Well hardly surprising that the Tory party are not whiter than the white when it comes to corruption , as their main supporters with cash own the media .
It again raises the question , of exactly what information about "hacker" Coulson did Cameron deliberately over look when appointing him as his communications director , so that he could fiddle the tax payer's income for his wages while still being paid by the News Of the World , while the coalition made cuts to public spending .

i couldn't care less about coulson, news international has tried to get into bed with left and right and has no morals, in addition the other papers like the mirror seemed to be getting away scott free. piers morgan has done and even admitted to it but is denying it on some obscure technicallity.

what i do care about is media ownership and i would like to ensure that news international cannot buy more BSkyB holdings even though he set it up.

a healthy media is a not too powerful media although we need people of power brought to account when they are doing wrong like the expense scandals, on that subject can jacqui smith not keep herself out of the headlines, thank you.

Yuck yuck yuck. Why are we not dealing with these people robustly and with the full force of the law?

Hardly good news but I don't think it will do much to the Tories. Take a look at MP's... some of them are non-exec's for companies and earn on top of their salary. This wasn't brought to light until a few years back and nothing became of it... they know how to cover their own backs.

I have known many people who have accepted Compensation Agreements for many reasons including resignation at a time of downturn or threat of legal action agaainst their employers. These agreements have been wide ranging and often over a lengthy period (for tax purposes). I have known people who have retained company cars and other perks rather than accept additional sums of money.

Further, some although not all of these agreements have had confidentiality clauses. In addition, one person I knew was told that if he disclosed the agreement it would be cancelled.

This is a non story. It is not usual practice for a new employer to ask what severance agreements had been provided by a previous employer.

I would have thought that Tom Watson and Robert Peston were fully aware of such agreements. Further, any analysis of the exchange between Tom Watson and Andy Coulson above does not confirm anything. Receiving a sum of money on leaving employment is not income per se - not in law anyway. Both men need to be careful as they will lose their credibility and we will take no notice of what they say in the future.

Watson obviously wants to milk this story for all its worth, and good luck to him. It keeps him busy. He's the chiwuawua snapping away annoyingly at Dave's ankles, whereas Ed is the Pit Bull going for the throat.

I Totally agree with Jane.
This is a non story as Jane has said in a similar way, severance pay is similar to that of being made redundant you can recieve compensation benefits for up to 3 years and your present employers do not usually ask about the severance conditions of past employment.
Please Labour just let it go. considering the price of gold is at a record high it could be said that maybe selling our gold was the 'real catastrophic error' of our time, not to mention the many failures and scandals of Labours time in goverment, i see the previous home secretary is in the news today -more dodgy dealings need i say more!
Yes, people are moaning about the goverment, they would be moaning about whoever was in goverment, do people realy think things would be better with Mr Miliband and the very charming Mr Balls in charge, if there were an election tomorrow there would be two losers and we know by the results of the elections last May who they would be.