Cabinet Ministers’ meetings with News International revealed
You may remember how Rupert Murdoch made something in his evidence to the Select Committee about how David Cameron had him into No. 10 almost before he’d unpacked his own belongings.
“I was invited within days to have a cup of tea and to be thanked by Mr Cameron,” Rupert Murdoch said, making the whole thing sound like a church volunteer being thanked by the vicar for particularly colourful flower-arranging.
Well, now we know who else saw him before they’d fully unpacked, straight after the General Election.
The Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, squeezed a dinner in with Rupert Murdoch and other News Corporation execs in May 2010 (to be followed by eight more meetings of one kind of another with Team Murdoch members in the next twelve months).
The Culture Secretary has a number of responsibilties that the Murdochs would have been interested to discuss, but remember until Christmas 2010 they did not include responsibility for the BSkyB bid. That resided with Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, until the Daily Telegraph recorded his private thoughts.
So did Rupert beat a path to Vince Cable’s door straight after the General Election? Not a bit of it. Vince’s list is a Murdoch-free zone with only a chat with The Times’ editor and a Sunday Times Business lunch on the News International account.
George Osborne has had 17 meetings with Rupert Murdoch and/or Murdoch team members (compared with 21 for David Cameron). Ahead of publication, the Chancellor said he would be happy to talk about the list of meetings, but it was published on the Treasury website just after interviews he gave to broadcasters today on the GDP figure, so he was cruelly cheated of the opportunity.
The other Cabinet Minister who has been particularly in demand with the Murdochs is Michael Gove. He was, of course, once an employee of NI at The Times (fondly remembered as line manager by Ed Miliband’s strategy chief Tom Baldwin).
The Education Secretary, no doubt unwittingly, has misinterpreted the rubric of the exercise and inserted a lot of political correspondents he met since the election. If he stripped them out of the list I think he might be shocked at just how much time he spends in the company of newspaper proprietors: Rupert Murdoch (7 times), the Rothermeres (3 times) and Evgeny Lebedev (once).
These lists do not, of course, help us with the content of the meetings and exclude phone calls.
There are 5 comments on this post
Gary,
I’m willing to bet Cleggy Vince was silly enough to mouth off his contempt openly for the Murdochs long before the Telegraph blew the gaff. Which would mean almost certainly Rupert and the Metrognome got to know too. Which in the ruling circumstances would mean his days were numbered, as indeed it transpired. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the hapless Cable was stretched and broken by design.
Now here’s a conspiratorial thought:what if Rupe and co. set up Saint Vincent and the daft old codger walked straight into it? Imagination too far, probably, but not inconceivable knowing what we know now and continue to uncover.
There’s a political novel in this, Gary. Get cracking……..
Most important issue in domestic politics is THE ECONOMY!
Deliberate stagnation is cutting away the revenues of NI across Europe & N America. UK is the worst performer because of coalition choices.
Just as it is for all UK TV channels.
Any Party that looks credible to Murdoch on THE ECONOMY will likely get his support.
In that case, is there a sporting chance he might pack up his bags in the UK and depart?
Until they tell us what gets discussed at these meetings the whole thing is a pointless exercise. We already know they meet, what we want to know is why. Why is any one large business owner (especialy one in the media) in a position of influence with govt so often and so easily.
Frankly, with the number of meetings he has with so many different ministers, I am surprised Murdoch ever has time to run News Corp. Unless of course he’s doing it from an office in No.10.
Gary, it would be interesting to know how many of these cabinet ministers had meetings with trade union leaders, who represent many of the key workers in this country.
My instinct tells me it might be as low as nil but I’m willing to be pleasantly surprised.