It's fair to say that the strength of Ed Miliband's attack on News International during last Wednesday's Prime Minister's Questions caught most political spectators by surprise. Amidst headlines of scandal and skulduggery, the Labour leader took a calculated risk to challenge the most powerful man in media. Could Miliband's surprising show of principles mark the beginning of a power shift - and a possible turnaround in his fortunes?

News International has been for three decades the most aggressive and confident corporation in Britain when it comes to asserting its own interests. This week, it adopted a classic defensive strategy, using a standard toolkit of tricks, from denial to distraction, confident of its ability to see off anti-Murdoch MPs and a tweeting mob.

Good morning and thank you for coming. Over the past few days, the whole country has been shocked by the revelations about the phone hacking scandal....

Up until now, News International and the government have sought, and to some extent succeeded, in making the phone-hacking story one that is largely about celebrities.

In the lexicon of journalism the word "unprecedented" has reached cliché status. But I make no apology for using it to describe both the allegation against the News of the World that it hacked into a murdered girl's voicemail messages and the public response to it.