Protesters demonstrated this-afternoon outside News International’s East London HQ in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.

The demonstration in Wapping was over the loss of jobs caused by James Murdoch’s sudden announcement yesterday that the News of the World was closing after Sunday’s final edition.

Around 30 protesters from the National Union of Journalists and activists from the Socialist Workers Party gathered at the Virginia Street entrance with plackards condemning the job losses resulting from the closure.

News International has come in for heavy criticism in the Commons this week over more and more revelations about phone hacking following the conviction last month of schoolgirl Millie Dowler’s killer.

Other allegations of phone hacking followed, including families of victims killed in the 7/7 London suicide bombings at Aldgate and elsewhere in 2005.

Labour leader Ed Miliband told the BBC that only the resignation of its embattled chief, Rebekah Brooks, would show the Murdoch organization was taking responsibility for its actions.

“Some people are losing their jobs,” Mr Miliband said. “But one keeping hers is the person who was editor at the time of the Millie Dowler episode.”

Lawyers for the Dowler family claimed on Monday that the News of the World broke into her voicemail after she was abducted in 2002 and deleted messages to make room for more in a move that confused police and created false hope that she might still be alive.

Other allegations of phone-hacking subsequently emerged, which led to events resulting in Murdoch’s decision to close down the mass-circulation Sunday paper first established 168 years ago.