Phone hacking: ministers meet Rupert Murdoch's News Corp every three days

Phone hacking: ministers meet Rupert Murdoch's News Corp every three days

A member of the Cabinet has met executives from Rupert Murdoch’s empire once every three days on average since the Coalition was formed.

By Christopher Hope, and Conrad Quilty-Harper

10:00PM BST 26 Jul 2011

The extent of the Government’s association with the media mogul’s companies was laid bare in official figures showing that 20 Cabinet ministers met senior Murdoch executives 130 times over the past 14 months.

More than a quarter of the meetings were with David Cameron, while a further 17 meetings each were held with George Osborne, the Chancellor, and Dr Liam Fox, the Defence Secretary. Mr Osborne’s meetings included a dinner in New York with Mr Murdoch, the chairman of News Corporation, on December 17 – two weeks before the media regulator was due to rule on the company’s bid for full share ownership of BSkyB.

The Chancellor teamed up again with Mr Murdoch in May and met his son James, the chairman of News International, and Rebekah Brooks, its former chief executive, on three occasions each. Mr Osborne also met Elisabeth Murdoch, Mr Murdoch’s daughter who is tipped to succeed him at News Corp, at a social function last month.

The figures also show that the first media meetings held by both Jeremy Hunt, the Culture Secretary, and Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, after their appointments were with Rupert Murdoch. William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, met senior executives from News International on five occasions. More meetings between Murdoch executives and Dominic Grieve, the Attorney General, and Chris Huhne, the Environment Secretary, are yet to be disclosed.

Ivan Lewis MP, the shadow culture, media and sport secretary, said: “The publication of these lists raises new questions about the discussions David Cameron, George Osborne and Michael Gove had about the BskyB deal, Andy Coulson and phone hacking allegations.

“We now need urgent clarification about whether David Cameron or his ministers sought to influence the BSkyB decision at any stage in the decision-making process. Until David Cameron comes clean and provides total transparency there will continue to be serious questions about his judgment.”

Chris Bryant, the Labour MP, added: “People were paying tribute to the Murdoch court in the hope that their newspapers would support them.

“Clearly the Murdoch media machine was in lobbying overdrive and determined to get the Sky takeover cleared, and the Coalition fell for it hook, line and sinker.”

The meetings were overwhelmingly with Conservative members of the Coalition. Executives from the Murdoch empire only met four times with Nick Clegg, the deputy Prime Minister, and twice with Vince Cable, the Business Secretary.

In all, Mr Gove, a former journalist with The Times whose wife Sarah Vine writes a column for newspaper, met Rupert Murdoch seven times and Mrs Brooks eight times at events including lunches, dinners and social gatherings.

Mr Gove met Mr Murdoch twice in 10 days last month. The most recent meeting, on June 26, was just eight days before it was disclosed that Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator, allegedly hacked the mobile phone of Milly Dowler, the murdered schoolgirl, on behalf of the News of the World.

Meetings with members of the Murdoch media empire outnumbered those from other media groups by a ratio of two to one.

Out of a total of 252 meetings with media groups between May last year and June 26 this year, Mr Gove, Mr Osborne and Mr Cameron met representatives from News International and News Corp on 60 occasions.

The same three met executives from the Telegraph Media Group on 18 occasions, The Guardian and The Observer six times, the Daily Mail six times and The Independent three times.