Gordon Brown Hacked by Sun, Sunday Times, NOTW: What is Blagging?

News International Targets Gordon Brown

Former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has accused News International, whose News of the World was sunk in the phone hacking scandal, of stealing personal information from him and his family. Those records were attained either by hacking or blagging (scamming/social engineering: when someone pretends to be someone they're not in order to gain access to a place or information)

• NOTW Closes in Phone Hacking Scandal
• Milly Dowler's Voicemail Deleted by NOTW
  

Gordon Brown will say in a public statement that private investigators and staff working for The Sun and The Sunday Times, both Murdoch-owned papers, stole or lied in order to obtain:

• Brown's tax records
• Medical records on Gordon Brown's infant son
• His banking records
• Material from the offices of Brown's lawyer

Meanwhile, Scotland Yard confirms that material connected to Gordon and Sarah Brown were found in the possession of Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator employed by NOTW in their phone hacking campaign.

These allegations would give the lie to News International's claim that News of the World was acting on its own, with no knowledge of its parent company; not that that claim was widely believed to begin with.

Meanwhile, the Metropolitan Police is accusing News International of interfering with its internal investigation into a journalist-police officer corruption ring.

Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt condemned the growing scandal, but is handing the BSkyB deal to the Competition Commission, hinting that the deal was dead, saying that the outcome would be one that "the whole House will welcome". However, the Prime Minister himself should be the one talking here- this isn't Hunt's responsibility, but PM David Cameron's, and it involves Cameron's own former staff.