After 10 unrelenting days of the most ferocious and damaging global attacks on a public company that the world has ever seen, media mogul Rupert Murdoch granted this interview to his own paper, The Wall Street Journal.

In a performance that would make the old Iraqi Information Minister proud and will become legendary in PR circles, the disgraced 80-year-old News Corp executive chairman claimed the crisis was handled “extremely well in every possible way”, involving only “minor mistakes”.

As for the reputational damage in Britain, it’s “nothing that will not be recovered. We have a reputation of great good works in this country”. Huh! The more likely scenario is that News Corp will be hounded out of Britain completely.

Markets know best and News Corp shares resumed their decline today as investors fret that they are being led by a delusional dictator who has blundered on every key decision over the past 10 days.

How on earth did Rupert think he could thumb his nose at the entire British political class and declare himself unavailable for next Tuesday’s parliamentary grilling?

That’s what he first tried last night, before receiving a formal legal summons that led to a backflip and a commitment to front up after it dawned on him that such a display of contempt would have signalled the end of his ability to be a fit and proper person to hold any shares in BSkyB.

Elisabeth Murdoch has reportedly gone to war with Rebekah Brooks, telling friends she has “f-cked the company”. Indeed, Rupert’s decision to stand by the odious character known in Private Eye as the Wicked Witch of Wapping was a monumental error of judgment.

Instead, the Murdochs voluntarily walked away from a cash cow newspaper that gives News Corp considerable power in the UK. This was also a huge mistake as it effectively was a massive admission of guilt, totally contradicting years of denial.

If Rupert was going to dramatically fly into London, it should have been to fire Brooks, force favoured son James Murdoch to stand aside as chairman of BSkyB and immediately give at least $2 million dollars to Milly Dowler’s family.

Instead, he’s been pictured smiling with Brooks coming out of flash restaurants, making an astonishing contrast to those pictures of Milly Dowler’s family meeting with a clearly concerned David Cameron at 10 Downing Street.

While one of the dodgiest tabloid journalists in history remains Rupert’s chief executive in the UK, the only executive who appears to have been fired this week is long time News International lawyer Tom Crone.

Having fired his New York-based chief general counsel Lawrence Jacobs over an unrelated blunder last month, the Dirty Digger finds himself embroiled in his biggest ever legal and reputational scandal without an in-house lawyer of note.

And with the cops and politicians crawling all over allegations of cover-ups, perjury and claims of perverting the course of justice, it will be very hard for Rupert to find a UK law firm that will put its name to the sorts of threats, editorial campaigns, litigation and heavy political negotiations he usually employs in these circumstances.

The ongoing investigation reached a new level of farce yesterday when it emerged  that Andy Coulson’s former deputy, Neil Wallis, had been arrested. This same bloke was paid about $50,000 to be a spin doctor for the police over the past couple of years, at the same time PC Plod was refusing to re-open is botched investigations into phone hacking. Amazing!

News Corp has traditionally exerted much control over British politicians and senior police. Now it is at war with both and cannot possibly avoid widespread convictions responding to fundamental institutional corruption that has degraded Britain’s democracy.

Indeed, where can Rupert turn for help when he is at war with all governments in the UK, the US and Australia?

Minority governments will end up proving a major problem for News Corp because it is especially despised by the junior partners in Australia and the UK, namely the Liberal Democrats and the Greens. Liberal Democrats leader and UK deputy prime minister Nick Clegg gave a speech last night calling for sweeping media reforms that are clearly targeted at undermining News Corp.

He described the atmosphere at Westminster as “a little like an end to the dictatorship when everyone suddenly discovers they were against the dictator”. This is now becoming a real possibility.

Surely News Corp’s independent directors and Rupert’s adult children can’t sit back and do nothing as Rupert’s continues with his steady stream of catastrophic strategic blunders. The performance next Tuesday represents his “last chance saloon”.

Rupert himself has rarely been questioned by independent sources in public about the hacking scandal. The last time was at the 2010 News Corp AGM when we had this exchange.

Stephen Mayne: what’s your personal view of the phone bugging issue in the UK involving Andy Coulson and Clive Goodson the former Royals reporter? There has been a lot of press about it.

Rupert Murdoch: we have very very strict rules. There was an incident more than five years ago. The person who bought a bugged phone conversation was immediately fired and in fact he subsequently went to jail. There has been two parliamentary inquiries, which have found no further evidence or any other thing at all. If anything was to come to light, we challenge people to give us evidence, and no one has been able to. If any evidence comes to light, we will take immediate action like we took before.

SM: did you read the 5000-word piece in The New York Times claiming they had spoken to no less than 12 former editors and reporters for the News of the World, confirming that the practice was widespread?

Rupert: no.

SM: you haven’t read that New York Times piece?

Rupert: no.

SM: The actual committee said in its report there was “deliberate obfuscation” by our executives, there was “collective amnesia” by the executives and you’ve just demonstrated this again, and this point …

Rupert: I’m sorry. Journalists who have been fired, who are unhappy, or work for other organisations — I don’t take them as an authority, and least of all I don’t take The New York Times as authority which is the most motivated of all.

All this from a bloke who today told The Wall Street Journal:  “When I hear something going wrong, I insist on it being put right.”

This goes to the core of the problem: Rupert Murdoch has totally built News Corp around a culture of encouraging mischief making and dodgy journalism. He rewards and promotes questionable characters, which makes him utterly unable to fix a scandal around unethical conduct.

Sorry Rupert, but after dictating for a record 58 years, it’s time to go — for the good of the 87.35% of News Corp that is not owned by your family. Resign as CEO and chairman and bring back Peter Chernin to fix up the mess.