LONDON< The Conservative minister overseeing the Murdoch bid to take over satellite broadcaster BSkyB warned the Prime Minister that James Murdoch was furious over the government’s handling of it and “if we block it, our media sector will suffer for years”, the Leveson inquiry heard last night.Secretary of state and minister for media Jeremy Hunt wrote a memo to Prime Minister David Cameron in November 2010 in which he said it would be wrong to “cave in” to objections that the takeover would give one media outlet too much power. He warned that James Murdoch was “pretty furious” that another minister, Liberal Democrat Vince Cable, had referred the bid to media regulator Ofcom for scrutiny. “He doesn’t think he will get a fair hearing from Ofcom,” Mr Hunt wrote. “I am privately concerned about this because News Corp are very litigious and we could end up in the wrong place in terms of media policy. Essentially, what James Murdoch wants to do is repeat what his father did with the move to Wapping [where he broke union strangle-holds on newspapers to introduce new technology] and create the world’s first multi-platform operator, available from paper to web to TV to iPhone to iPad. Isn’t this what all media companies have to do ultimately? And, if so, we must be very careful that any attempt to block it is done on plurality grounds and not as a result of lobbying by competitors.” Then Mr Hunt appeared to throw his backing behind the controversial £8 billion bid, writing, “The UK has the chance to lead the way on this as we did in the 80s with the Wapping move, but if we block it, our media sector will suffer for years. In the end, I am sure, sensible controls can be put into any merger to ensure plurality, but I think it would be totally wrong to cave into the [BBC and Guardian] line that this represents a substantial change of control given that we all know Sky is controlled by News Corp now anyway.” News Corp owns 39 per cent of Sky. The company abandoned the full-takeover bid last year following public outrage over the phone-hacking scandal at its now-defunct paper, the News of the World. Mr Hunt was meant to be impartially overseeing the takeover proposal. He had a ‘quasi-judicial’ role to be objective, which Lord Justice Leveson last night said meant not speaking to the parties in any way that was not “open and transparent to everyone”. Mr Hunt’s job is under threat following earlier revelations that a lobbyist for News Corporation, Fred Michel, wrote 164 pages of emails to James Murdoch that seemed to suggest Mr Hunt was secretly on-side with the £8 billion Murdoch bid. Last night the inquiry revealed that Mr Michel had also exchanged 191 phone calls, 158 emails and more than 1000 texts with Mr Hunt’s office during the process. But Mr Michel, head of communications for News Corp in the UK, said he could not assess whether Mr Hunt had been supportive of the bid. He said he had not met Mr Hunt during that time but had exchanged several text messages with him. “Nothing inappropriate never [sic] took place,” he said. One message he sent in March 2010 congratulated Mr Hunt on his performance in the House of Commons that day. Mr Hunt sent the French-born Mr Michel a text reply saying, “Merci! Large drink tonight.” In one email Mr Michel wrote that Mr Hunt believed a new NewsCorp proposal over the bid would mean “it’s almost game over for the opposition” and that “he said we would get there in the end and he shared our objectives”. The minister did not want to the process to go to the Competition Commission as “Jeremy Hunt believes this would kill the deal”, Mr Michel wrote in another email. But Mr Hunt also wanted to “build some political cover with the process”, an email said: “He wants us to take the heat with him in the next two weeks.” Labour has accused the minister of being a “cheerleader” for the Murdochs’ now-abandoned bid and called for Mr Hunt to resign over the affair but Mr Cameron is standing by him. Lawyer Robert Jay, QC, asked Mr Michel about how he had received preview information from Mr Hunt’s special adviser, Adam Smith, on a statement on the BSkyB bid the minister was to make to Parliament the next day. Mr Michel said he was surprised that Mr Smith sent him information about the statement before it was made to parliament. Mr Michel had written to Mr Murdoch of this, “Managed to get some information on the plans for tomorrow although absolutely illegal”. Asked what he meant by “absolutely illegal”, Mr Michel told the inquiry, “it was a very bad joke which shouldn’t have been made. I think it was out of my surprise to get a briefing on the contents of the statement.” Mr Jay challenged Mr Michel on an email in which Mr Michel claimed that Mr Hunt and the Prime Minister’s office wanted guidance from News International on how they should position themselves over the phone-hacking scandal. Mr Jay said Mr Smith strongly denied asking for this. Mr Michel replied, “I can completely vouch for the fact that we discussed those issues with Adam.” But he said “‘guide’ might be too strong a word, probably, but there was an offer from me to brief the departments on the on-going issues of News International and it was something that was welcomed at the time”. Last month Mr Smith resigned over the email revelations. He said that in his many communications with Mr Michel he had acted without Mr Hunt’s authorization and he had allowed the impression to be created of too close a relationship between News Corp and the Department for Media. Questioned at the inquiry last night, Mr Smith said he had had a close working relationship with Mr Hunt. But he denied the minister was close to the Murdochs or their companies: “He did not have that much of a relationship with either of the Murdochs or the chief executive of News International… he was not close to News Corp.” He also denied that Mr Hunt had been a “cheerleader” for News Corp’s BSkyB bid. First published in The Age.

LONDON

THE media magnate Rupert Murdoch last night admitted there had been a “cover-up” over phone hacking at News International, that he had failed and that it was a matter of deep regret.
Mr Murdoch said he was “misinformed and shielded” from what was going on at the News of the World: “I do blame one or two people for that, who perhaps I shouldn’t name, for all I know they may be arrested.
“There is no question in my mind, maybe even the editor but certainly beyond that, someone took charge of a cover-up which we were victim to and I regret [that].”
Asked where the “culture of cover-up” had come from, Mr Murdoch said:”I think from within the News of the World, there were one or two very strong characters there who I think had been there many, many, many years and were friends of the journalists, or the person I’m thinking of was a friend of the journalists and a drinking pal and a clever lawyer, and forbade them … this person forbade people to go and report to Mrs [Rebekah] Brooks [chief executive of News International] or to James [Murdoch].”
“That’s not to excuse it on our behalf at all. I take it extremely seriously that that situation had arisen … I also have to say that I failed, and I’m sorry about it.”
Mr Murdoch said he was guilty of not having paid enough attention to the News of the World all the time he had owned it. “All I can do is apologise to a lot of people including all the innocent people at the News of the World who have lost their jobs as a result of that.”
Mr Murdoch said he thought he had never met Jeremy Hunt, the minister under fire following leaks from his office while he was arbitrating the Murdoch bid for the satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
“I don’t believe I ever met him. I am not sure whether he came to a dinner once a couple of years ago, but no, I certainly didn’t discuss [the bid with him].” He said he did not discuss with his son, James, whether Mr Hunt would be favourable towards the bid.
Asked about the 163 pages of emails between Mr Hunt’s office and the office of Fred Michel, the public affairs adviser to News International, Mr Murdoch said he thought Mr Michel might have exaggerated.
Mr Murdoch said the company would have achieved the Sky takeover had it not been caught up in the phone-hacking scandal.
He stood by his previous evidence that the former prime minister Gordon Brown had “declared war” on his media empire when it switched its endorsement to the Conservatives and he appeared to be “unbalanced” at the time.
Mr Murdoch said he gave his evidence under oath, “and I stand by every word of it”.
Meanwhile, fallout continued from earlier evidence given by James Murdoch, whose testimony on Tuesday revealed News International had received detailed leaks from the office of the Secretary of State, Mr Hunt, while Mr Hunt was overseeing the Murdoch bid for BSkyB.
The Opposition Leader, Ed Miliband, continued to ramp up the pressure on Mr Hunt, refusing to accept the resignation of his special adviser, Adam Smith, was enough. Mr Smith said he had “gone too far” when dealing with News International.
But Mr Miliband said the idea that Mr Smith had acted as a “lone wolf” beggared belief: “To believe Mr Hunt should stay in his job you have to believe that his special adviser was acting for six months with text messages and daily email exchanges … and that the secretary of state had no idea this was going on …
“I believe the reason Jeremy Hunt is being kept in his post is because [Prime Minister David] Cameron knows questions will move to him, his meetings with Mr Murdoch … what he said to James Murdoch and Rebekah Brooks about the bid News Corp was making for BSkyB.”First published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

LONDON

”I HAVE never asked a prime minister for anything,” Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, told the Leveson inquiry into press standards last night.THE media magnate Rupert Murdoch last night agreed under questioning at the Leveson inquiry that his newspapers had endorsed Tony Blair’s bid to be prime minister after the politician assured him media regulation would not be onerous under a Labour government.

He agreed that The Sun had endorsed Mr Blair the day after an article was published in which Mr Blair took a euro sceptic view that chimed with Mr Murdoch’s dislike of the euro.

Robert Jay, QC, asked Mr Murdoch: “You had extracted as much as you could from Mr Blair in terms of policy promises. He had gone a considerable distance in your direction, you assumed he had gone as far as he was going to go and you endorsed him?”

“I think so,” Mr Murdoch said. “I don’t think this all followed in this way so logically, but yes.”

Mr Murdoch also agreed that he had told Mr Blair: ”If our flirtation is ever consummated, Tony, I suspect we will end up making love like porcupines, very, very carefully.”

But Mr Murdoch denied a report that, while no deal was made about support from The Sun in return for Mr Murdoch’s media empire being left untouched, the two had an implicit understanding.

“That’s not true,” Mr Murdoch said. If there had been such an understanding, Mr Blair “certainly didn’t keep to it because he appointed [the media regulator] Ofcom with wide powers to interfere with us in every way.”

The Leveson inquiry into media ethics is examining the relationship between media proprietors and politicians.

Evidence on Tuesday from Mr Murdoch’s son James suggested that the Culture Minister, Jeremy Hunt, had leaked information to News Corporation in 2010-11 during the company’s bid to take over the satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

Last night Mr Hunt was resisting demands that he resign over apparent breaches of the ministerial code, but his adviser, Adam Smith, who had been involved in the unofficial email exchanges with News Corporation, did step down.

Lord Justice Leveson told the inquiry when it opened last night that it was important the email exchange not be judged until all sides had been heard.

In his evidence Rupert Murdoch, who is the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, became testy about what

he saw as “sinister inferences” in the questioning about his relationships with politicians.

He beat his hands on a bench to emphasise his words as he said: ”I, in 10 years he was in power, never asked Mr Blair for anything, nor did I receive any favours.”

Mr Jay said the relationship between a sophisticated politician and the proprietor would be rather more subtle than that. Mr Murdoch said: ”I’m afraid I don’t have much subtlety about me.”

Mr Murdoch denied he was the power behind the throne of the Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher but agreed he was politically sympathetic to her and to the former US president Ronald Reagan.

Questioned about a lunch he had with the then British prime minister in 1981, he denied its purpose had been to show Mrs Thatcher he was ”on the same page” as her politically, or that the tacit understanding was that she would then help him with his bid to buy the Times newspapers.

”No, I didn’t expect any help from her, nor did I ask for anything,” Mr Murdoch said. He was asked about a report that he had told an editor on The Sunday Times : ”We owe Thatcher a lot as a company. Don’t go overboard in your attacks on her.”

Mr Murdoch said he had no memory of the conversation.

Mr Murdoch said he had strongly disapproved of a Sun front page in 1992 that claimed credit for John Major’s election win with the headline: “It was the Sun wot won it!”

Mr Murdoch said: ”It was tasteless and wrong for us. We don’t have that sort of power.”

Mr Murdoch also told the inquiry that then-prime minister Gordon Brown was ”not in a balanced state of mind” when he attacked the mogul over the phone after learning that The Sun would support a change in government.

”He [Brown] said, and I must stress no voices were raised, he said: ‘Well, your company has declared war on my government and we have no alternative to make war on your company.’ I said ‘I’m sorry about that Gordon, thank you for calling,’ and that was that.”

First published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

LONDON

Former British prime minister Gordon Brown last night strongly denied Rupert Murdoch’s claims that he had once declared war on the media empire.In evidence to the Leveson inquiry, Mr Murdoch said Mr Brown had phoned him after the front page of The Sun newspaper published the headline “Labour’s Lost It”, on a day in 2009 when Mr Brown was due to make an important speech.

Mr Murdoch said he told Mr Brown his newspapers would support a change of government at the upcoming election and that Mr Brown replied, “Well, your company has declared war on my government and we have no alternative but to make war on your company.”

Mr Murdoch told the inquiry he said, “‘I’m sorry about that, Gordon. Thank you for calling.’ End of subject. I don’t think he was in a very balanced state of mind. I don’t know.”

But Mr Brown released a statement saying the two men had not spoken and that Mr Murdoch “was wholly wrong? The Sun declared for the Conservatives on 30 September 2009. I did not phone Mr Murdoch or meet him, or write to him about his decision.”I hope Mr Murdoch will have the good grace to correct his account.”As Mr Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, appeared for the first time before the inquiry into press standards and the relationships between proprietors and politicians, the shockwaves intensified from the hearing on Tuesday. Then, his son James discussed emails that appeared to show News International had routinely been leaked information from the office of Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt while Mr Hunt was overseeing the company’s bid to take over satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

In developments last night:- Mr Hunt’s special adviser stepped down, admitting he had gone too far in his dealings with News International.- Documents revealed Mr Hunt visited News Corp in the US while the company was deciding whether to bid for BSkyB.- Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond admitted he planned to lobby Mr Hunt to back the Murdoch bid only days after winning the support of the Scottish Sun for his election campaign

.Rupert Murdoch told the inquiry that after the alleged declaration of war, Mr Brown had gone on to make a “totally outrageous” claim “which he had to know was wrong” that The Sun had hacked the medical records of his sick child.

Mr Murdoch said Mrs Brown had been phoned before the story was published and told that the informant was a fellow parent at the same hospital.

He said he and Prime Minister David Cameron had not discussed Mr Cameron’s hiring of former News of the World editor Andy Coulson, later arrested over phone hacking, as his director of communications in 2007. Mr Murdoch said the appointment had left him “just as surprised as everybody else”.

He agreed that Mr Cameron had dropped in to visit him on a yacht at the Greek island of Santorini in 2008 – he could not recall whether it was his own or his daughter’s yacht – but said Mr Cameron had wanted to meet him, not the other way around: “Politicians go out of their way to impress people in the press and I don’t remember discussing any heavy political things with him at all. They may have been some issues discussed passingly; it was not a long meeting.”

Mr Murdoch said he had never sought to use political influence for commercial advantage and had always decided editorial views on the basis of issues and candidates.  It was a “complete myth” that his company ever had preferential treatment from politicians because of the power of his newspapers, he said.If he were driven purely by business priorities he would always have told his newspapers to support the Conservatives because they were always friendlier to big business, but he said it was also in his newspapers’ interests to attract and hold readers.

He denied being a major power behind the throne for former prime minister Margaret Thatcher and said of Tony Blair, “In the 10 years he was in power I never asked Mr Blair for anything.

“Mr Murdoch was also asked about reports of comments made about him by former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating. “‘You can do deals with him without ever saying a deal is done?”‘ asked Robert Jay, QC.

Mr Murdoch denied this: “I don’t understand what you’re saying but it isn’t true. Mr Keating is given to extravagant language.”Mr Jay asked about another quote: “‘The only thing he cares about is business and the only language he respects is strength’? Is that fair?”

“Certainly not,” Mr Murdoch said.

Meanwhile, Labour continued to demand the resignation of Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt. When Mr Hunt’s special adviser Adam Smith resigned, he said in a statement that he had acted without the authority of the minister and that he had allowed the impression to be created of too close a relationship between News Corp and the Department of Culture, Media and Sport.

He said, “While it was part of my role to keep News Corporation informed through the BSkyB bid process, the content and extent of my contact was done without authorisation from [Mr Hunt]? I appreciate that my activities at times went too far.”But he insisted, as did Mr Hunt, that the process had been conducted scrupulously fairly.

Mr Hunt’s position was further endangered by revelations in official documents that he had spent five days in the US in 2009 holding meetings with News Corp at the same time Rupert and James Murdoch were first deciding whether to bid for Sky.

Almost immediately after Mr Hunt’s trip, James Murdoch visited Mr Cameron in London and privately told him that News Corp had agreed to switch support to the Conservatives in the coming election. Mr Hunt then became culture secretary in the victorious Tory Government.

In yet another response to James Murdoch’s day of evidence, Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond admitted he planned to lobby Mr Hunt in favour of the Murdoch bid for BSkyB only days after the Scottish Sun promised it would back his election campaign.

A spokesman for Mr Salmond confirmed he had booked a call with Mr Hunt _ which did not take place _ two days after Mr Salmond had dinner with the editor of the Scottish Sun.Last year the paper backed Mr Salmond’s Scottish National Party for the first time in 20 years and it won an unprecedented landslide.

First published in The Age.

LONDON

THE media magnate Rupert Murdoch last night agreed under questioning at the Leveson inquiry that his newspapers had endorsed Tony Blair’s bid to be prime minister after the politician assured him media regulation would not be onerous under a Labour government.
He agreed that The Sun had endorsed Mr Blair the day after an article was published in which Mr Blair took a euro sceptic view that chimed with Mr Murdoch’s dislike of the euro.
Robert Jay, QC, asked Mr Murdoch: “You had extracted as much as you could from Mr Blair in terms of policy promises. He had gone a considerable distance in your direction, you assumed he had gone as far as he was going to go and you endorsed him?”
“I think so,” Mr Murdoch said. “I don’t think this all followed in this way so logically, but yes.”
Mr Murdoch also agreed that he had told Mr Blair: “If our flirtation is ever consummated, Tony, I suspect we will end up making love like porcupines, very, very carefully.”
But Mr Murdoch denied a report that, while no deal was made about support from The Sun in return for Mr Murdoch’s media empire being left untouched, the two had an implicit understanding.
“That’s not true,” Mr Murdoch said. If there had been such an understanding, Mr Blair “certainly didn’t keep to it because he appointed [the media regulator] Ofcom with wide powers to interfere with us in every way.”
The Leveson inquiry into media ethics is examining the relationship between media proprietors and politicians.
Evidence on Tuesday from Mr Murdoch’s son James suggested that the Culture Minister, Jeremy Hunt, had leaked information to News Corporation in 2010-11 during the company’s bid to take over the satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
Last night Mr Hunt was resisting demands that he resign over apparent breaches of the ministerial code, but his adviser, Adam Smith, who had been involved in the unofficial email exchanges with News Corporation, did step down.
Lord Justice Leveson told the inquiry when it opened last night that it was important the email exchange not be judged until all sides had been heard.
In his evidence Rupert Murdoch, who is the chairman and chief executive of News Corporation, became testy about what he saw as “sinister inferences” in the questioning about his relationships with politicians.
He beat his hands on a bench to emphasise his words as he said: “I, in 10 years he was in power, never asked Mr Blair for anything, nor did I receive any favours.”
Mr Jay said the relationship between a sophisticated politician and the proprietor would be rather more subtle than that. Mr Murdoch said: “I’m afraid I don’t have much subtlety about me.”
Mr Murdoch denied he was the power behind the throne of the Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher but agreed he was politically sympathetic to her and to the former US president Ronald Reagan.
Questioned about a lunch he had with the then British prime minister in 1981, he denied its purpose had been to show Mrs Thatcher he was “on the same page” as her politically, or that the tacit understanding was that she would then help him with his bid to buy the Times newspapers.
“No, I didn’t expect any help from her, nor did I ask for anything,” Mr Murdoch said. He was asked about a report that he had told an editor on The Sunday Times : “We owe Thatcher a lot as a company. Don’t go overboard in your attacks on her.”
Mr Murdoch said he had no memory of the conversation.
Mr Murdoch said he had strongly disapproved of a Sun front page in 1992 that claimed credit for John Major’s election win with the headline: “It was the Sun wot won it!”
Mr Murdoch said: “It was tasteless and wrong for us. We don’t have that sort of power.”
Mr Murdoch also told the inquiry that then-prime minister Gordon Brown was “not in a balanced state of mind” when he attacked the mogul over the phone after learning that The Sun would support a change in government.
“He [Brown] said, and I must stress no voices were raised, he said: ‘Well, your company has declared war on my government and we have no alternative to make war on your company.’ I said ‘I’m sorry about that Gordon, thank you for calling,’ and that was that.”First published in the Sydney Morning Herald.

LONDON

THE media magnate Rupert Murdoch last night agreed under questioning at the Leveson inquiry that his newspapers had endorsed Tony Blair’s bid to be prime minister after Mr Blair had assured him media regulation would not be onerous under a Labour government.
He agreed that The Sun had endorsed Mr Blair the day after an article was published in which Mr Blair took a euro sceptic view that chimed with Mr Murdoch’s dislike of the euro.
Robert Jay, QC, asked Mr Murdoch: “You had extracted as much as you could from Mr Blair in terms of policy promises. He had gone a considerable distance in your direction, you assumed he had gone as far as he was going to go and you endorsed him?”
“I think so,” Mr Murdoch said. “I don’t think this all followed in this way so logically, but yes.”
Mr Murdoch also agreed that he had told Mr Blair: “If our flirtation is ever consummated, Tony, I suspect we will end up making love like porcupines, very, very carefully.”
But Mr Murdoch denied a report that, while no deal was made about support from The Sun in return for Mr Murdoch’s media empire being left untouched, the two had an implicit understanding.
“That’s not true,” Mr Murdoch said. If there had been such an understanding, Mr Blair “certainly didn’t keep to it because he appointed [the media regulator] Ofcom with wide powers to interfere with us in every way.”
The Leveson inquiry into media ethics is examining the relationship between media proprietors and politicians.
Evidence on Tuesday from Mr Murdoch’s son James suggested that the Culture Minister, Jeremy Hunt, had leaked information to James Murdoch in 2010-11 during the News bid to take over the satellite broadcaster BSkyB.
Last night Mr Hunt was resisting demands that he resign over apparent breaches of the ministerial code, but his adviser, Adam Smith, who had been involved in the unofficial email exchanges with News, did step down. He said in a statement: “I appreciate that my activities at times went too far.”
Lord Justice Leveson told the inquiry when it opened last night that it was important the email exchange not be judged until all sides had been heard.
In his evidence Rupert Murdoch, who is the chairman and chief executive of News Corp, became testy about what he saw as “sinister inferences” in the questioning about his relationships with politicians.
He beat his hands on a bench to emphasise his words as he said: “I, in 10 years he was in power, never asked Mr Blair for anything, nor did I receive any favours.”
Mr Jay said the relationship between a sophisticated politician and the proprietor would be rather more subtle than that. Mr Murdoch said: “I’m afraid I don’t have much subtlety about me.”
Mr Murdoch denied he was the power behind the throne of the Conservative prime minister Margaret Thatcher but agreed that he was politically sympathetic to her and to the former US president Ronald Reagan.
Questioned about a lunch he had had with the then British prime minister in 1981, he denied its purpose had been to show Mrs Thatcher he was “on the same page” as her politically, or that the tacit understanding was that she would then help him with his bid to buy the Times newspapers.
“No, I didn’t expect any help from her, nor did I ask for anything,” Mr Murdoch said. He denied he had wanted the lunch because he was concerned the bid might be delayed if it were referred to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission: “That didn’t worry me in the least.”
Mr Murdoch was asked about a report that he had told an editor on The Sunday Times : “We owe Thatcher a lot as a company. Don’t go overboard in your attacks on her.”
Mr Murdoch said he had no memory of the conversation. Did he say it? “I don’t think so.”
Mr Murdoch said he had strongly disapproved of a Sun front page in 1992 that claimed credit for John Major’s election win with the headline: “It was the Sun wot won it!” He said he gave the editor “a hell of a bollocking” over it.
Mr Jay asked whether he disliked it because it suggested newspapers were powerful and anti-democratic. “Anti-democratic is too strong a word,” Mr Murdoch said. “It was tasteless and wrong for us. We don’t have that sort of power.”First published in the Sydney Morning Herald.