26 Jun 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Nick Clegg’s former Parliamentary Private Secretary has said News International threatened to “turn against” the coalition if its parent company News Corp’s £8bn bid for control of BSkyB were referred to Ofcom.
Quoting from a note of an October 2010 meeting with News Corp lobbyist Frederic Michel, Norman Lamb MP said that News Corp would have “turned nasty” if business secretary Vince Cable, then responsible for handling the bid, referred it to the broadcast regulator.
Lamb said he took Michel’s comments to mean “very clearly that positive coverage he said they had given might change.”
The note, read out by Lamb and posted on the Inquiry website this afternoon, read:
0900 meeting Fred Michel News International. An extraordinary encounter. FM is very charming. He tells me News Int. papers will land on VC’s [Vince Cable] desk in next 2 weeks. They are certain there are no grounds for referral. They realise the political pressures. He wants things to run smoothly. They have been supportive of Coalition. But if it goes the wrong way he is worried about the implications. It was brazen VC refers case to Ofcom – they turn nasty. Then he talked about AV – how Sun might help the debate – use of good graphics to get across case.
James M[urdoch] has met Nick [Clegg] – worth working on him to he could be receptive to case. Times will give it fair hearing.
So refer case and implication was clear. News Int turn against Coalition and AV.
In another note read to the Inquiry today, Lamb wrote that he had spoken to Nick Clegg about the meeting — among other things — noting that Clegg was “horrified” by it: “We will lose the only papers who have been positive,” it read.
Lamb said he has been thinking for some time whether to give this evidence to the Inquiry, saying he felt it necessary after Cable’s claim that “veiled threats” had been made to the Lib Dems connected with News Corp’s bid for full control of the satellite broadcaster.
The bid — which News Corp abandoned following the phone hacking scandal that emerged last summer — has become a key focus of the Inquiry as it examines close relations between the press and politicians. In December 2010 Cable’s responsibility for the bid was handed to culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, following the revelation of the business secretary declaring “war” on News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch.
The high level of close contact between Hunt’s department and Michel over the course of the bid brought the government’s impartiality into question. Hunt’s adviser Adam Smith resigned in April after a series of emails between the department and News Corp revealed that the company was being given advance feedback of the government’s scrutiny of the bid.
Earlier today, the lawyer of the parents of a British schoolboy killed in a coach crash in Switzerland in March described the family’s distress at press intrusion, in particular the “unauthorised publication” of photographs of them by various newspapers.
Giles Crown told the Inquiry that a photograph of the grieving Bowles family had been taken outside the bereaved relatives’ hotel near Sierre, Switzerland, without their consent and printed in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph. Photographers were banned from the property and told not to come within 20 metres of the hotel, Crown said.
“It is clear that the people in the photograph have no knowledge that they are being photographed,” he added.
Crown said that the Sun had published a quote from Sebastian Bowles’ account of the trip that had been posted on a blog set up for the pupils to communicate with their parents.
He also alleged that the MailOnline had also published photos from Sebastian’s father’s Facebook page, adding that he was certain his privacy settings had been set to the maximum level.
Edward Bowles later deactivated his Facebook account after he found that the photos, which Crown said were of a “private, personal and family nature”, had been obtained by the press.
Bowles contacted the Press Complaints Commission with the family’s concern over media intrusion and sent a letter on the family’s behalf to the PCC and various media outlets requesting they not be contacted.
The Daily Mail replied in a letter on 20 March, noting that the pictures taken from Facebook were publicly accessible, but that they had now been removed from the MailOnline version of the story.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow.
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13 Jun 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Scotland’s first minister Alex Salmond has alleged that the Observer newspaper accessed his bank account in 1999.
Giving evidence to the Leveson Inquiry, Salmond said he was told this by a former journalist on the Guardian’s sister paper.
“The person concerned had detail which could only have been known by somebody who had full access to my bank account at that stage,” Salmond said.
Salmond said that, in conversation with the journalist, the reporter said his colleagues had wondered whether a toy shop Salmond had been to was more than a conventional store. The Scottish first minister clarified he had bought toys for his nieces at the shop in question.
In a statement released this afternoon, Guardian News & Media said Salmond had first raised the issue with the Observer’s editor last year, and the publisher has since been “unable to find any evidence to substantiate his allegation.”
“As our response to him at the time made clear, we take this allegation very seriously and if he is able to provide us with any more information we will investigate further,” the publisher said.
Elsewhere in his evidence, Salmond defended press freedom, arguing that he felt people had a right to offensive “within the law”.
He told Lord Justice Leveson that if his Inquiry were to come up with a proposition for press regulation that “accords with public support, is eminently sensible and points the way to a better future then the Scottish parliament would be foolish not to pay attention to it.”
But he added that the Scottish parliament might “wish not to apply” any over-prescriptive solutions.
When discussing whether or not he was in support of News Corp’s bid for the full takeover of satellite broadcaster BSkyB, Salmond emphasised the broadcaster was a “huge employer in Scotland” and that he was in favour of what benefited the Scottish economy.
Salmond stressed that his responsibility was ensuring investment and jobs in Scotland, rather than overseeing media plurality or broadcasting.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow with evidence from prime minister David Cameron.
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11 Jun 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Chancellor George Osborne has defended his party’s decision to hire former News of the World editor Andy Coulson as the Conservatives’ communications chief.
In a seemingly well-rehearsed appearance before the Leveson Inquiry afternoon, Osborne stressed that it was Coulson’s “enormous amount of professional experience” editing a major national newspaper that made him a strong candidate for the job of communications director for the Conservative Party in July 2007.
Coulson told the Inquiry last month that he was personally approached by Osborne just months after his resignation following the jailing of former News of the World reporter Clive Goodman and private investigator Glenn Mulcaire on phone hacking offences.
Osborne conceded it was “controversial” to hire Coulson given the nature of his resignation, but downplayed the former editor’s links to News International. “What we were interested in hiring is someone who was going to do the job going forward. We thought he had the experience and the personality to do that,” Osborne said.
He added that he sought assurances from Coulson on phone hacking: “I asked him [Coulson] in a general sense (…) whether there was more in the phone hacking story that was going to come out that we needed to know about and he said ‘no’.”
Strenuously denying claims of a conspiracy between the Tory party and News Corp, the Chancellor referred to the media giant’s bid for the takeover of BSkyB as a “political inconvenience”, stressing he did not have “a strong view on the merits or demerits of the merger.”
“It was what it was, and was causing trouble with varous newspaper groups,” Osborne said, adding that he was also unaware of primer minister David Cameron or culture secretary Jeremy Hunt‘s views of the bid, which was eventually abandoned last summer in the wake of the phone hacking scandal.
He said that the December 2010 decision to hand over responsibility for the bid to Hunt — following the revelation of business secretary Vince Cable being secretly recorded as having “declared war” on News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch — was a “good solution” to keep Cable in government while passing over the responsibility of media plurailty to the department of culture, media and sport (DCMS). He said the decision, suggested by Number 10 permanent secretary, Jeremy Heywood, was settled in under an hour.
“The media department was the obvious place to look [to] when it came to the reallocation of responibilities for media policy within government,” Osborne said.
“The principal concern was that this was not something that should lead to the resignation of Dr Cable,” Osborne added, noting it would take a “real fantasist to believe we had knowingly allowed Cable to be secretly recorded”.
The Inquiry continues tomorrow with evidence from former prime minister Sir John Major, Labour leader Ed Miliband and Deputy Labour leader Harriet Harman.
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31 May 12 | Leveson Inquiry
Jeremy Hunt texted George Osborne shortly before he was handed control of News Corp’s £8 billion bid for full control of BSkyB, telling the chancellor he was “seriously worried” the government would “screw up” the bid.
In evidence disclosed to the Leveson Inquiry this morning, it was also revealed that the embattled culture secretary texted James Murdoch on the same day, congratulating him for receiving approval from the European Commission on the company’s bid.
This text message was sent just hours before the BBC revealed that business secretary Vince Cable — at that point in charge of adjudicating the bid — had told undercover Telegraph reporters he had “declared war” on News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch, remarks that were seen as proof of bias. Cable was later stripped of his responsibility, which was passed over to Hunt and announced by Downing Street at around 6pm on 21 December 2010.
At 12:57pm on 21 December, Hunt texted James Murdoch: “Great and congrats on Brussels. Just Ofcom to go”, shortly after the European Commission’s approval of the bid.
At 2:30pm the BBC published Cable’s comments, which Hunt said were discussed in a phone call with James Murdoch at 4pm.
Eight minutes later Hunt texted Osborne, noting he was “seriously worried we are going to screw this up” regarding the bid. In a second message to the chancellor, he noted that Murdoch was accusing Cable of “acute bias” over the bid.
Osborne later texted Hunt: “I hope you like our solution”, shortly before Downing Street’s announcement that Hunt had been given charge for the bid.
Such revelatory messages place further pressure on Leveson to call the chancellor to give evidence before the Inquiry.
Elsewhere in an intense morning of evidence, Hunt defended his handling of the bid, saying he was .”sympathetic” to it rather than “supportive” of it”, and repeated his defence that he did not feel it presented a “major plurality” issue.
Hunt confirmed he received legal advice in November 2010 urging him that it would be “unwise” to intervene. Yet, explaining a memo he sent to David Cameron in the same month, in which he told the PM that it would be “totally wrong to cave in” to the bid’s opponents, Hunt said he had concerns about a situation “where we had a significant merger in my sector” that was encountering obstacles, adding that he sought to be “absolutely proper” in his approach.
“I had an absolute duty to be across the most important issue in that industry,” Hunt said.
He also defended as “appropriate” his 16 November phone call with James Murdoch, despite having received legal advice to avoid becoming involved in News Corp’s bid. Hunt told the Inquiry he “heard what was on his [Murdoch’s] mind.”
“I probably gave him a sympathetic hearing but I probably said I couldn’t get involved in that decision because I had taken legal advice that I couldn’t,” Hunt said.
A meeting between the two was cancelled the day before, following the legal advice, with Hunt explaining he did not see the telephone call as a replacement. “My interpretation of the advice was that I should not involve myself in a quasi-judicial process that’s being run by another secretary of state [Cable].”
Discussing the high level of contact revealed by the Inquiry last month between Hunt’s former adviser Adam Smith and News Corp lobbyist Fred Michel, Hunt said his department was not prepared for the “barrage” of messages from Michel.
“I doubt there’s a minister who worked more closely with a special adviser than I worked with Adam Smith,” Hunt said, explaining that Smith, who resigned in the wake of the revelations, was aware of his views but this did not mean he spoke for him.
He added that Smith was never given instructions on how to deal with News Corp. He repeatedly referred to the adviser as an “official point of contact” to answer questions on the bid process. He rejected counsel Robert Jay QC’s suggestion that the Michel-Smith contact — which included over 1,000 text messages over the course of the bid — was an “extra layer”.
The Labour party has since upped the volume on its calls for Hunt to resign, arguing he was not the “impartial arbiter” he was required to be.
Hunt has maintained he acted properly and within the ministerial code. David Cameron said last week he did not regret handing the bid to Hunt, stressing he acted “impartially”, but has said he will take action if evidence to the Inquiry suggests Hunt breached the code.
The Inquiry continues with further evidence from Hunt this afternoon.
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