For decades, the News of the World had a catchphrase for any of its numerous stories about vice dens, wife swapping, etc — the reporter, after attending incognito, and describing the scene in the mixture of puritanism and prurience, would then intone: “I made my excuses and departed.”

Well, now, the scandal sheet has made its excuses and departed. The sudden closure of the paper by News International, News Corporation’s UK subsidiary, with the loss of two hundred jobs, is a stunning testament to something your correspondent remarked on yesterday — the Murdoch organisation’s capacity to engender an hashashim-like loyalty in its subordinates, and then kill them off without a second thought. Tonight, News Corp employees all over the world are thinking of their mortgages, and feeling their necks.

What could have gone on in the HQ to make such a radical decision so suddenly? By the middle of the week, it was clear that key major advertisers were pulling their ads, and one newsagency chain had said that it would not take the paper.

My guess would be that W H Smith, the UK’s major newsagency chain, was about to do the same — it is not averse to boycotting single editions of magazines and the like it finds offensive. The paper could have weathered an ad boycott, especially if it lowered rates to get them to come back — News of the World has, or had, after all, an incredible 8 to 10 million readers a week, or one in five UK adults. But if Smith’s, and especially many of the corner stores, it distributes to, were no longer running the paper people would drift to other titles quite easily.

Indeed, this may be one reason for the Murdoch organisation’s sudden act — to get some good out of bad by winding up a stand-alone title, and extending the weekday Sun, also sitting at a healthy 3 million daily sales — into Sunday. Roll the readers over, and save money on economies of scale. What looks like an admission of shame — the News of the World beyond redemption — becomes a great way to rationalise.

Nevertheless, the strategy is not without its risks. There are now 200 angry ex-News of the World staffers no longer bound by confidentiality clauses. Some will be rehired, but many — especially old stagers — will be at a loose end and with bills to pay. They will have stories to tell, but I presume that the strategy now is to say that the whole paper was the bad apple in the Murdoch organisation barrel, and what can you expect?

That involves some very fancy footwork, given Rebekah Brooks, when she was NotW editor, told a parliamentary subcommittee that the paper occasionally paid police for information — before she was shushed by then editor Andy Coulson, sitting beside her.

That, as your correspondent noted several months ago, was the true smoking gun. But, also as your correspondent noted, the Murdoch organisation runs on Stalinist management principles, and thus presumes that it can rewrite the public record to reflect its current priorities.

The Murdoch organisation is not the only group to be discredited by this. The Metropolitan Police, which at one stage said the hacking scandal involved only eight people, now has 11,000 pages of evidence. It’s now requested a new inquiry into the matter be supervised by a non-police body — aware its credibility is so tarnished it requires an external body to verify its diligence.

These new stages of the inquiry will go in two major directions. Were ordinary citizens afflicted by tragedy — murdered children, dead service people — hacked en masse? And were ministers of the government also targeted? If the latter is the case, then the Watergate analogy will become exact — quite a lot of people will be going to jail.

The first of them may be Coulson, who is apparently due to be arrested today. He has two worries — whether Brooks’ admissions has established criminal activities on his part, and secondly whether he perjured himself at the trial of Tommy Sheridan last year.

Sheridan was the leader of the Scottish Socialist Party, credited with destroying Thatcher’s poll tax, and being part of an SSP that once commanded six seats in Scotland’s parliament. He was also a fan of swingers’ clubs, where he made his excuses and stayed.

He was shopped to the NotW by an ex-lover (and sometime News journo), and fearful of the backlash by conservative Scottish supporters convinced party members to lie on his behalf. Suing the paper for libel, he gained a huge payout.

The SSP then split down the middle and ex-members told of the perjury. Sheridan got four years prison last year on the perjury charge — after defending himself during the trial and putting Coulson on the witness stand, and throwing a few hacking questions his way.

That looked quixotic at the time. It now appears that Tommy may have provided one last service to the progressive forces by jamming Coulson up, and making him lie on the stand. Police are now following that line up too. If true, it would be a measure of the imperial hubris that Murdoch encourages — perjuring yourself at a perjury trial.

The survival of Brooks through all this has been cause for much speculation, with everyone going on about how close she is to Rupe. Well, maybe. But Murdoch senior has never been afraid to dump people of decades’ service down a lift shaft, and no-one is indispensable for their talents alone. Their knowledge may be a different thing.

Brooks herself may have had her phone hacked. But it may also be that other members of News International — up to Murdoch himself — were also hacked. Who would have done that? Who would have the information gained from those taps? Was Brooks very, very close to one member of the Murdoch family throughout that time?

The story will roll on and on — but not in NotW. The paper survived for a 168 years but it couldn’t survive Murdoch. It was a trash paper in the end — but it always was, the paper about whom George Orwell wrote Decline of the English Murder.

Nevertheless it was part of the texture of British life, which is little more than its traditions, and it’s sad to see it go in this manner. And beyond that, the real worry is that Murdoch will now begin consolidating his UK Sunday titles — especially the Sunday Times, the only decent and pluralist paper in his global stable. No excuses, there’s not much left.