Tom Bradby's Diary

I started the week by likening it to Year Zero in Cambodia, but many MPs and fellow hacks have preferred to compare it to the Salem Witch Trials of 1692 ('I saw David Cameron dancing with the devil!' 'I saw Tony Blair dancing with the devil!' 'I saw Gordon Brown dancing with the devil!'). Both comparisons may be over the top, but what isn't in doubt is that the atmosphere here at Westminster has been as unpleasant as I can ever recall it.

Journalists at News International think their company is being forced to carry the can for a practice that was prevalent across Fleet Street. Hacks from other companies resent the way in which the entire profession is being dragged into the sewer by the grotesque behaviour of one newspaper. And all are united in their sense that politicians seem to be enjoying their revenge against the media and the police a little too much for comfort.

It is true that Westminster can sometimes feel like one long grudge match, but even so this has been quite something to witness. One minister I bumped into in the middle of the week said he had just left a group of colleagues bemoaning the fact it was not the Telegraph under the cosh (the newspaper responsible for breaking the expenses scandal). Only The Guardian comes out of this smelling of roses. You can't really fault its work on the story.

I must confess that it feels a little strange to have triggered the avalanche. The then News of the World royal editor Clive Goodman's decision to write a story about me cutting a gap-year video for Prince William must now go down as one of the most expensive in history. Since very few people knew about it, I concluded that rumours I'd picked up about tabloid hacks accessing voice messages must be true and told William as much. Along with his Private Secretary, Jamie Lowther-Pinkerton, we decided it might be an idea for him to do something about it.

I think we expected that it might trigger a small avalanche that would take out a few trees. We didn't really have any idea that it was going to obliterate the entire valley. I guess I should feel proud that I have helped flush clean a sewer, but I don't like lynch mobs and there have certainly been moments where it has all felt like it's getting totally out of control.

The Murdoch family's appearance at Westminster provided drama in more ways than one. I was sitting a couple of yards away from Rupert Murdoch's wife Wendi as she swung at his assailant (twice) and I can confirm she packs a mean right hook. But subsequent attempts to film the removal of the protester from the parliamentary estate earned a popular BBC producer a suspension. The rules governing what you can and can't film at Westminster are incredibly tight and at times, frankly, silly. There was much outrage even among MPs at the way the ban was imposed by the same official who was responsible for the security breach in the first place. But a follower on my Twitter account (@tombradby) insisted we relax. The guy won't need a pass, he said. As long as he has a can of shaving foam and a paper plate, he should be able to get through security just fine.

The phone-hacking crisis has been unrelenting, but I did manage to slip out to watch the new Harry Potter film. It was in 3-D and was amazing, though I didn't understand it any more than I have any of the others. I annoyed my family by asking questions all the way through (the whole 'Harry must die' thing particularly flummoxed me) and then enraged the kids by saying that I thought it was self-evident that Hermione had a not-very-secret crush on Harry. My wife said that if I misinterpreted her looks at him as evidence of a secret passion, it was no wonder my teenage love life had been so arid. Ouch.

Speaking of movies, production has just wrapped on my film Shadow Dancer in Dublin. I say 'my' because I wrote the book and the screenplay but actually it now belongs to the director James Marsh, who won an Oscar for Man on Wire and is a bit of a genius. I thought up the idea almost two decades ago in an idle moment on Belfast's Falls Road, of which there were not many. It tells the story of an MI5 officer who recruits and runs a young woman agent in the IRA and of his increasingly desperate attempts to keep her alive. Clive Owen and Andrea Riseborough have put in stellar performances in the lead roles, as have the rest of the cast. If you are one of those adults who is a bit tired of sitting through Holly-wood blockbusters that don't seem to make any sense, then I am hoping this is for you.