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THE BRITISH CULTURE Secretary Jeremy Hunt is under pressure today after documents disclosed at the Leveson inquiry into UK media ethics suggested that he secretly backed Rupert Murdoch’s multi-million pound takeover of BSkyB.
News Corporation executive James Murdoch’s lengthy testimony at the inquiry yesterday revisited his controversial role in the one of the biggest political and media scandals in recent British history .
But far more explosive and potentially damaging to the government of Prime Minister David Cameron were revelations about how a senior British minister allegedly went out of his way to smooth the path for one of his biggest-ever business deals – the News Corp attempt to take full control of British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB).
As the minister charged with deciding whether to refer the takeover deal to Britain’s competition authority, Hunt was meant to have been neutral but a cache of text messages and email appeared to undermine this though the Tory minister has denied any wrongdoing.
“He said we would get there at the end, and he shared our objectives,” was how an email from News Corp lobbyist Frederic Michel described Hunt’s attitude.
Other emails appeared to capture Hunt’s office providing Murdoch with sensitive intelligence on his political opponents and offering advice on how best to present his bid.
At one point Hunt’s pecial adviser sent a text message to Michel boasting that “I (have) been causing a lot of chaos and moaning from people here on your behalf.”
One message even quoted Hunt’s stement a day before it was due to be delivered to the House of Commons — a breach of parliamentary protocol which Michel described as “absolutely illegal.”
In that statement to lawmakers, Hunt said: “I am approaching the decision with total impartiality and following strict due process.” He had been appointed to the process after Business Secretary Vince Cable was forced to recuse himself following revelations that he had, in his words, “declared war” on Rupert Murdoch and his bid.
With the opposition Labour Party calling for his immediate resignation, Hunt issued a statement saying that some of the evidence “reported meetings and conversations that simply didn’t happen.”
Former News International chairman James Murdoch gave evidence to the Leveson inquiry for much of yesterday (AP Photo/Pool)
He said he has asked to move forward his appearance at the Leveson inquiry so he can present his side of the story: ”I am very confident that when I present my evidence the public will see that I conducted this process with scrupulous fairness.”
Labour leader Ed Miliband was unequivocal in his demand for Hunt’s resignation. Speaking to the BBC, he said: “He was acting as a back channel for the Murdochs. He cannot stay in his post. And if he refuses to resign, the prime minister must show some leadership and fire him.”
But Prime Minister David Cameron expressed his full confidence in the minister tasked with overseeing the London Olympics later this year but the nature of the Murdoch family’s links with senior politicians was laid bare yesterday.
Murdoch’s testimony gave a feel for his company’s considerable clout with senior politicians with around 20 lunches, breakfasts and other meetings with Cameron and other leaders — including former prime ministers Gordon Brown and Tony Blair – disclosed.
Cameron’s own relationship with the Murdochs has come under scrutiny after it emerged that he is a friend of the former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks, whose horse he rode.
Brooks was forced to resign from the News Corp subsidiary last year after it emerged that the now-defunct News of The World newspaper hacked the voicemail of murdered schoolgirl Milly Dowler, a revelation that blew open the phone hacking scandal in the UK.
During his testimony to Leveson, Murdoch was forced to defend his record at the head of his father’s scandal-plagued British newspaper arm. He repeated the allegations that the tabloid’s then-editor Colin Myler and the company’s former in-house lawyer, Tom Crone, misled him about the scale of illegal behaviour at the newspaper.
At one point Leveson asked Murdoch: “Can you think of a reason why Mr. Myler or Mr. Crone should keep this information from you? Was your relationship with them such that they may think: ‘Well we needn’t bother him with that’ or ‘We better keep it from him because he’ll ask to cut out the cancer’?”
“That must be it,” Murdoch said. “I would say: ‘Cut out the cancer,’ and there was some desire to not do that.”
James Murdoch’s father, Rupert, takes the stand today to give evidence which could last as long as two days and may be even more revelatory.
- additional reporting from AP
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Secondary level students Union?
Elected by who??
Survey result ‘dogs like sausages’ who would have guessed
There’s student going into 3rd year of college who have never sat a proper exam it’s mental
@Euro McPúnty: and yet the world keeps turning and these students keep achieving,
Accredited Grades didn’t work. And the teachers doing some form of Continual Assessment is a recipe for disaster.
The Leaving Certificate needs a major overhaul. Today’s society has a lot of knowledge at its tips. Their is a need to look at the model adopted by third level educational institutions. There is a need to adapted the Leaving Certificate curriculum to take in subjects that allows students to use their critical thinking, emotional intelligence and social skills.
Now is the time and the opportunity to modernise our state exams, to step away from rogue learning.
@Padraic Morgan: pesky ‘rogue’ learning. An element driving the out-dated model however is society itself, there is this drive that everyone needs to undertake a university degree programme straight out of the leaving cert. An approach that neglects other modes of 3rd level education, apprenticeships, life-long learning, and engaging with 3rd level later in life. If we collectively stopped viewing a degree as the only option we might end up with a more acceptable approach to learning.
@D. Memery: I would argue that it’s employers that need to change their views on degrees. Supply and demand like anything else. Of course there are some professions that requir in depth understanding of certain topics but a lot of people are hired on a degree only to be taught their profession on the job anyway.
There is need for flexibility in modern education but it needs to be well thought through and not rushed in. How do you maintain the standards and stop Lucinda from offering the Holiday home in Kerry to her teacher friend if she gives the daughter a good grade for continual assessment.? There has to be the same standard for everybody 500 points in leash can’t be different than 500 points in Donegal and these things take time to put in place. The students are just scared because they have never done a junior cert and are afraid of the formal exam.
@Anne Marie Kearney: junior cert whilst scary is not as important as the leaving cert students and I feel this year they should be given the option same as last year. Going forward maybe return to the original method but I feel this needs an overhaul anyway. My daughter is LC and has lost a lot, lack of teacher continuity etc. Very stressful for them.
In this day and age the customer is the student / parent. Customers are telling you they no longer want your outdated model – you tell them it’s what you prefer to offer them !!! I’ve heard so much about being flexible and pivoting in the last couple of years – but that seems to only apply when you’re the customer or staff … it’s clear where the blockers for progress and aversion to improvement lies.
@dottiemac: The customer is not always right. There’s a plqce for the customer’s voice but it should not override those with actual expertise and qualifications. It’s a bit like car owners telling a mechanic how a car should be fixed or a patient telling a doctor how they should be treated.
How about using the same reduced style papers as last year? More choice to compensate for loss of teaching time through school closure and lots of illness this year. Currently there are only minor modifications to papers and that is not sufficient.
Here me go again, media banging on about the Leaving Cert, one would think everything in life depends on it.
Anyone that believes that colleges are driven by a desire for equity and the welfare of students education is deluded . Cash is king
People say exam system is too rigid. Girls were awarded 8 extra points so outperforming boys by an even higher margin when teachers graded pupils. Ps what if it had been that boys scores gravitated closer to girls scores
We would have never heard the end of it sexism mysogeny black Black bla
I get that last year was messy and grades we’re inflated, but unless we capitalize on teachers grading students in some shape or form we will always have this pints race Leaving Cert. The unions and universities have a lot to answer for in terms of our teens mental health.
@Lucy Legacy: I wish there was a pints race when I did my Leaving Cert. That would have been epic!
@Lucy Legacy: On a more serious note, there was much more stress involved in the LC 20 or so years ago. There were less courses and less pathways at 3rd Level and bar the orals, everything rode on the final exam making it much more high stakes. Could it be that teenagers were more resilient then than now and if so, why?
@Elrond Rivendell: me too :). I might have won that one.
@Elrond Rivendell: It’s true that Further Education is opening doors in alternative ways. Good also that it’s on the CAO. The points race has been going on since the 90s, and we know it’s wrong.I think it’s an abuse of sorts and shocking that despite It been deemed a ‘violence’ on kids by recent UN report,little has changed. It’s not the same in most other countries- mostly because the teacher marks most of it as continuous assessment.Much fairer.
@Elrond Rivendell: The old point to point race,horses for courses etc.
@Lucy Legacy: girls grades were inflated mostly if I’m not wrong.
Why bother. These days you pay for your degree and get it, just like any other purchase. Standards aren’t an issue. If you can afford to finance a degree then it’s yours.
So what they’re actually saying is that there’s a serious shortage of places for college courses relative to demand, and they’d rather simply make students feel that they can’t get in because they’re not smart enough rather than address the shortage of places itself?
RTE news : Major increase in number of top grades in Leaving Cert
http://www.rte.ie/news/education/2022/0123/1275360-leaving-cert/
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