Parliament to put Murdochs on the spot

FATHER-and-son act Rupert and James Murdoch top the bill today in what promises to be a day of gripping political drama in the normally staid surroundings of the parliament’s committee rooms.

It will be the first time the Murdochs have been questioned in public since a newspaper phone-hacking scandal reignited two weeks ago, sparking a firestorm that has raged through their News Corp media empire, brought down top policemen and tarnished Prime Minister David Cameron.

The hearing, likely to attract an audience of millions via the live news channels of the BBC and Sky — part-owned by News Corp — is a further chance for politicians to show they have broken Murdoch’s spell after decades spent trying to win favour with the media mogul.

The parliament has a renewed sense of purpose, two years after it was plunged into scandal by reports in another newspaper of widespread fiddling of expenses by MPs.

However, it must not overplay its hand when the camera-shy Murdochs step before it in what will be a cramped and sweaty room in the modern Portcullis House annexe to parliament.

“I don’t want us to be a lynch mob,” said John Whittingdale, Committee chairman and a member of the Conservative party. “On the other hand, I don’t want us to let them off without properly addressing the questions which we have,” he told BBC TV.

Responding to the crisis, the Culture, Media and Sport Committee last week called in the Murdochs and Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of their News International UK business.

Paul Stephenson, head of London’s police, was also asked to appear before the home affairs committee at lunchtime, the warm-up act for the Murdoch show.

Witnesses before the parliamentary committee sit with their back to reporters.

Members of parliament, 10 or 11 in number, sit opposite them and question them directly. There are 50 seats available for the press and public.

“The first reason why we were extremely keen to hear from James Murdoch, Rupert Murdoch, Rebekah Brooks, was the statement by James Murdoch that he now knows that during our previous inquiry parliament was misled. That is something we obviously take very seriously,” Whittingdale told Reuters.

“Therefore we will want to know from him in what way exactly we were misled, who it was and how long that it’s been known for, and why it’s only now that it’s becoming public,” said Whittingdale.