Andy Coulson finally goes

Over the years I’ve covered Andy Coulson many times on this blog, over both his extremely high salary when working for the Tories (much higher than salaries levels Tories were criticising others for having) and also – more importantly – the phone hacking allegations.

Although yesterday he resigned, he is unlikely to depart the political stage quickly or quietly as the long queue of people at various stage of taking legal action over allegations of phone hacking mean the details of who did what and with whose knowledge will continue to be newsworthy for a good while yet.

The official Liberal Democrat reaction has been extremely bland, but Jonathan Calder has also blogged:

If this affair, as appears to be happening, now comes to centre on relations between the News International and the police then it could still turn into a huge scandal.

In any case, I can claim to be more prophetic than Guido Fawkes, who has always argued that Coulson would survive. Try a post from 11 December of last year:

“What has been a politically motivated attack by enemies of the Murdoch press was bound to fail without a smoking gun, however much they huffed and puffed.”