Gives an excuse for people to move on from the important part of the story - who in Murdoch's organisation takes responsibility for the hacking of the phones of dead soldiers' familes, terrorism victims and a murdered school girl while there was an ongoing polive investigation ... with the latter also destroying evidence.

it also distracts from the fact that the Murdoch's put in a pretty dreadful performance - clearly evasive, arrogant and on the part of James struggling to retain his temper at being questioned and in the case of Rupert possibly struggling to understand what was going on.