What's Cameron got to hide re. Murdoch?

[David Johnson]

The Culture Committee has issued its report into the phone hacking scandal.

It's main finding is that Rupert Murdoch "is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company". If this is picked on by Ofcom, the media regulator and leads them closer to the conclusion that BSkyB - 39% owned by News Corp - is not fit and proper to hold a broadcasting licence, it could have a huge impact on the Murdoch empire.

What is interesting is that the four Tory members of the committee refused to endorse the report and called it "partisan". Although both Labour and Tories were far too close to Murdoch, only the Tory committee members voted against the report.

I wonder why the Tories are still terrified of Murdoch?

I suspect that given:

1. Hunt, the Culture Secretary is struggling to keep in office, after the resignation of his personal advisor who had been delivering market sensitive information about the status of the Murdoch bid for BSkyB to the Murdoch corporation.

2. Rebecca Wade has indicated that information about personal emails/texts between herself and Cameron may be made available.

3. Murdoch's huge ability to keep a grudge going, "I never thought Cameron was a lightweight.......not at first, anyway".

I suspect that Cameron is shitting himself that more is going to come out which is extremely harmful to him, personally.

[jimslip]

One of the people on the select committee, Tom.... something or other, in his summing up pointedly suggested that Cameron AND Blair and Brown should be brought to account. I suspect they've all been brown-nosing NI for years. I read that Cameron had interrupted his flight for his Turkish holiday, ie stopped and got on a private jet, to drop in on one of the Murdoch boats in Greece.

I think Cameron is up to his neck in shit and if he goes, then it will be only time before Blair and Brown are implicated as well.

[David Johnson]

"I think Cameron is up to his neck in shit and if he goes, then it will be only time before Blair and Brown are implicated as well."

I don't understand your logic here. Cameron had to be dragged screaming and shouting into giving the Leveson inquiry into the media. And that dragging was done by Ed Miliband who took a lead in pushing for it.

If Murdoch had any shit on Milband and others in the current Labour Shadow Cabinet re their previous time in government, you would have thought that he would have brought it out then in order to try to get Miliband to back off. That was the time to do it as far as getting Labour was concerned.

[Essex Lad]

jimslip wrote:


> I think Cameron is up to his neck in shit and if he goes, then
> it will be only time before Blair and Brown are implicated as
> well.
>
>

Implicated in what? Paying homage to Murdoch? Well, we know already that's what they did. All PMs did apart from John Major...

Politicians of all parties suck(ed) up to the media. I was at a Tory paper's birthday party a few years back and numerous Labour Cabinet members were there.

It's Tom Watson by the way. Amazing how he found the time to be an MP and play championship-winning golf. Talented man.

[jimslip]

The new generation of Labour hate Blair and Brown and would delight to see the pair of them fried! I can't believe that even in your wildest dreams you are cannot consider that your Tony Blair and Gordon Brown weren't also buried deep up Murdoch's bum hole!

[Essex Lad]

jimslip wrote:

> The new generation of Labour hate Blair and Brown and would
> delight to see the pair of them fried! I can't believe that
> even in your wildest dreams you are cannot consider that your
> Tony Blair and Gordon Brown weren't also buried deep up
> Murdoch's bum hole!
>
>

They really don't. Eds Milliband and Balls were two of Brown's closest advisers and despite what they say publicly I don't believe for one second that they have radically altered their true views. Politicians are nothing if not pragmatic.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "Tony Blair and Gordon Brown weren't also buried deep up Murdoch's bum hole". It's obvious, then and now, that they were - do you think Murdoch has dirt on the air that he is going to use?

[David Johnson]

"The new generation of Labour hate Blair and Brown and would delight to see the pair of them fried!"

Again, your logic makes no sense at all. Whether the above statement is true or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Miliband and Ed Balls were two of the closest advisors to Gordon Brown as Essex Lad rightly points out, so any dirt provided by Murdoch will implicate them because many members of the Labour government are still around in the Shadow Cabinet at the highest level.

"I can't believe that even in your wildest dreams you are cannot consider that your Tony Blair and Gordon Brown weren't also buried deep up Murdoch's bum hole"

You are going round in circles. We know that Blair and Brown were far, far too close to Murdoch and his minions.

Again, I repeat, the questions to consider are:

1. Given that it was Ed Miliband who took the lead both at Prime Minister's Questions and inside and outside Parliament in order to force Cameron, who refused initially, to hold a judicial inquiry as welll as a number of criminal enquiries why has Murdoch not come out with any killer evidence to get Miliband to back off on his attack???????? After all, this attack has resulted in the Murdoch empire largely unraveilling in the UK.

2. The second question for you to consider is why did only the 4 Tory members vote against the "fit and proper " comment in the report whereas all the Labour and Lib Dem representatives voted in favour of this comment being included? If the Labour Shadow Cabinet was terrified of the possible repercussions from Murdoch, do you think Ed Miliband et al. would have proceeded as they have?

The conclusion that seems most likely is that once again when it comes to the crunch, the Tories are in favour of the rich and influential and do not want to unduly rile Murdoch. I suspect there is a lot more to come out about Cameron and his relationships with Coulson, Rebecca Wade etc etc. There is still a lot to dig out about Hunt and the BSKyB bid. I remember seeing an analysis of a speech Hunt gave which looked as if it had been written by James Murdoch, given he came out with similar phrases himself.