read.

Seriously. How blind do you have to be to be authorising payments that large to people who complained to you about privacy intrusion, and having documents from QCs detailing illegal activity within your own organisation and then not reading them?

I can concede that News International is a very large corporation with many subsidiaries, and that it is hard to have a handle on everything that could possibly go on within it on a daily basis. But, when the alleged phone tapping was taking place, for a time, you were the Head of the business unit conducting the breaches, and handing large sums of money to high profile victims of the aforesaid breaches. How could you not know what was going on?

Probably a wise question to ask at this point would be "What is your responsibility in this scenario and where does your personal governance of the company extend to?" In other words, when does the buck stop? It's pretty clear some dodgy dealings have been going on, and there's no hiding from that. Even blind Freddie knows that. But, for some reason, you have no idea about any of it? It doesn't make sense.

So, maybe if you could just make out the cheque as soon as possible, and then, by this time in 2013, you'll have no knowledge of it and it will all be sweet?

Thanks,

Me.