Leader: Fresh air of inquiry needed to clear a toxic atmosphere

DEEPER still and wider runs the News International phone hacking scandal. Yesterday brought allegations that the Sunday Times illegally obtained personal information on former Prime Minister Gordon Brown when he was Chancellor.

Separately, Scotland Yard said yesterday it believes stories have been leaked to the media as part of a "deliberate campaign to undermine" its inquiry into claims that bribes were paid to some officers. Both the police statement and its tone suggest a state of mutual suspicion and recrimination now characterises relations between the two camps.

Against this backcloth, the decision by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt to refer Rupert Murdoch's attempt to take over BSkyB to the Competition Commission seemed almost mundane. It does, in fact, represent an extraordinary reversal of fortune for News International. Judging by the sharp fall in the shares of BSkyB yesterday, the market is taking the view that when Mr Hunt talked of the Competition Commission giving "further full and exhaustive consideration … taking into account all recent developments", the bid is now as good as dead. That, in turn, is likely to lead to searching questions being asked by outside shareholders of the parent company News Corporation in the United States. The greater and more shocking the allegations, the more the future stewardship and direction of NewsCorp must come under critical review.

Meanwhile, new accusations on phone hacking shock and appal. Voicemail messages between the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall are now reported to have been hacked by the News of the World, while the imbroglio shows every sign of spreading to engulf other newspapers. The allegations regarding Gordon Brown and the intrusion into his family and financial affairs are disquieting enough. But it did not take long in the fevered atmosphere in Westminster yesterday for more sinister interpretations to circulate. Many Opposition MPs believe that this could prove to have been part of a wider campaign to destabilise the Labour government.

The toxic atmosphere in which one allegation now tumbles upon another poses real and immediate dangers. The first is to the truth. Until a proper independent judicial inquiry is in operation, with statements requiring strict verification and witnesses open to question under oath, there is every risk of this affair degenerating into a feuding morass of score settling and blame-shifting. The police clearly feel that latest reports of bribes could only have come from within News International.

The statement yesterday points to a breakdown in trust, conducive neither to a fair investigation nor to public confidence in how matters are being handled. At some stage - and sooner, we hope, rather than later, a whistle has to blow and the mechanisms of a proper formal inquiry put in place.