Ever since Andy Coulson was forced to resign as Downing Street’s media supremo, Westminster’s malcontents have gossiped about the prospect of Rupert Murdoch wreaking revenge for Cameron’s impulsive creation of an inquiry into press ethics. More recently, cynics whispered that the Sunday Times exposure of Peter Cruddas, the Conservative treasurer offering access to the Camerons in exchange for donations, was the gypsy’s warning of horrors to come. And now we have the revelations about the Murdochs’ secret negotiations with the government to take full control of BSkyB. The Murdochs’ appearance this week at the Leveson inquiry fatally threatens the Cameron project and probably destroys Tory hopes of recovering their reputation for competence and honesty. Cameron, it appears, is helpless to influence events and defuse Rupert Murdoch’s anger. While Cameron’s reaction is confused, the tycoon’s attitude is not.
Murdoch is rightly praised for saving Britain’s newspapers from destruction by trade unions and for infusing British journalism with brio and cash, and he is widely credited with radically changing British television and sport. His success was founded in large part on the legitimate exploitation of the vacuum created by his bungling rivals. Now it seems he has had enough. He is said to be fed up not just with Cameron but the whole British establishment, whose lack of imagination and laziness enabled him — after acquiring the News of the World in 1968 — to create his global empire.
Until this week, Murdoch had placated critics by having eaten humble pie at the parliamentary select committee investigating phone hacking. Rightly, he apologised for his employees’ crimes. But now, summoned by a judge who is widely thought to be out of his depth, he and James Murdoch have retaliated against their accusers by providing apparently nuclear evidence that threatens to destroy any lingering illusions about the probity of Britain’s politicians.

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