Just got back from India – my first trip after a 20-year absence. There was a Rolls Royce dealership close to my hotel where they proudly told me they have sold 35 cars in the last year, for up to $500,000 US dollars each. Indira Gandhi-style import duties and tariffs at outrageous levels on luxury goods don’t deter the Indian super-rich, of which there are now many. Down at the other end of the social scale the deprivation one encounters remains disturbing. Around a fifth of Indians continue to live in what their own government describes as ‘absolute poverty’ and half of Indian women are illiterate. (China’s literacy rate is 90%, by comparison.) Corruption afflicts the country from top to bottom and seriously holds back its economic and social development.

But it remains the most wonderful country – maddening and delightful in equal measure. The energy and optimism there should be bottled and imported to Blighty along with a few Tata Nanos. I cannot think for a second why it has taken me two decades to go back. You can read more about my adventures – including attending the final of the Diageo World Class International Bar Tender competition – in the October edition of the magazine.

The talk of le tout Delhi, however, was Rupert and the phone hacking. The extra significance which is lost on many Indians is that newspapers are a dying industry in the UK. By contrast all over India they are thriving. The average circulation of daily paid-for papers in India went up by 39.7 % from 2005 to 2009. Indian newspapers are terrific: beautifully written in precise English, shot-through with energy and vigorous opinion to suit all comers. Most media owners there are raking it in.

I returned at dawn to one of the most ugly, vengeful feeding frenzies I’ve ever witnessed here. Rupert is going to require a phalanx of bodyguards for his appearance before MPs next Tuesday if he is to avoid being torn limb from limb. So, a few quick thoughts:

1) The News of the World is and has always been a pretty vile publication feeding on misery and frailty, bringing out the worst in its producers, owners and readers. It made me ashamed to be British, I do not mourn its passing and dread the advent of the Sun on Sunday.

2) In seeking to bring the whole newspaper edifice down, the public should be careful what it wishes wish for. The Times loses a million pounds a week and Richard Desmond won’t stand for that if he takes it over. A free press is vital to our democracy and what makes this country thrive. MPs and the government have waited patiently for their revenge following the expenses scandal and if we’re not careful they will neuter those who seek to expose corruption, idiocy and wrong-doing completely. Including the saintly members of the Guardian and the BBC.

3) What in God’s name they think they are up to in the Metropolitan Police is anyone’s guess. Who advises them? Max Clifford, Bruce Forsyth and Robert Mugabe? Do they get ethics lessons from John Gotti? A proper cleansing of this filthy stable is now long overdue.

4) Gordon Brown’ s ignoble speech in the House of Commons was enough to make me gag. It’s not as if Brown was a great man or even a passing Prime Minister. He made Alec Douglas-Home look like Gladstone. Brown was a ghastly failure and we are still paying the price for his gross errors of judgement. And he attended the now ex-News International chief executive Rebekah Brook’s wedding, presumably without being taken there under duress in a Black Mariah. Perhaps he can offer her a job now she’s collected her p45.