Leveson: Credulity stretched to breaking point

In an enthralling week at the Leveson Inquiry, a “bonus” column from Raymond Snoddy takes stock of Rupert Murdoch’s testimony and considers where next. “We can look forward to Leveson causing even more headlines and further pandemonium when Hunt and Cameron appear before him and take the oath.”

At the end of the most dramatic week in the life of the Leveson inquiry two big questions remained unresolved.

Who was really responsible for the cover-up of the phone hacking scandal at the News of the World and will the Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt manage to hang on to his job?

We now at least know for a fact that there was a cover-up – something everyone suspected anyway, but Rupert Murdoch said on Thursday that is what happened. The slight problem is there is absolutely no agreement on who was responsible.

According to Rupert Murdoch it was all the fault of a clever lawyer who drank with the journalists and possibly an editor and the truth had been kept from him, his son James and even the then News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks.

It didn’t take long for the “clever lawyer” in the shape of Tom Crone to surface and denounce Rupert Murdoch for telling “a shameful lie” about both himself and former News of the World editor Colin Myler. “It is perhaps no coincidence that the two people he has identified in relation to his cover-up allegations are the same two people who pointed out that his son’s evidence to the Parliamentary Select Committee last year was inaccurate,” Crone said in a statement. At Leveson this week James Murdoch repeated his assertion that he had not been told about the extent of the hacking.

Now Lord Justice Leveson must determine who is telling the truth. He would be greatly helped if Rupert Murdoch were to decide to waive client privilege and publish the work of law firm Burton Copeland which worked on the original phone-hacking investigation.

At the end of a week of startling evidence, could Lord Leveson have ever imagined just how much pandemonium he would cause in the media, the police and politics when he embarked on his inquiry. And always it has been the unexpected that has driven the agenda.

Everyone of course was interested in hearing how James Murdoch would cope with the forensic questioning of Robert Jay QC on phone-hacking and assorted matters – the bombs under the newsroom. The real bombs that exploded in the face of Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt were the hundreds of pages of emails between the Department of Media Culture and Sport and News International over BSkyB. They could yet cost Hunt his job.

It is difficult to judge whether the inevitable removal of Hunt’s special adviser Adam Smith will be sacrifice enough.

But apart from mayhem of the first order what have we really learnt about phone-hacking and the relationship between the media and politicians from the remarkable appearances of both James and Rupert Murdoch before the Leveson inquiry?

On phone-hacking, apart from the admission of a cover-up, we now know that Rupert Murdoch does not approve of either phone-hacking or the hiring of private detectives and that the hacking scandal would be “a blot on my reputation for the rest of my life.”

There is also a reinforced impression that both Murdochs fail to recall many things – events, meetings, dinners of real substance where most people might be able to summon up at least a vague memory trace. Unlike his father James does not have the excuse of old age for the amnesia.

We all assumed that James would stick to his guns that he had not read to the bottom of a trail of emails that culminated in the allegation that phone hacking had been rife at the News of the World. Equally he could not have reasonably been expected to go back on his previous testimony before the Commons Select Committee that Crone and Myler had not drawn his attention to the seriousness of the matter whatever they might say now. We must all now make up our own minds on whether James Murdoch and his father were telling the truth. As the quietly spoken but persistent Jay put it to James there are only two options left: either there was a cover-up or there was a massive failure of governance.

There is actually a third option highlighted by Lord Leveson himself – a massive failure of curiosity on the part of James Murdoch. In the wake of the vast sum paid to Graham Taylor of the Professional Footballer’s Association after his phone was hacked Lord Leveson wanted to know why James Murdoch had not inquired how the whole thing had come about. Answer came there none and the incompetence theory gathered weight.

It was added to when Robert Jay asked whether he regularly read the News of the World. “From time to time,” was the answer. The Sun? “I familiarise myself with its content”, he replied.

When asked why he had listed the Mosley “torture” chamber story in an in-house publication as one of the great News of the World stories, James Murdoch had to admit that he hadn’t read the story the whole way through.

It’s the detail that counts. James Murdoch while executive chairman of News International did not read in any sustained way, and possibly hardly at all, the two popular titles that brought in most of N.I. revenues.

James Murdoch’s politicking was revealed as being rather more extensive than previously realised. With Rebekah Brooks, James Murdoch decided that The Sun should back Cameron and the Conservatives in the last election although the issue was discussed with Murdoch senior. The fact that the Conservatives were expected to win and News Corporation was planning a bid for the part of BSkyB it did not already own obviously had nothing whatever to do with it. The timing of the bid one month after the general election was, according to Rupert, a coincidence. James had earlier told the inquiry they waited until then to avoid being tangled up with a general election campaign.

Rupert Murdoch confirmed earlier reports that when the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown was told of The Sun’s volte face he threatened to declare war on News Corp, an allegation Gordon Brown insists is totally wrong. No such conversation ever took place the former Prime Minister says.

Rupert Murdoch also confirmed that on big policy issues he told the editors of the News of the World and The Sun but not the Times or the Sunday Times what line to take.

From Robert Jay’s meander down memory lane in the search for how media organisations seek to use power to extract commercial favours from politicians we have a number of clear statements from Rupert Murdoch. He said he has never asked politicians for anything in his life – probably because he doesn’t have to. The politicians know the rules of the influence game. Yet he did ask to meet Mrs Thatcher in 1981 when he was  trying to take over The Times and The Sunday Times, but he certainly didn’t ask that the deal should avoid a reference to the Competition Commission. Yet much to the surprise of most people involved at the time that was exactly the outcome. If not to gain commercial advantage what were all those prime ministerial meetings about?

Credulity was repeatedly stretched to breaking point. It was also completely wrong that he said the editorial undertakings given to get the deal through “were not worth the paper they were written on.” It was totally untrue that he identifies political winners and jumps on the bandwagon, as has been widely alleged. After all the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal opposed the election of President Obama the media mogul noted.

“I am a curious person who is interested in the great issues of the day and I am not good at holding my tongue,” Murdoch told Leveson.

While that is true, Rupert Murdoch has always had an unerring instinct for where his commercial interests lie.

At least Murdoch senior has given up on attacking the BBC mainly because he has lost faith in politicians of all political parties to tackle what he sees as a grievous problem.

“All Prime Ministers hate the BBC and then give them everything they want,” claimed Murdoch straying momentarily off message.

What of Jeremy Hunt now? Great political embarrassment over the political adviser who went too far. Hunt, described this week by Times journalist Camilla Cavendish as “wilfully naïve” will probably survive because he will be able to show he did follow due process in the examination of the actual bid. For now at least he has the support of Prime Minister Cameron. The pressure is however growing, not least because of the call by Simon Hughes, the deputy chairman of the Liberal Democrats for an inquiry into whether the Culture Secretary broke the ministerial code. Hunt is in serious trouble if it is shown that he in any way authorised the leaking of the outcome of his BSkyB investigation to NI two days before it was announced in the Commons. The Financial Services Authority is also very interested in the issue.

Clearly according to the laws of politics the Prime Minister will protect Hunt until such a time that he feels he is no longer able to do so.

Now we can look forward to Leveson causing even more headlines and further pandemonium when Hunt and Cameron appear before him and take the oath.