by Peter Cook

THERE may be some who think Michael Gove has extracted revenge on Kent County Council for its temerity in taking the government to court over the cancellation of secondary school re-building projects.

They are wrong. It is true that KCC may not be, as Eric Pickles might say, the best of chums with the DfE but the government was never likely to revisit its original decision to scrap the BSF scheme and agree to the redevelopment plans for Thanet and Gravesham schools. How could it, after Gove was so critical of the previous government's programme and its costly bureaucracy?

KCC took a risk over its Judicial Review but on balance, it was a risk that has - notwithstanding the decision by Michael Gove - had some dividends. The legal costs and the contractual liabilities incurred by KCC look like being fully recovered, which is good news for the taxpayer.

And the government cannot now be unaware of the plight of those schools in Kent that urgently need redeveloping. 

What matters now is whether they will qualify for help under the new 'low cost' PFI scheme being proposed by the DfE. £500m sounds like a lot of money but less so when you consider that every education authority in the country will be pitching for a share of.

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Two Kent backbenchers were involved in yesterday's dramatic hacking hearings. Folkestone and Hythe MP Damian Collins was on the media select committee and was among the more effective inquisitors, particularly in his line of questioning towards Rebekah Brooks - her answers underlined the view that the main fault was one of senior editors and managers not really having a grip on what was going on and being kept out of the loop.

He didn't quite get to the point of asking explicitly how it was that editors and managers satisfied themselves of the sources (and methods) used to get various scoops but did extract from Brooks an acknowledgement that it was - as the MP put it - incredible that information about the hacking of Milly Dowler's phone was passed to Surrey police without, apparently, anyone sharing that fact with anyone in an executive position at NI.

Rochester and Strood MP Mark Reckless has blogged here about his line of questioning at the home affairs select committee.

When voters in Kent go to the polls in 2015 to elect a new government, will they be pausing in the ballot box to reflect on how the government handled the hacking scandal and David Cameron's choice of Andy Coulson as his press chief?

No, tof course they won't. The state of the economy, the health service, schools and the nation's general prospects will be far more important and the conclusions of a Judicial inquiry into the Press will not be foremost in voters' minds.

Nevertheless, our view of politicians is influenced as much by what we think about their personal judgements and character as it by how they have run the country.

Which is why David Cameron is, arguably for the first time, finding people wondering about his sureness of touch and why it matters how he is responding to the current hacking scandal.

You won't find many people who will now give him credit for appointing Andy Couslon and, if it turns out that he is charged and convicted, people will wonder even more about the decision.

Like Blair, Cameron has (notwithstanding his Eton background) sought to capitalise on the sense that he is a "regular guy" who "gets it" when it comes to how the public view the government and its actions in responding to the kind of everyday challenges and problems most of us have.

But he has been on the back foot for much of this week and his usual adroitness in identifying with the general climate of public opinion over an issue has deserted him. 

He is now discovering how easy it is for the public's trust and faith to be eroded. Trust and integrity are incredibly valuable commodities for any politician.

And for a leader, it can be fatal to appear to be more concerned about the vested interests of commercial conglomerates and big business than the man or woman struggling to get through a recession. He is fortunate that it has not only the Conservatives who have danced to Murdoch's tune over the years.

Cameron has time to recover lost ground. But the hacking scandal has exposed a vulnerability and lack of deftness in the PM that has wounded him and left a nasty scar.

HEY, have you heard? There’s loads of revelations flying around that the News of the World has been hacking into phones.

The Guardian, on Monday, made the allegations that Milly Dowler’s mobile phone messages were intercepted by the newspaper in 2002 after she was brutally murdered by Levi Bellfield.

Since then the media and, in some cases the public, has gone screwball for bringing the News of the World down.

It’s difficult for me to understand why, when there’s such public disquiet, nothing – ultimately – ever really changes. After all, we have the power to go and march or not buy the newspaper or refuse to visit shops that advertise in the newspaper. No one will do this.

Where was the outrage when Chris Jefferies, wrongly accused of killing Jo Yeates last year by the newspapers, took the Sun and the Mirror to court yesterday for contempt?

Whilst I would never condone what is being alleged, and, if true, is a shocking way to get stories, I can’t help but feel the current uproar will do nothing in the grand scheme of things.

You’ve got to question the roles of the paper and the police. How are private investigators able to this sort of thing? Why didn’t the Press Complaints Commission act in a stronger way back in 2006? And why are News International and certain politicians said to be so cosy together?

Ford pulled their advertising last night, gaining the company many more column inches in other newspapers than the advert in the News of the World ever would. Someone at Ford is probably being patted on the back and being given a new Mondeo as we speak.

Do you remember “Squidgygate”? Tesco advertise in the News of the World, will you be boycotting them?

Where was public outcry in 2006 when Andy Hayman was in charge of the inquiry into the News of the World phone hacking. Now he’s being called back to give evidence again. What happened the first time? Why weren't these things uncovered years after Milly's phone was suspected of being hacked?

Andy subsequently left the police to work for News International as a columnist.

And we know that police officers took cash from journalists to provide information for stories. Where was your uproar then? Were sweeping reforms brought in to the police force?

In 2003 Rebekah Brooks told MPs: "We have paid the police for information in the past."

It’s really a chicken and egg problem. You’re being told all of these things by the media yet one media outlet vilifies the other for doing something that is indefensible. The Mirror, Daily Mail and The Observer have all been caught up to dirty tricks to get stories.

I mentioned Chris Jefferies earlier, yet there is no backlash against the Mirror and the Sun. The same newspapers this morning calling it a SCANDAL.

Yesterday it emerged that News International had given the Metropolitan police details of payments made by News of the World to senior police officers between 2003 and 2007. Andy Coulson was the editor back then and was well-defended by David Cameron when he left as his director of communications.

I can’t help but feel a few thousand angry people won’t change anything when the vast majority of the population is happy with apathy.

Did you get angry when Ryan Giggs paid out for a superinjunction? The News of the World paid out £2 million to suppress evidence in court actions brought by two confirmed victims of phone hacking.

Hugh Grant admitted this week that he knew what the News of the World was up to when former features writer Paul McMullan told him about it over drinks in Dover. Lets all boycott “About a Boy” and “Love Actually” for him not mentioning it on Newsnight.

And hey, what about those fat-cat bankers? They’re making a fortune and still paying themselves bonuses most people can only dream of earning in years of hard work. Are we still boycotting banks or marching on Downing Street demanding change? Most people are stuck on a pay freeze but today we learn food prices are going up and up and are higher than they were this time last year. Are we all striking for a fairer deal?

What about the war? There was a stutter of annoyance that we didn’t really need to go to war because we weren’t under threat and now we’re more concerned with raising money for people whose arms have been blown off then we are questioning government on why we ever went and why we’re still there.

And I don’t remember the same kind of uproar when the phone hacking scandal first came to light in 2006. But of course that was Prince William. It’s different when you’re in the public eye.

And then more celebrities came forward claiming that feared they too had been hacked - John Prescott, Alex Ferguson, Tessa Jowell, Boris Johnson, Max Clifford and Sienna Miller. Even Chris Tarrant.

MPs fiddling expenses - that was big news last year. More than half of them had to pay something back. Yet we still elected some of them straight back into their seats. Don’t get me started on voting apathy.

Lacklustre procedures were put into place by the government and when we discover another MP has fraudulently claimed we get frustrated. But there are no demonstrations. There is no lobbying for more stringent measures.

These days the public have become so desensitised we just nod sadly and move on. The same will happen here. In a year’s time someone will probably get caught hacking a phone. You’ll have a flash of annoyance and it will be gone.

I imagine we’re probably all too busy being annoyed that we’d forgotten we vilified Hugh Grant for having sex with a prostitute in 1995. Now we’re cheering him on for leading the call for newspaper reform.