NEWS CORP WITHDRAW BID FOR BSKYB

[DRFC-PERKINS]

Can only be good news for me.

[5minstogo]

Can only be good news for me.

Why? Are you bidding too?

[RedJ]

Great success. I wonder though, how long until Dave and old Rupey just do it behind closed doors..

[DRFC-PERKINS]

Maybe they have done anyway? Murdoch is still Chairman of Board of Directors, so there is a long way to go yet.

[RedJ]

Maybe they have done anyway? Murdoch is still Chairman of Board of Directors, so there is a long way to go yet.

I can see that slimy bas**rd doing exactly that. I really could see them doing it on the hush a few months down the line.

[Hounslowrover]

Not a few months, a few years time more likely, especially if the Tories win the next election.  News Corp papers will still probably support the Tories at the next election as Miliband is definitely persona non grata!

[herouk87]

Can only be good news for me.

Why? Are you bidding too?

[LuckyGirl]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/13/lord-justice-leveson-profile-hacking

The enquiry is set to have a wide remit covering newspapers, police and politicians. Few politicians can genuinly use the phrase 'I told you so' but they are all now coming out against Murdoch. The enquiry is also to look at News International and decide if they are 'fit and proper persons' to have ownership/control of news media.

I doubt the enquiry will get near the full truth of the corruptness and criminality involved but since their first stage is expected to take a year and there is a second phase to follow which is likely to take yet another year it will, I'm pleased to believe, be at least 2 years before Murdoch starts his chase again.

If you are interested Radio 4 on PM today is worth a listen. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012fcyt/PM_12_07_2011/

[The Red Baron]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/13/lord-justice-leveson-profile-hacking

The enquiry is set to have a wide remit covering newspapers, police and politicians. Few politicians can genuinly use the phrase 'I told you so' but they are all now coming out against Murdoch. The enquiry is also to look at News International and decide if they are 'fit and proper persons' to have ownership/control of news media.

I doubt the enquiry will get near the full truth of the corruptness and criminality involved but since their first stage is expected to take a year and there is a second phase to follow which is likely to take yet another year it will, I'm pleased to believe, be at least 2 years before Murdoch starts his chase again.

If you are interested Radio 4 on PM today is worth a listen. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012fcyt/PM_12_07_2011/

While I wouldn't seek to justify the activities of certain journalists and editors, I have found the attitude of most politicians hypocritical in the extreme. I guess a few scores are being settled, not least for the expenses scandal.

[BillyStubbsTears]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/13/lord-justice-leveson-profile-hacking

The enquiry is set to have a wide remit covering newspapers, police and politicians. Few politicians can genuinly use the phrase 'I told you so' but they are all now coming out against Murdoch. The enquiry is also to look at News International and decide if they are 'fit and proper persons' to have ownership/control of news media.

I doubt the enquiry will get near the full truth of the corruptness and criminality involved but since their first stage is expected to take a year and there is a second phase to follow which is likely to take yet another year it will, I'm pleased to believe, be at least 2 years before Murdoch starts his chase again.

If you are interested Radio 4 on PM today is worth a listen. http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b012fcyt/PM_12_07_2011/

While I wouldn't seek to justify the activities of certain journalists and editors, I have found the attitude of most politicians hypocritical in the extreme. I guess a few scores are being settled, not least for the expenses scandal.

Hypocritical? Easy to say now that the world has been chucked upside down. Easy now to say that politicians should have stood up to Murdoch.

Trouble is, for 30 years, Murdoch has held the power to destroy political careers. look at what his papers have done to politicians who stood up against him. Chris Bryant, Tom Watson and others who dared take him on have been strugn up and skewered by The Sun and NOTW on a regular basis.

So it's easy to blame politicians for lacking principles in sucking up to him - any politician who wanted to get to a position in which they could influence events HAD to do.

What politicians (led by Miliband whether you like it or not) have done, is to consumately get their timing right. They've waited until Murdoch slipped and then rushed to stick the knives in. Miliband showed superb political nous in being the first to realise that the Milly Dowler issue had seriously wounded Murdoch. He showed both great judgement and high political bravery in leading the call for NI to be slapped down.

It's unpleasant that it took the hacking of a dead girl's phone to open up the opportunity. But NO-ONE could have brought Murdoch down before the Milly Dowler affair. Anyone taking him on before he was damaged would have been savaged by his press - it would have been political suicide.

Thought experiment for you. If Brown had ignored the advice of the Cabinet Office and staged an enquiry into Murdoch in Feb 2010, How would the Murdoch press have responded? They would have crucified him on the front page of the Sun every day from Feb to election day. Similarly, had Blair taken Murdoch on and faced him down in the late 90s, he'd have been a one-term PM. The Murdoch press would have run a drip-drip anti-Labour line just like they did in the 80s when Kinnock refused to lick Murdoch's arse.

I don't like the fact that politicians played it pragmatically any more than you do. But I understand WHY they did it.

THAT was the obscenity - that one man (not even a Brit) could wield so much power over the democratic process. The big thing to come out of this last 2 weeks is that this spell is broken forever now. Me, I've been waiting for this moment pretty much all my adult life - the moment we could get this bas**rds's grip on British politics broken. We might finally get a healthier democracy now.

[The Red Baron]

Don't get me wrong- I'm happy to see Murdoch's stranglehold on the UK media broken at last. My concern is the fallout and how the enquiries will go. If they focus on the issue of media ownership- preventing a situation where one individual or comglomorate gets a dominant position in the national media, that will be excellent news. However, if the enquiry focuses too much on journalistic practice, then we may end up with a much worse press than we have now. In order to investigate wrongdoing, journalists sometimes have to use methods whose ethics, even legality, can at times be questionable. Let's hope those setting up and running the various enquiries have the sense to realise what is really important here. The current crop of politicians and judges we have don't fill me with confidence.