Questions remain unanswered in the phone-hacking scandal

Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp, told the Commons select committee last week that, in his monthly calls to the editor of the News of the World, he would ask: "What's doing?" What's doing, over the past three weeks, has been that the News Corp carousel of money, power and politics, once so firmly controlled by Murdoch and his offspring, has seemed to spin faster and faster out of control.

But has calamity yet turned into catastrophe for the Murdochs? What key questions remain whose answers might indicate whether News Corp is a "fit and proper" organisation to wield power in this country, let alone take full control of the satellite television company BSkyB? And as David Cameron and fellow MPs break up for their summer holidays, does the prime minister still have cause for concern that "the curse of Coulson" may yet have long-term repercussions that severely hobble his capacity to execute the proper business of government for years to come?

Events triggered 20 days ago with the disclosure that the mobile phone of teenage murder victim Milly Dowler had been hacked by the News of the World now include multiple resignations of News Corp stalwarts, including Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton; arrests in double figures; the resignation of two of the most senior police officers in the land; evidence that the influence of News International in the Metropolitan Police had spread like spilt ink on blotting paper with 12 News of the World reporters in its employment at various times; the death of the whistleblower Sean Hoare (not treated as suspicious by police); and the unprecedented consumption of humble pie by the Murdochs before a select committee.

In addition, the numerous inquiries and investigations now span two continents, with the FBI and the US Department of Justice announcing they are delving further into aspects of the Murdoch empire in the United States. Simultaneously, David Cameron, hitherto the sultan of smooth, has entered the trickier waters of political life in which good intentions are frequently smashed on the rocks of ambition and a hazy division between what is socialising and private, and what is political and public. At times over the decades that Rupert Murdoch has bullied and metaphorically battered to exercise influence, it has looked dangerously as if, under successive governments, Labour and Conservative, News Corp has viewed Number 10 as the political outer office of its commercial empire. The coalition is no exception.

Last Wednesday, in the House of Commons, Cameron dealt with questions from 136 MPs on his decision to give Andy Coulson "a second chance" as his director of communications. Cameron insisted that he had never had "inappropriate conversations" about the purchase of BSkyB. The key question is the nature of the "appropriate" conversations Cameron conducted as he partied with Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch, and how these discussions might potentially have had an impact on, for instance, media and corporate regulation and the BBC.

A second major question concerns a key communication, known as the "For Neville" email. Colin Myler, former editor of the News of the World, and Tom Crone, former News International legal manager, said last week that James Murdoch had been "mistaken" when he told the House of Commons select committee last Tuesday that in 2008 he had not been aware off the crucial email because it raised the possibility that Neville Thurlbeck, the paper's former chief reporter, was also involved in "the dark arts" and therefore Murdoch Junior must have been aware that hacking involved more than one rogue reporter.

The "For Neville" email is understood to have influenced the decision by News International to make an out-of-court settlement to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, in excess of £1m in return for confidentiality. James Murdoch says he stands by his testimony to the select committee.

If it is proved he has lied, he will have failed to report a crime to the police and he could be guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Myler and Crone are not the only former Murdoch employees who may now find that the "collective amnesia" from which many executives appear to suffer, has cleared. If that miracle cure does occur, we may finally witness the beginning of the end of what, for too long, has been a toxic influence over key areas of our civic life.