A Very Shady Deal?

Frequently, politicians wonder why they are dislike so much and often despised. And then more reports come along that make it blindingly obvious why it is so. The last 24 hours have given us plenty to be going on with.

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Let's start close to home with the saga of BSkyB and News Corporation. The latter with James Murdoch as Chief Executive in Europe, son of big boss Rupert Murdoch, wants to buy the 61% of shares in BSkyB that it does not already own. This is hardly likely to be in the national interest since it will give Murdoch control of a vast swathe on the British media via TV and newspapers and will establish an organisation three times the size of the BBC. Almost everyone else in broadcasting and the newspaper industries is opposed to such a take-over. The regulator Ofcom has expressed severe reservations and has said, quite clearly, in their report published today that the merger should be refereed to the Competition Commission. It is three weeks after the report was available to the Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt. The minister has told us that News Corporation have been given six months to address concerns expressed by Ofcom in the report. He is, he told us, mindful to refer the report to the Competition Commission, since it is the view of Ofcom that the merger is not in the public interest. Has he any choice? Is it conceivable that he could get away with not referring it. If the answer is "Yes" then what is the point of Ofcom? But we now have the extraordinary situation that - following secret meetings between the minister and the Murdochs - News Corporation is being given time to cobble together some deal that will let everybody off the hook and the merger can go ahead without the approval of teh Competition Commission or - more likely - the referral will be accompanied with some spin to explain why it is now OK. The picture would not look quite so bad were it not for the fact that Mr Hunt is a known enthusiastic supporter of Murdoch and his businesses. Why, I have no idea. Perhaps it is just that he is an old Thatcherite Tory who hates the BBC - he wants to abolish the BBC Trust and trim the Corporation's wings - and he will sleep with any devil who is not a public service broadcaster. Is he one of those who believe that privatisation of everything must be better? But even worse is the cosy relationship between the Murdochs and David Cameron. He has visited James Murdoch in the Caribbean - having been transported there on a Murdoch aeroplane - and he has had dinner with senior executives of News Corporation - privately, not with civil servants present - just days after he took away responsibility for the merger from the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, after he had been recorded voicing his antipathy to Murdoch.. And, it seems, Rupert Murdoch has access to Downing Street via the back entrance. What is there to hide? We like to think that our politics are not corrupt but happenings like this suggest, very strongly, that we are deluded. Rupert Murdoch manages everything for the benefit of himself and his companies and, like all rich people, he can never be rich enough. But all the maneuverings and the clandestine dealings can only make people very sure that blocking this deal must be the right thing to do. But I have little confidence in the government on this. They will wriggle and wriggle in order to allow their cronies to be rewarded.

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