Culture Secretary faces immediate resignation if found guilty over dealings with Murdoch
Jeremy Hunt today stands accused of misleading Parliament over his dealings with the Murdoch empire, an offence which would trigger the Culture Secretary’s immediate resignation.
As the Prime Minister battled to save his minister, an Independent on Sunday investigation has established that Mr Hunt appears to have misled the Commons on three occasions in his handling of News Corp’s takeover bid of BSkyB.
In what could turn out to be the final blow to the under-fire Culture Secretary, a letter written by his permanent secretary, Jonathan Stephens, seen by this newspaper, challenges Mr Hunt’s version of events.
David Cameron last night maintained his refusal to refer Mr Hunt’s conduct to an independent investigation, despite Lord Justice Leveson’s insistence that it was not a matter for his inquiry into the press. But the Prime Minister will come under fresh pressure tomorrow when Labour demands that Mr Hunt clarify his comments to the House of Commons over how his special adviser, Adam Smith, was able to funnel information to News Corp lobbyist Frédéric Michel while the Culture Secretary was responsible for the BSkyB bid decision.
… leads to resignation?
Nonsense. These Brits need to get off their high horses and visit Canada to see how we do it around here. Misleading Parliament is so passé.
refusing an investigation? It makes him look even worse.
nyt
…inside the company, one of the biggest concerns is that News Corporation now sits under a magnifying glass, making any potentially suspect business dealings, even from years ago, vulnerable to scrutiny by the United States government.
A former News Corporation subsidiary, a Moscow-based billboard company called News Outdoor Russia, is the subject of an F.B.I. inquiry into whether the company bribed local officials to advance its business. The findings of that investigation could prove a violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, according to a person briefed on the inquiry. News Corporation sold the company in July to a bank controlled by the Kremlin.
The potential for a billion dollars in fines related to a violation of the corrupt practices act could dwarf the economic downside of anything related to the lawsuits in Britain, said Behnam Dayanim, a regulatory lawyer based in Washington. “It may be the single most feared corporate criminal statute out there today,†Mr. Dayanim said.
News Corporation declined to comment. News Outdoor Russia has denied all suggestions that the company bribed officials to advance its business.
..
The British elite are only upset about misleading Parliament when it’s time to nail someone they’re done with, in this case Murdoch.
What about Parliament misleading the people it represents by joining the Iraq invasion when a majority opposed it. Parliament endorsed BLiar’s war crime based on fake evidence and never did a think about it.
What’s with the opposition in Canada? I’m surprised this guy has lasted so long.
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He is guilty as Hell!
I read the emails and the Guardian timeline. It’s so obvious that the Conservative government served as Murdoch’s agent. I guess that’s passe here, too. Our elected officials should be required to wear the logos of the corporations they whore for as an example of truth in advertising.
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The police payoffs in the UK fall under this category. The way the law is written, the Feds can prosecute corporations with Federal and state law on this activity. Hmmm….
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…you wouldn’t be surprised. Their brain trust could not be left alone in a room with a live grenade for fear they would fuck with it and blow themselves to imagined glory. The new Opposition has had full-time leadership for 37 days – we’ll see whether they privilege competence over ideological zeal (always a challenge for that party).
When the Government is competent at message discipline and has good electoral technicians and the Opposition is a train wreck, in our system that’s a recipe for the Government to continue to sit.
“Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.” ~ Steve Jobs
as Vladimir Putin- he’s hard as nails!, he’s manly! He stands his ground ! Plus- He has a vision! Cameron will separate himself from anyof his cronies only when his own “mission” is in danger. An investigation slows down the momentum of the Great Leap Backward, which has been worked out in lots of detail all those years when Conservatives were out of power.
Meanwhile, Labour is still jelly.
The origin of the universe has not as yet been shown to be a conspiracy theory
he was guilty as hell but also that he had enough survival instinct not to block an investigation. I was wrong.
Always keep an open mind and a compassionate heart. ~ Phil Jackson
(Reuters) – Newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch and his son James will be in the firing line on Tuesday when a British parliamentary committee issues its verdict on a phone-hacking scandal that has made the family name politically toxic.
Committee members have said they were obstructed and put under surveillance by Murdoch’s News Corp during their five year investigation into the hacking of the phones of celebrities, murder victims, politicians and soldiers for newspaper stories.
Their report could force James Murdoch to sever his last ties with Britain’s biggest satellite TV firm BSkyB, which News Corp had sought to take over before the scandal broke.
It will also embarrass Prime Minister David Cameron, who acknowledged again on Monday that politicians were in thrall to the Murdochs and whose Conservative Party faces local elections across much of Britain on Thursday.
The committee was likely to criticize James Murdoch for failing to get to the bottom of the scandal, and Rupert Murdoch for the wider culture at the company, a source familiar with the situation told Reuters, adding that Conservative members on the committee were reluctant to criticize James Murdoch any further.
Cameron was summoned to parliament on Monday to explain why he would not investigate emails revealing that a ministerial aide had assured News Corp its bid for BSkyB would be approved.
He insisted there was no need to refer the case to his independent adviser on ministerial conduct, noting the emails had been handed to a judicial inquiry into press ethics, but did concede that politicians had been too keen to please the media.
“I am perfectly prepared to admit that the relationship between politicians and media proprietors got too close,” he said during a rowdy debate, blaming politicians of both main parties for the failing.
PARLIAMENT MISLED
Committee Chairman John Whittingdale opened its hearing of James and Rupert Murdoch last year saying his committee found it inconceivable that only one reporter at News Corp’s News of the World weekly had been involved in the hacking scandal.
“In the last few weeks, not only has evidence emerged that I think has vindicated the Committee’s conclusion, but abuses have been revealed that have angered and shocked the entire country,” he said. “It is also clear that Parliament has been misled.”
Audiences around the world witnessed the 81-year-old Rupert Murdoch – whose newspapers could make or break British politicians – saying it was the most humble day of his life and saw him hit with a foam pie at the height of the scandal last July.
He answered many of the questions in monosyllables, sometimes flummoxing the committee members, while James Murdoch infuriated them at times with lengthy management-speak.
The committee is expected to say that James Murdoch was incompetent at best for asking few questions about a payoff he approved of more than half a million pounds ($800,000) to a hacking victim who had evidence the practice was widespread.
Its report, which may run to 100 pages, is also expected to criticize Rupert Murdoch, the chief executive of the News of the World’s parent company News Corp, for allowing a culture of illegality to flourish. Murdoch shut down the paper last year.
Les Hinton, the former head of News Corp’s British newspaper arm, Tom Crone, a legal executive at the News of the World, and the paper’s former editor, Colin Myler, will also come under the spotlight, the source said.
Media regulator Ofcom will take the report’s findings into consideration in its continuing assessment of whether BSkyB’s owners and directors are “fit and proper” persons to hold a broadcast license.
James Murdoch resigned last month as chairman of BSkyB, saying he did not want to be a “lightning rod” for damage from the phone-hacking scandal, but remains a director of the broadcaster, in which News Corp owns 39 percent.
He admitted last week he had raised the issue of the takeover with Cameron at a Christmas dinner in 2010.
The committee will present its report to parliament, which is likely to hold a debate on its findings, and the government then has 60 days to respond.
A previous critical report by the committee came before last July’s revelation that people working for the News of the World had hacked into the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, which fuelled public anger and led to more revelations.
Relations between News Corp and Cameron, who once employed an ex-News of the World editor as his spokesman, will face more scrutiny in the coming months when Rebekah Brooks, a former Murdoch confidante and News Corp executive, reveals her text messages and emails with Cameron, a neighbor and former friend.
As the committee has to be careful not to prejudice any criminal trials of figures involved in the scandal, it has focused more on the Murdochs and others who have not been arrested.
Unfortunately for him, he’s toast. I listened to PM questions and here’s his defense. He didn’t ask for a special investigation because … Leveson would handle it. For him to maintain that AFTER Leveson himself said he was not the proper venue for ministerial inquiries and that he would call Hunt on schedule means Cameron has no arguments right now for not appointing an investigation. That’s where this goes. The emails etc. prove that Hunt held back information from Parliament. That’s settled. Now it’s on to getting Cameron and, by his dopey arguments, Cameron admits he’s done for.
Labour, oh so right. What do they stand for?
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