A marriage born of true love. I also hear Rupert is a big fan of Anime
Saturday was a little sleepy but Sunday brought yet more big news stories. This fits with a favoured strategy of getting as much bad news out of the way as quickly as possible but as we will see there is so much bad news out there the Murdochs may well be sacrificed to save News Corp.
However the biggest story today has been the arrest of Rebekah Brooks. Conveniently this occurred just two days after she quite as the CEO of News International but as her PR firm were at pains to make clear, she had no idea she was to be arrested today when she went in for questioning. Given just a week ago she was in charge of the internal investigation News Corp was holding on the phone hacking scandal this doesn't look good for them or any of her politician friends. Do be wary of the Robert Peston quotes in that article though, he is a News Corporation man that just happens to be working for the BBC.
Brooks' arrest is fortuitous in that it will likely prevent her from giving evidence to a the select committee on Tuesday but it is even more fortuitous for Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson who appears to be as corrupt as all hell. The close connection between senior Metropolitan Police officers at the heart of the phone scandal and News Corporation was mentioned by me yesterday but this morning brought revelations of numerous official and private meetings between the police and a senior News Corporation employee. This was followed just hours later by a further revelation that Commissioner Stephenson took a £12 000 spa holiday for free.
In such a situation an embattled Police Commissioner might just push for a headline grabbing arrest that need not result in a solid conviction, just give him some breathing room. Heck if he is really in News Corporation's pocket a "botched" arrest now could save her from punishment in the future.
Still if Brooks does end up facing the Select Committee on Tuesday things might not be so bad as has been made out. The Independent exclusively revealed that the Chairman of the committee has very close links with News Corporation too! While he may be trustworthy on this matter one can't help but ask questions about things such as this (quoted from this article I'll get on to in a moment)
Committee members preparing to grill the trio are to be given legal advice on the morning of the hearing on how far they can push the News Corp boss and his son for answers. The committee's chairman, the Tory MP John Whittingdale, has asked for details of their lines of questioning to avoid duplication.
While certainly duplicated lines of questioning would be a bad thing, one has to hopes his links to News Corp don't mean that Murdoch father and son (and maybe Mrs Brooks too) aren't forewarned.
Still everything does not seem to be going the Murdoch's way of late. It would seem, at least at this point, News Corporation isn't really at that much risk, its' most profitable arms and ventures are yet to be touched by the scandal, but Murdoch control of the company does seem to be looking weaker. There is no place for sentimentality in business so the fact he built the empire from scratch will count for little. Still there is no guarantee without him at the helm sailing will be as smooth and even with Rupert gone it is likely in the short term at least politicians in the US and definitely the UK wont want to appear to close to the Corp. Furthermore every indication is Rupert wont fall easy if they try to usurp him and that could cause a great deal of damage before he is gone.
Indeed Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour party is now in a do or die struggle against News Corporation and is smart enough to realise it. Breaking up News International is not a new policy, Neil Kinnock tried it in 1992 , which lead to The Sun fighting an all out war against him. With the Sun claiming "It was The Sun wot won it!" for the uninspiring John Major in the general election that year. This time around popular opinion is definitely on Miliband's side. His victory in this is far from assured but if he loses his political career is over and Rupert Murdoch hardly needs an enemy that motivated with the public backing at this point in time.
If you are interested in how much Miliband has benefited from his strong opposition to Murdoch this interview is worth a read. While they're definitely slanted to favour Miliband there are some interesting examples of just how much influence News Corporation papers had in the UK (and likely still do elsewhere).
I hope I haven't missed anything. This looks like it is going to be another interesting week for News Corporation and the Murdochs.
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