Zoe Williams, Guardian columnist: 'It wasn't unlike a happy slap'

As direct action goes, it wasn't the best timing: when Rupert Murdoch was on the crest of his wave, maybe walking into Downing Street round the back, that would have been the time to pie him. The plaid-shirted man in question has had 40 years, and he chooses today, in the middle of a select committee hearing that might actually have been getting somewhere.

Nonetheless, the pie wasn't striking, and nor did it strike, thanks to Wendi Deng (feminist + accurate name)/ Wendi Murdoch (traditional + not actually her real name)/ Wendi Deng-Murdoch (what the Americans call her). She sprang out of her seat as if she'd been trained by the secret service. She batted the perpetrator with a palm-down slap, it wasn't unlike a happy slap except that you could see, even from behind, that she was incredibly angry.

Apart from her speedy reactions (it would have been good, for instance, if the cameraman had had reactions like those, then we could have actually seen the pie), the notable thing about the defence, indeed, Deng's bearing throughout, was the sincerity of her wifeliness. It doesn't look like a marriage of convenience. There's no sense that the true wellspring of the union is the untold wealth that comes with it. You could fake a lot, maritally, but I don't think you could fake the rawness of that defence.

Richard Peppiatt, media commentator: Despite what Rebekah said, a tabloid newsroom is not a place of trust

Richard Peppiatt Photograph: Richard Peppiatt

Has Rebekah Brooks resigned? You wouldn't know it from her use of the pronoun "we" at every opportunity during questioning. I wonder whether her freshly unemployed underlings at the News of the World are feeling that inclusiveness right now.

There were occasional deviations. When accusations of the use of private investigators were levelled at her, they were batted away with reference to "those people" at the News Of The World, as if an alien civilisation.

When the emotive name of Milly Dowler entered the fray, Brooks informed observers that accusations the teen's phone was hacked appals "us all." In fact Brooks would like the world to believe she is "one of us," getting her phone hacking updates from either the Guardian or Panorama.

But for an awestruck passenger as this hacking scandal unfolds, her description of the inner workings of a tabloid newsroom were on the mark. Reporters liaising with news desks, handing their stories onto the backbench, sub-editors, lawyers, and finally, before print, the editor themselves. Not quite the well-oiled operation this description may suggest, but the cogs are in the right place.

Where her account collapses is in explaining the verification required by editors from their reporters before going to print. "Trust", she explained. But here's the thing; a tabloid newsroom is not a place of trust. Quite the opposite. Cut-throat, run-over-your-own-nan-for-a-leg-up philosophy is rife on Fleet Street, especially within Associated Newspapers and News International. Brooks wasn't just an exponent of this culture, but a guru, and rise and rise she did as a result. Underlings aspired, enemies gathered. Trust is a risky business when the only way is down. That's why the blissful ignorance excuse is fallacious. Brooks as editor, as with Andy Coulson after her, would have wanted to know in detail what they were signing off, lest their face be left redder than the masthead.

'A father-son dynamic fizzles'

Before the culture, media and sport committee appeared two generations of Murdoch, but generations cut from the same cloth in suit-maker alone.

The matching attire, through to the symmetrical posture – straight backed, one hand clasped over the other – whiffed of PR tutoring; but the show of unity failed to embed further.

The pauses Rupert took to digest questions were often longer than the answers themselves. He was a man "humbled" enough to subjugate himself to the mercies of an inquiry, but he participated at his own pace, not gifting even a flicker of emotion toward his inquisitors.

At least no one could accuse him of filibustering.

Yet even this stoicism felt more human than the corporate-drone patter of his son, James. Perhaps not aided by the curtness of his American accent or his constant puddle-deep politeness, Murdoch junior's answers were packed with adjuncts and clauses, semantic merry-go-rounds leading back to exactly where the listener was sure they'd begun.

The lack of equivocation ("Nothing I'm aware of… No evidence I've seen…") did little to substantiate claims of current transparency and co-operation. The pair appeared more defendant and counsel than father and son, until MP Tom Watson, immersed in the moment he'd long awaited, locked his questioning on Murdoch senior - hand clasped to ear, leaning forward – and refused to cease fire.

"I will be able to answer more fully, sir," James interrupted more than once. Suddenly, the father/son dynamic fizzled into the open. The mind became distracted away from two men battling to keep grip on their empire and legacy to a son leaping to the defence of his ailing father. James dropped the corporate-droid act, and became human. Momentarily, at least.

I've never met Rupert Murdoch, or know what filters are in place before information reaches his ears, but the doddering-granddad-excluded-from-the-conspiratorial-loop act was almost convincing.

Almost. Asked about the "collective amnesia" which had overcome his executives last time they sat before the same committee, he betrayed his lingering sharpness, shooting back: "You're not saying amnesia, you're saying lying."

But he held his line with monosyllabic zeal. He hadn't heard of chief reporter Neville Thurlbeck. He hadn't heard of news executive Greg Miskiw. He wasn't aware of the £700,000 paid to Gordon Taylor. He, begrudgingly, admitted he knew Max Clifford (doesn't everyone…). No wonder with such a personal touch over his employees Rupert had no trouble shutting the whole News of The World operation down.

"It's only 1% of our profit" sounded like a line that should have been delivered by capitalism-forged son, not newsprint-stained father.

Brian Cathcart, professor of journalism: 'Rallies of an old soldier'

Brian Cathcart Photograph: Brian Cathcart

What have we learned, besides that House of Commons security does not scan for paper plates and foam? Well, Rupert Murdoch is old. He's not a young 80; he shows every day of his long life – indeed he seems more great-grandfather than grandfather.

He spoke little, often painfully slowly – the hushes were long before the usually curt answers. His son kept stepping in to help him and protect him and Wendy Murdoch – who after the attack was praised by one MP for her left hook – lent forward once to stroke her husband's back as he sat low in his chair, not filling his pinstripe suit.

Some of his answers were punchy, and he tapped the table aggressively with his fingers in the manner he is famous for, but they usually seemed like the rallies of an old soldier. Most were vague and the statements to be remembered are chiefly his expression of humility and his defiant, chin-out defence of what he called competitive journalism.

James Murdoch made up for his father's brevity. Indeed, if it was a strategy to fill the committee's time with verbiage he warmed to it. His answers grew longer and longer and he repeated himself more and more – to the point where chair John Whittingdale expressed his irritation.

There were no big, dramatic revelations here, save that James, for all his words, still does not have a clear command of the hacking scandal narrative. He repeatedly apologised for his lack of certainty about events and dates and payments and responsibilities, which left him looking either slippery or dim – like one of the poorer Apprentice candidates.

When the public inquiry begins to get to grips with these matters, James will certainly need to improve on his defence. On the question of the £700,000 payment to Gordon Taylor in 2008, which he personally approved, he said at least three times that the key documents had figured in a previous trial or prosecution (and therefore were not new or revealing). This is not the case. He stated that at the time he was not aware of the infamous 'for Neville' email. He also added a new and intriguing element to his defence, which is that the huge sum paid to Taylor was the direct result of advice from external counsel.

There is meat here in the detail. Roll on the public inquiry – assuming the government gets the terms of reference right.

Eamonn Butler, Adam Smith Institute: 'Moral and decent'

One thing that came out of the Murdochs' appearance today is how moral and decent they appear to be. Rupert Murdoch came over as a person who wanted his newspapers to be a force for good. He revealed how proud he was of his own father, a journalist who rooted out government incompetence. He was plainly both shocked and dismayed how the News of the World had treated victims like the Dowler family, and downcast at how the paper could have lost the trust of its readers.

But then Murdoch always ran his company on trust – as a good business leader has to do. You can't know every detail of what goes on in a vast international business – and the News of the World is only 1% of Murdoch's. Instead you have to appoint managers you trust, and they in turn have to appoint others whom they trust. MPs might have thought that Murdoch senior looked out of touch with his business – but delegation is the only way to run such a company. Murdoch senior looked like a man in despair: not just about the breach of trust with the hacking victims, but the breach of his trust, and of his readers, by his managers and their subordinates.

Henry Porter, Observer columnist: 'A triumph for political process'

Henry Porter byline Photograph: Guardian

It was excruciating to watch, but the humbling of Rupert Murdoch in front of the parliamentary committee that his executives had treated with such contempt was a triumph for the political process and for parliament. His silences, the drubbing of the desk and occasional forgetfulness were agonising, as were the attempts by James Murdoch to rescue his father when he stumbled, or was too confused to answer Labour MP Tom Watson's questions.

Power has rarely been stripped so publicly or – until the shaving foam attack - with such lethal formality, and there can be no doubt that they both seemed greatly diminished. It cannot have impressed investors in News Corporation, or the company's board, which surely must act in the interests of shareholders, rather than a minority family holding, which happens to have fixed things so it has great proportion of voting rights. Neither Murdoch satisfactorily answered any of the important questions about their knowledge of this scandal, such as Clive Goodman's legal fees, believed to have been paid by News International, or the out of court settlement paid to Gordon Taylor, which is widely held to have been an attempt to cover up the scandal.

They denied knowledge of payments, obfuscated when it came to the evidence of widespread criminality at the News of the World, and blamed nameless subordinates. Rupert Murdoch's refusal to take detailed responsibility for the whole affair was very striking. For a family that has run its business with such close day-to-day attention it seemed incredible that neither was more in touch with what was going on.

When Paul Farrelly pressed James Murdoch on Glen Mulcaire's expenses, eventually we got confirmation that the man who is said to have hacked Milly Dowler's phone had been supported by their firm. That of course made their frequent deployment of an apology to fend off difficult questions all the more empty. Little wonder the committee chair John Whittingdale eventually said they had got the point about the Murdoch family's regret.

The appearance in front of the committee had not lanced the boil. Their failure to answer questions openly and honestly and provide new information may prove to be fatal for their future at News Corp. It has not been fun to watch but this process of raw scrutiny is profoundly important for British society and indeed a parliament rendered so impotent during the New Labour years, which happen to have coincided with the period of Rupert Murdoch's pre-eminince.

Heather Brooke, journalist and author: 'PR is not about informing'

Many of us are under the delusion that the police exist solely to deal with crime and keep us safe. That is to ignore the major focus of many of today's top cops on managing reputation - both of their force and by default their careers.

Mark Reckless MP asked to be forgiven at the home affairs committee for enquiring from Dick Fedorcio, the Metropolitan police's director of public affairs and internal affairs why such considerable resources were spent managing a 45-strong press office rather than, say, fighting crime. Fedorcio's response: that these PRs were needed to "help" inform the public and stop the press bothering the rank and file officers.

The Met is not alone in spending an increasing portion of its budget on PR. In 2008, police forces across the UK spent £40m. Scotland Yard spent the most - £6m.

Public relations is at best promotion or manipulation, at worst evasion and outright deception. What it is never about is a free flow of information. It has nothing to do with solving civic problems and has as much right to be a part of democratic life as a ducking pool in a courtroom.

We mustn't forget that ensuring all information comes from the police press office alone means that information is controlled. It is frequently suppressed. No counter views allowed out that might contradict the "official" narrative. Isn't this precisely how the Met got into this mess in the first place?

Even Sir Paul Stephenson was losing faith in the magic of PR. Maybe it's worth simply doing a good job, solving problems instead of hiding them. Most surprising of all - his sudden conversion to the benefits of transparency.

Alan Travis, home affairs editor: 'Yates was running the Met'

Even after an hour and a half of questioning, Sir Paul Stephenson seems to have left Keith Vaz, the home affairs committee chairman, still baffled as to the real reason for his resignation: "I am going because I am a leader," explained the now ex-Met commissioner.

Yet his answer to the previous 90 minutes of questioning seemed to yield only one conclusion: when it came to key decisions about the phone-hacking inquiry, John Yates was the man running the Met.

We learned only three new "facts" as such. The first was that an unnamed "senior official at 10 Downing Street" had advised the Met that telling David Cameron about the Neil Wallis appointment could compromise the prime minister. The second was that Stephenson, despite being the Met's deputy commissioner, never met David Cameron before he became PM. The third was that 10 out of 45 people in the Met's public affairs bureau come from a News International background.

The first fact the committee was slow to pick up on, and all it really got in reply when it did was: "ask Yates". The second fact betrays a political naivety that is rare among the highest-ranking police officers these days. It is worth remembering that Boris Johnson sacked Sir Ian Blair because he didn't like his politics. Stephenson, however, seems to have demonstrated that a senior police officer without an acute political sense as smell is just as much a liability in the job.

John Yates's performance, however, was a masterclass in how a small "p" politically aware policeman should navigate the treacherous waters of Whitehall and Westminster. He tossed the MPs a piece of red meat by naming David Cameron's chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn, as the man who had turned down the offer in September 2010 of a briefing for the prime minister in the aftermath of the New York Times disclosures. For the political world this was dynamite as it leads the trail straight to the heart of the Cameron bunker.

But Yates then muddied the waters by saying the offer was a briefing about police language and protocols in investigations and not about the hacking investigation itself. This was at odds with Stephenson's account, which said it was about Wallis's appointment.

As for the rest Yates played it all down. Fedorcio had "overegged" his role in getting Neil Wallis's daughter a job at the Met. He had nothing to do with the tender or hiring of Wallis. All he had done in July 2009 was review the fresh Guardian allegations: "It wasn't a body being found, it was an article in a newspaper."

By the end of the session the committee was losing its appetite for the hunt and MPs were left nodding in agreement, when Yates concluded: "It is not the police that have failed here but News International. They did not provide the evidence ... It is time for others to face up to their responsibilities." Vaz: "Who do you mean?" Yates: "News International."

There was one other important statement that Yates did make and that was his prediction that police officers would go to prison as a result of the hacking affair. He said it would only be a small number but his statement is a sharp reminder that under the Westminster radar may be a serious problem of police corruption.

Hugh Muir, diary editor: 'A guy who didn't get bogged down in detail'

How did the grilling of outgoing Met commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson go down in Lancashire, I wonder? Sir Paul cut his teeth there. He was an inspector in Burnley, a chief inspector in Colne; a superintendent in Accrington. Did they recognise the curiously uncritical, unquestioning figure that appeared before the home affairs select committee? How would the Sir Paul who rose up the ranks in Lancashire, returning as chief constable, have reacted had he been the questioner and had he received the sort of answers he gave to MPs?

The catchphrases followed a theme. Neil Wallis was not working directly for me. I didn't know his daughter was employed by the Met. I relied on assurances. I had no reason to doubt assurances from John Yates. I had no reason to doubt there had been a successful first investigation. I didn't know the parameters of the original investigation. I wasn't that close to it. I didn't know about the material in the bin bags.

Scrupulously polite he was, but nothing like the cops we see every night on the television, with their obsessions, their refusal to accept assurances – even from close colleagues – and, of course, their instinctive hunches. No, this was a guy who let others ask the questions and, from the picture he presented to MPs, didn't get too bogged down in the detail, even when the matters at hand were those for which he would be answerable.