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For decades, one man has wielded extraordinary power in Britain. | :00:12. | :00:16. | |
Murdoch had complete control over parliament, the Government and, I | :00:16. | :00:21. | |
am sorry to say, the police. They murdered schoolgirl threatens to | :00:21. | :00:25. | |
destroy his power after the News of the World was forced to admit it | :00:25. | :00:30. | |
hacked into her voicemail and deleted messages. That suddenly | :00:30. | :00:34. | |
struck people as disgusting, I think that was the end of it for | :00:34. | :00:44. | |
:00:44. | :00:45. | ||
After two weeks of revelations, resignations, apologies and arrests, | :00:45. | :00:52. | |
Rupert Murdoch is fighting to save his reputation. Shame on you | :00:52. | :00:56. | |
exclamation this will prove to have been the biggest scandal in British | :00:56. | :01:06. | |
:01:06. | :01:17. | ||
politics for the best part of 75 Was it really only five weeks ago? | :01:17. | :01:21. | |
What a swell evening it was, when some of the most powerful people in | :01:21. | :01:31. | |
Britain got together for the News International Summer Party. Turn to | :01:31. | :01:33. | |
your right and she would see a bishop, to your right, David | :01:33. | :01:41. | |
Cameron, straight ahead, Ed Balls, Ed Miliband. Everybody there, | :01:41. | :01:46. | |
naturally, paid court to Rupert Murdoch, Britain's most powerful | :01:47. | :01:53. | |
media baron. Ed Miliband came in with two or | :01:53. | :01:56. | |
three advisers, I spoke to him and one of the advisers was clearly | :01:56. | :02:02. | |
looking very anxious, it was clear he had to meet Rupert Murdoch. | :02:02. | :02:06. | |
But the world of News International was threatened. The phone hacking | :02:06. | :02:12. | |
scandal was closing in. One party guest said so in the House of Lords. | :02:12. | :02:15. | |
Isn't it the case that the editor is responsible as to what goes in | :02:15. | :02:19. | |
the newspaper, and therefore he also should be given a custodial | :02:19. | :02:24. | |
sentence and, indeed, the proprietor and board of directors? | :02:24. | :02:29. | |
So when he arrived for the summer party, Lord Sugar was told, you are | :02:29. | :02:37. | |
fired. He was asked to leave. But everyone else stayed on and no | :02:37. | :02:43. | |
one's spirits were dampened when the weather suddenly changed. | :02:43. | :02:48. | |
The world looks so different now. In the last fortnight, public | :02:48. | :02:52. | |
opinion and the entire British political establishment have | :02:52. | :02:57. | |
rounded on News International. Tomorrow, Rupert Murdoch, his St | :02:57. | :03:01. | |
James and Rebekah Brooks - who, until Friday, was considered almost | :03:01. | :03:05. | |
family - will have to face the music before a House of Commons | :03:05. | :03:15. | |
:03:15. | :03:16. | ||
Over Sydney Harbour Bridge by Rolls Royce, Rupert Murdoch on his way to | :03:16. | :03:20. | |
his office. A Rupert Murdoch's first step | :03:20. | :03:26. | |
towards building his global empire began when as a 37 year-old | :03:26. | :03:29. | |
Australian newspaperman he bought the News of the World. Will the | :03:29. | :03:33. | |
paper had any political orientation, like the Sun and the day the | :03:33. | :03:38. | |
Herald? No fixed orientation in the sense of being allied to any party, | :03:38. | :03:44. | |
it will be quite independent. he bought the Sun, the Times and | :03:44. | :03:48. | |
the Sunday Times. It is a fantastic benefit he brought to the newspaper | :03:48. | :03:52. | |
industry, freeing up the ability for newspapers to come alive. | :03:52. | :03:57. | |
Beyond that, he subsidises the Times, which loses about �50 | :03:58. | :04:01. | |
million a year. Very few people would suggest the British media | :04:01. | :04:07. | |
would be better off if the Times did not exist. | :04:07. | :04:11. | |
Having built a huge stake in the British press, he made his move | :04:11. | :04:19. | |
into TV by launching the pay-TV satellite station Sky. February 5th, | :04:19. | :04:23. | |
1989, the dawn of the new-age. Competition law could have stopped | :04:24. | :04:29. | |
him from owning a TV station and newspapers, but the then | :04:29. | :04:32. | |
Conservative government waved it through. Margaret Thatcher gave | :04:32. | :04:36. | |
Murdoch power in return for his unqualified support, leaving a | :04:36. | :04:42. | |
legacy of 40% of the British media controlled by Rupert Murdoch. She | :04:42. | :04:46. | |
delivered into his hands power which he has pretty ruthlessly used | :04:46. | :04:50. | |
down the years which means most prime ministers have conducted | :04:50. | :04:57. | |
their dialogue with Murdoch from their knees. Murdoch is about money, | :04:57. | :05:01. | |
with money comes power. That power and influence to get you to do | :05:01. | :05:06. | |
things. If you fear him, and fear is that the background, if you fear | :05:06. | :05:12. | |
him, that gives them a great deal of incident -- of influence. | :05:13. | :05:18. | |
Rupert Murdoch has which political support between parties in Britain, | :05:18. | :05:22. | |
-- has switched his political support between parties in Britain | :05:22. | :05:27. | |
but has been consistent in backing his own commercial interest. | :05:27. | :05:31. | |
Everybody understood that he is a businessman, he wants certain | :05:31. | :05:36. | |
things and has done this in America, Australia and the UK. He backs the | :05:36. | :05:43. | |
people who will be most congenial to his business. | :05:43. | :05:51. | |
Sky TV was merged into a 39% stake in BSkyB, and Mr Murdoch's ambition | :05:51. | :05:56. | |
until last week was to take it over completely. Its annual revenue of | :05:56. | :06:01. | |
nearly �6 billion easily outstrips the BBC licence fee. The former | :06:01. | :06:04. | |
Prime Minister says that was just part of a wider plan that he | :06:04. | :06:09. | |
opposed and paid the price for. News International has an agenda | :06:09. | :06:14. | |
about the BBC, an agenda to neuter the regulatory organisation Ofcom. | :06:14. | :06:19. | |
Partly because we refused to go along with some of their commercial | :06:19. | :06:22. | |
proposals purely in the interest of their company, News International | :06:22. | :06:30. | |
did not find they could support Labour at the last election. | :06:30. | :06:35. | |
But Murdoch's Newspapers could exercise power in another way, by | :06:35. | :06:40. | |
the power of scandal. Stories about people's private lives could | :06:40. | :06:44. | |
destroy reputations and careers. they turned on you, they could be | :06:44. | :06:50. | |
very nasty indeed. They had a lot of power, money and resources at | :06:50. | :06:54. | |
their disposal to analyse people, to follow people and intimidate | :06:54. | :07:00. | |
people. In 1992 it seemed the Liberal | :07:01. | :07:04. | |
Democrats, led by Paddy Ashdown, had a chance of holding the balance | :07:04. | :07:12. | |
of power. A vote for Labour and the Tories, they are the real waisted | :07:12. | :07:15. | |
votes win this election. As the election campaign was about to | :07:15. | :07:21. | |
start, the sun broke the story that Paddy Ashdown had had an affair. -- | :07:21. | :07:26. | |
the Sun broke the story. It also reported a burglary at the offices | :07:26. | :07:31. | |
of Paddy Ashdown's solicitor. All that was taken was a small amount | :07:31. | :07:35. | |
of cash and a private note detailing the affair. It was such a | :07:35. | :07:39. | |
professional job but Paddy Ashdown's solicitor did not know | :07:39. | :07:45. | |
they had been a breakdown until -- a break-in until a lawyer from News | :07:45. | :07:48. | |
International phone to say they had been given the document and they | :07:48. | :07:55. | |
had to check it was genuine. It was. The story was published. It is my | :07:55. | :07:58. | |
view that this brief relationship of five years ago is and always | :07:58. | :08:04. | |
should have remained a private and personal matter. A burglar with a | :08:04. | :08:08. | |
long record was later convicted of handling stolen property. He | :08:08. | :08:14. | |
explained he passed the NOTA the Sun's sister paper the News of the | :08:14. | :08:20. | |
World. -- he passed the note to the son's sister paper the News of the | :08:21. | :08:24. | |
World. Within parts of Murdoch's News of | :08:25. | :08:28. | |
the World, relying on law-breaking to get his story seems to have been | :08:28. | :08:35. | |
widely accepted. A book published in 2008 revealed some trade secrets. | :08:35. | :08:39. | |
I was amazed by the ingenuity of these guys in trying to find out | :08:39. | :08:44. | |
anything they could about people without asking or doing so in a | :08:44. | :08:50. | |
direct and very often legal way, they found ways around the law, all | :08:51. | :08:55. | |
evidently did not think the law mattered too much. They did not | :08:55. | :09:00. | |
seem concerned as long as what they had would do the job, they would | :09:00. | :09:08. | |
get on with it. This sports reporter was delighted | :09:08. | :09:12. | |
to get a job on the News of the World in the 1990s. When I was | :09:12. | :09:17. | |
finally offered a staff job it was a superb moment in my career. It | :09:17. | :09:22. | |
was the biggest paper, read by the most people, a paper that could do | :09:22. | :09:27. | |
things no other paper could. chief northern sports writer, one | :09:27. | :09:31. | |
of his key tasks was to report everything that he could about | :09:31. | :09:37. | |
Manchester United's tough box -- tough boss Alex Ferguson. Matt had | :09:37. | :09:41. | |
heard Fergie was ill and might retire. He could not stand it up | :09:42. | :09:47. | |
and asked for help. Within a few hours or a day, I got a phone call | :09:47. | :09:52. | |
saying, we have his medical records in the office. I was a bit | :09:52. | :09:57. | |
surprised. Up to that point in my career I had never been in a | :09:57. | :10:01. | |
newspaper that could suddenly gain someone's medical records that | :10:01. | :10:07. | |
easily. And that swiftly. I was told down the phone up the story | :10:07. | :10:14. | |
was true, he has recently had to go to hospital to have various cheques. | :10:14. | :10:20. | |
The medical terminology was read out. Did you think it was legal? | :10:20. | :10:24. | |
certainly thought it was wrong. When they contacted him, Alex | :10:24. | :10:29. | |
Ferguson apparently blew his top. The story never appeared and he is | :10:29. | :10:34. | |
still on top of his game. The News of the World used private | :10:35. | :10:43. | |
detectives and illegal methods against any one. Even royalty. | :10:43. | :10:47. | |
They hacked into the phone messages of Prince William and quoted their | :10:47. | :10:54. | |
word for word. For a brief moment in 2007, the culture of criminality | :10:54. | :11:00. | |
was exposed. Private detective Glenn Mulcaire and the News of the | :11:00. | :11:04. | |
World's royal correspondent Clive Goodman were jailed and disgraced. | :11:04. | :11:08. | |
News International insisted Clive Goodman was a rogue report and it | :11:08. | :11:12. | |
went no wider. A blind man in a very dark room can see the official | :11:12. | :11:17. | |
version of events does not make sense. Nick Davis and the Guardian | :11:17. | :11:21. | |
newspaper believed there was a cover up from the start. Glenn | :11:21. | :11:24. | |
Mulcaire had pleaded guilty to hacking into five phones of none | :11:24. | :11:29. | |
royals, too. Who had ordered him to do that, how many other names were | :11:29. | :11:34. | |
in his notebooks? A private investigator, working full-time for | :11:34. | :11:38. | |
the News of the World, but apparently hacking voicemail for a | :11:38. | :11:42. | |
hobby? Just because he had time on his hands? He was working 80 hours | :11:42. | :11:47. | |
a week for the paper, of course he was doing it for them. What was so | :11:47. | :11:52. | |
sickening about the official version of events was not just that | :11:52. | :11:55. | |
News International chose to lie to us about it but that the police | :11:55. | :12:00. | |
allowed them to get away with it. Andy Coulson, the News of the | :12:00. | :12:03. | |
World's editor, resigned, but denied any knowledge of phone | :12:03. | :12:08. | |
hacking. Within a few months he was hired by | :12:08. | :12:14. | |
David Cameron and went with him to Number Ten. Critics say this was a | :12:14. | :12:18. | |
huge political misjudgment. I find it quite extraordinary that David | :12:18. | :12:23. | |
Cameron, despite all the informal, off-the-record advice that he must | :12:23. | :12:27. | |
have been given by all and sundry, went ahead and made that | :12:27. | :12:31. | |
appointment. But there was a small group of people who have no fear of | :12:31. | :12:39. | |
News International. -- who had no fear. A Manchester solicitor called | :12:39. | :12:44. | |
Mark Lewis set the ball rolling. It happened that one of the non royals | :12:44. | :12:48. | |
who had their phone hacked into was already a client of his, Gordon | :12:48. | :12:53. | |
Taylor of the Professional Football Association. I had a conversation | :12:53. | :12:58. | |
with one of the detectives, he told me there was something like 6000 | :12:58. | :13:04. | |
victims. He would give me enough to hang them and that they did not | :13:04. | :13:09. | |
need everything, he would just give me the papers on Gordon Taylor. And | :13:09. | :13:12. | |
the papers were sufficient to succeed and to obtain a settlement | :13:12. | :13:20. | |
on behalf of Gordon Taylor. We now know that to settle the case | :13:20. | :13:24. | |
before it reached open court, the News of the World paid out around | :13:24. | :13:28. | |
�700,000, hundreds of thousands more than Gordon Taylor would | :13:28. | :13:33. | |
otherwise have won. But at the time, the confidential settlement ensured | :13:33. | :13:37. | |
that no one learned any more about who had ordered the phone hacking | :13:37. | :13:40. | |
to take place. And the payment was signed off from | :13:40. | :13:45. | |
the very top. There was a particular settlement | :13:45. | :13:50. | |
that I authorised, and I have said it was made with information that | :13:50. | :13:55. | |
was in complete, I acted on the advice of executives and lawyers. | :13:56. | :13:59. | |
There was in complete investigation, which is a matter of real personal | :13:59. | :14:03. | |
regret for me. MPs will tomorrow want to ask, was | :14:03. | :14:10. | |
James Murdoch involved in a cover- By quietly settling the first civil | :14:10. | :14:14. | |
cases, News International appeared to have kept many of the facts | :14:14. | :14:20. | |
about phone hacking out of public view. It was up his point that Nick | :14:20. | :14:26. | |
Davis from the Guardian broke the story open. -- it was at this point. | :14:26. | :14:32. | |
The story published in 2009 quoted police sources who had access to | :14:32. | :14:35. | |
the material collected by the first inquiry, they were saying there | :14:35. | :14:40. | |
were not just eight victims, there were, quote, thousands. 48 hours | :14:41. | :14:44. | |
after we published the first story, News International made a statement | :14:44. | :14:48. | |
accusing us of lying to the British people. What I am about to give you | :14:48. | :14:52. | |
his copies of an e-mail... Nick Davis appear before a Commons | :14:52. | :14:56. | |
committee, producing new evidence that News International still seem | :14:56. | :15:03. | |
to survive unscathed. The strategy has been simple, they deny | :15:03. | :15:06. | |
everything unless they are compelled by evidence in the public | :15:06. | :15:09. | |
domain to change their story and admit something, then they admit | :15:09. | :15:14. | |
that little thing and carry on lying about everything else. | :15:14. | :15:16. | |
And Assistant Commissioner John Yates insisted there was no need to | :15:17. | :15:25. | |
reopen the phone hacking MPs later condemned News | :15:25. | :15:28. | |
International witnesses for their collective amnesia, but Mark Lewis, | :15:28. | :15:32. | |
who gave evidence as well, says that some were still nervous of | :15:32. | :15:37. | |
their power. Afterwards, two of the committee members came after me and | :15:38. | :15:42. | |
said, you are so brave to be able to stand up to Murdoch and say that | :15:42. | :15:47. | |
he does not scare you. I just thought to myself, crikey, you are | :15:47. | :15:52. | |
the people who declare war in my name and you are saying that I am | :15:52. | :15:56. | |
brave because I have taken on Rupert Murdoch. You are meant to do | :15:56. | :16:04. | |
In New York, where the Murdoch group is based, the hacking scandal | :16:04. | :16:07. | |
could easily be dismissed as no more than a little local difficulty | :16:07. | :16:12. | |
from across the pond. Why would the global media giant Rupert Murdoch | :16:12. | :16:17. | |
need to worry? He is the most powerful person in the Media | :16:17. | :16:23. | |
Business in the world. I do not think the company for Murdoch | :16:23. | :16:28. | |
himself really feel part of any place but News Corporation, has so | :16:28. | :16:33. | |
it is a state within a state. New York is also home to a rival | :16:33. | :16:36. | |
paper with a long record of investigations and a desire to | :16:36. | :16:41. | |
uncover the truth about allegations of illegality, the heart of the | :16:41. | :16:45. | |
Murdoch empire. Pulitzer Prize winner Joe Becker was part of the | :16:45. | :16:50. | |
team that the New York Times sent to London. They told... The record | :16:50. | :16:55. | |
to more than a dozen years of the World journalists. -- they talk to | :16:55. | :17:00. | |
off the record. We heard the same story over and over again, the | :17:00. | :17:06. | |
office cat knew, everybody knew. Essentially, all of the big | :17:06. | :17:11. | |
showbusiness stories, one reporter said, came from the dark arts. And | :17:11. | :17:18. | |
they were encouraged to use them. And the New York Times got one | :17:18. | :17:21. | |
former News of the World journalists to go on the record. | :17:21. | :17:25. | |
Sean Hoare, who had quit with a drink and drugs problem, said that | :17:25. | :17:28. | |
not only had Andy Coulson known about phone-hacking he had actively | :17:28. | :17:33. | |
encouraged it. Afterwards, police in the UK questioned him, not as a | :17:33. | :17:37. | |
witness but as a suspect, and he insisted his solicitor was present | :17:37. | :17:43. | |
when he talked to us. It was endemic. You know, it happened. | :17:43. | :17:47. | |
Phone-hacking and the use of illegal practices to secure stories, | :17:47. | :17:53. | |
that was endemic? That is what you're saying? Yes. People were | :17:53. | :17:58. | |
scared, right? If you have got to get a story, you have got to get it. | :17:58. | :18:02. | |
You have to get that by whatever means. Were you subject to that | :18:02. | :18:07. | |
pressure? Yes, of course I was. I mean, that is the culture of News | :18:08. | :18:16. | |
If a couple of reporters from the New York Times can come here and | :18:16. | :18:20. | |
find reporters to tell us what is going on, it is astonishing that | :18:20. | :18:24. | |
Scotland Yard could not or did not. The police have already paid a | :18:24. | :18:29. | |
heavy price for their failure to investigate properly. Yesterday, | :18:29. | :18:32. | |
Britain's top police officer resigned and said there was no | :18:32. | :18:37. | |
impropriety in his links to a former News of the World journalist. | :18:37. | :18:45. | |
Today, Assistant Commissioner John Yates also resigned. Back in 2003, | :18:45. | :18:48. | |
News International executives were questioned in a parliamentary | :18:48. | :18:53. | |
committee about corrupting police officers. One element of whether | :18:53. | :18:56. | |
you ever paid the police for information. We have paid the | :18:56. | :19:01. | |
police for information in the past. Will he do it in the future? | :19:01. | :19:06. | |
depends on... You operate within the law, and if there is a clear | :19:06. | :19:11. | |
public interest, the same holds for subterfuge, whatever you want to | :19:11. | :19:15. | |
talk about. It is illegal for police officers to receive payments. | :19:15. | :19:21. | |
As I said, within the law. In April this year, Rebekah Brooks wrote to | :19:21. | :19:24. | |
Parliament that she was dating the widely held belief that payments | :19:24. | :19:30. | |
had been made in the past two police officers. The MP raised the | :19:30. | :19:35. | |
issue is one of the very few who have taken on Mr Murdoch. | :19:35. | :19:38. | |
relationship between the News of the World and the Metropolitan | :19:38. | :19:42. | |
Police is what I was trying to get that in 2003, and it has continued | :19:42. | :19:48. | |
to be sold are institutionally corrupting. Later that year, the | :19:48. | :19:51. | |
News of the World and the Mail on Sunday vote printed a picture of Mr | :19:52. | :19:57. | |
Bryant, who is gay, posing in his underwear. It was clearly in News | :19:57. | :20:01. | |
International's sites. On one occasion at a Labour Party | :20:01. | :20:05. | |
conference, Andrew Pierce, who was writing for the Times, took me into | :20:05. | :20:10. | |
a party, and there was Rebekah Brooks. She said, it is after dark, | :20:10. | :20:15. | |
shouldn't you be on Clapham Common? Their husband said, shut up, you | :20:15. | :20:22. | |
homophobic cow! Most people whose private lives become the stuff of a | :20:22. | :20:26. | |
tabloid splash are far too embarrassed to fight back. But the | :20:26. | :20:33. | |
former boss of Formula One did just that. Multi-millionaire Max Mosley | :20:34. | :20:37. | |
had his enjoyment of sado- masochistic sexual pastimes exposed | :20:37. | :20:41. | |
by the News of the World. He sued for the invasion of his privacy and | :20:41. | :20:46. | |
won. Once it was out and I was conscious of the fact that | :20:46. | :20:49. | |
everybody walking down the street knew this most intimate thing about | :20:50. | :20:55. | |
me, there was really no point in stopping. Occasionally, you think, | :20:55. | :20:58. | |
is this what the trouble? And then you think what they have done to | :20:58. | :21:02. | |
you and you think, if you do not do something, they are going to do the | :21:02. | :21:07. | |
same to other people. So he decided to help others to sue News | :21:07. | :21:13. | |
International over phone-hacking. If an ordinary person brings a case, | :21:13. | :21:17. | |
they have got a mortgage and their house. Even if they are very, very | :21:17. | :21:23. | |
unlikely to lose, if they did lose, they might find themselves with a | :21:23. | :21:26. | |
bill for �300,000, and that takes it out of the reach of a lot of | :21:26. | :21:31. | |
people. So what I have done in some cases is, I have said, if you do | :21:31. | :21:35. | |
lose, and I'm sure you will not, I will meet that. You have been | :21:35. | :21:40. | |
covering people's wrists in these cases? In some cases, yes. To what | :21:40. | :21:44. | |
financial extent? Well, if everything went wrong, I would | :21:44. | :21:53. | |
The civil legal actions gradually revealed the names of more News of | :21:54. | :21:59. | |
the World executives involved in phone-hacking. Mr Coulson, dr have | :21:59. | :22:04. | |
any regrets? And Andy Coulson resigned, this time from Number Ten. | :22:04. | :22:09. | |
The pressure was building. Now the police began a new investigation, | :22:09. | :22:14. | |
and a succession of arrests have followed. One by one, more and more | :22:14. | :22:17. | |
people have been told that they, too, were the victims of phone- | :22:18. | :22:25. | |
hacking. Until one name changed 13-year-old Milly Dowler went | :22:25. | :22:31. | |
missing on her way home from school nine years ago. During the search | :22:32. | :22:36. | |
for Milly, the News of the World did not just hack into her phone. | :22:36. | :22:41. | |
Finding that a voicemail was full, messages were deleted to make room | :22:41. | :22:51. | |
:22:51. | :22:51. | ||
It crossed a line, somewhere in the kind of national consciousness. | :22:51. | :22:55. | |
That is enough. You can do a bunch of other stuff, but you cannot do | :22:55. | :23:02. | |
that. Nelly's parents were told about the phone-hacking by the | :23:02. | :23:07. | |
police just before the recent trial of her killer. -- Milly. They | :23:07. | :23:13. | |
contacted solicitor Mark Lewis. of a sudden, you could see the real | :23:13. | :23:20. | |
human effect of parents who were clinging on to hope that their | :23:20. | :23:25. | |
daughter was alive, and the News of the World had given them that false | :23:25. | :23:34. | |
home. It had given them something to cling on to, that she was alive. | :23:34. | :23:37. | |
When you start hacking into the phone of a 13-year-old murder | :23:37. | :23:41. | |
victim, even altering the evidence, deleting some of the messages and | :23:41. | :23:46. | |
so on, that suddenly struck people as disgusting, disgusting! And I | :23:46. | :23:56. | |
:23:56. | :23:59. | ||
think that was the end of it for News International had started by | :23:59. | :24:03. | |
saying just one rogue journalist was involved. Now they shut down | :24:03. | :24:08. | |
Britain's biggest selling newspaper and put 200 journalists out of work. | :24:08. | :24:17. | |
A final tribute to his 7.5 million readers. This is for you. And for | :24:17. | :24:27. | |
I thought it was just a despicable act, because there are great | :24:27. | :24:30. | |
journalists and people who have been slaving away in a boiler room, | :24:30. | :24:34. | |
and they ended up losing their jobs, carrying the can, when frankly it | :24:34. | :24:38. | |
should have been the people at the helm of the ship we should have got | :24:38. | :24:43. | |
into trouble. If that was meant to end the crisis for the Murdoch | :24:43. | :24:48. | |
empire, it spectacularly failed. Rupert has no idea what to do, how | :24:48. | :24:54. | |
to react, what to say. He lost control of the situation quite a | :24:54. | :25:02. | |
Now the British political establishment race to a remarkable | :25:02. | :25:06. | |
agreement. News International, which had exercised so much power | :25:06. | :25:12. | |
and influence, was suddenly without friends. His organisation has grown | :25:12. | :25:17. | |
too powerful, and it has abused that far. In an emergency debate, | :25:17. | :25:21. | |
MPs queued up to condemn Rupert Murdoch. Their links with the | :25:21. | :25:24. | |
criminal underworld, their attempt to cover up law-breaking and pay | :25:24. | :25:29. | |
for people's silence tell the world war we need to know about their | :25:29. | :25:33. | |
character. I think a lot of lies have been told to a lot of people, | :25:33. | :25:37. | |
and then Parliament ends up being misled. That is a major | :25:37. | :25:43. | |
constitutional issue for us to face. The handful of MPs who had taken | :25:43. | :25:48. | |
Murdoch on were now speaking for the rest. It was almost as if | :25:48. | :25:52. | |
people realised, they have gone too far, we cannot do anything other | :25:52. | :26:00. | |
than speak out. It took a bit of time, but when it sunk in, it was | :26:00. | :26:06. | |
the most uniting moment I have ever seen in a House of Commons. | :26:06. | :26:12. | |
Prime Minister, embarrassed by his friendship with Rebekah Brooks and | :26:12. | :26:16. | |
his close association with Andy Coulson, announced an inquiry. | :26:16. | :26:20. | |
is on my watch that the music has stopped, and I am saying large and | :26:20. | :26:28. | |
clear that things have got to The relationship has been too cosy | :26:28. | :26:33. | |
between the press and the politicians. Very few had said | :26:33. | :26:37. | |
anything until Milly Dowler, and then there was almost self- | :26:37. | :26:41. | |
congratulation by the politicians at stopping this scandal. They have | :26:41. | :26:44. | |
not stopped a scandal, they had reacted to a scandal that had | :26:44. | :26:54. | |
:26:54. | :26:54. | ||
Rupert Murdoch is in full retreat. His bid for the rest of BSkyB has | :26:54. | :26:58. | |
been abandoned. After years of denial from News International, he | :26:58. | :27:03. | |
said sorry to the country and promised to co-operate fully with | :27:03. | :27:07. | |
the new police enquiry. Milly Dowler's family received their | :27:07. | :27:17. | |
apology in person. Mr Murdoch, will it tell us what you said? Did you | :27:17. | :27:26. | |
Law-breaking in one small corner of Rupert Murdoch's business empire | :27:26. | :27:33. | |
and the attempt to conceal it now threatens its very foundations. | :27:33. | :27:38. | |
effect of Milly Dowler is that it broke the spell. When Murdoch had | :27:38. | :27:41. | |
had this complete control of parliament, the Government, even, | :27:41. | :27:46. | |
I'm sorry to say, the police, suddenly that control was broken. | :27:46. | :27:53. | |
On Friday, Rebekah Brooks resigned. Yesterday, she was arrested. They | :27:53. | :27:57. | |
are pariahs, nobody wants to talk to Rupert and James Murdoch or | :27:57. | :28:01. | |
Rebekah Brooks any more. If you had a central London party next week, | :28:01. | :28:09. | |
nobody would turn up. Instead, they have an invitation they cannot | :28:09. | :28:15. | |
refuse, to answer questions from MPs. I think Murdoch should really | :28:15. | :28:18. | |
be truthful about all that happened and make it clear, and I think his | :28:18. | :28:22. | |
son is with them as well, and Rebekah Brooks will be there. They | :28:22. | :28:26. | |
are the Three Musketeers in this one, aren't they? They are the ones | :28:26. | :28:30. | |
who directed what is going on. In this period of Atonement, tell the | :28:30. | :28:36. | |
truth. What a story it could have made for the News of the World! A | :28:36. | :28:39. |