Cosy conspiracies of the corrupt

“Birds make noises
Which we call song
Unmelodious they linger
— but we hope not
for long.
From Kundum Maal
by Bachchoo

Britain is having its own 2G moment. No one’s gone to jail — yet. What began as a scandal of illegal phone-hacking turned into a public and much-publicised enquiry into the relations between the press and the police and has now, perhaps inevitably, turned into an indictment of the relationship between Murdoch’s News International press and TV empire and politicians.

That politicians need papers on their side is not what Indian Americans call “rocket shastra”. They can issue statements and print pamphlets but these are rightly seen as “advertisement”. Much more effective to have the backing of newspapers which are, however improbably, seen as being independent. In every democratic country there is a symbiosis between the press and the politicians. In one-party states the press is an arm of the government so the question of a relationship doesn’t arise. When editors agree in large part with the policies of a party or politician a cosy relationship results. The border is crossed when the cosiness becomes corrupt.
The corruption at the lowest level can be simply defined as politicians getting close enough to newspaper proprietors, editors or managers so as to include each other in their circle of friends which means attending each other’s parties and sharing the same social circles.
It is a matter of record in Britain that Tony Blair would invite Rupert Murdoch to prime ministerial residences, that the former Labour home secretary, David Blunkett, was a personal friend of the editors of Murdoch’s Sun and News of the World (NoTW) and on resigning from government was hired to write a very well-paid column for his papers by these same editors.
The silliest episode of the politician-Murdoch camaraderie was Gordon and Sarah Brown’s invitation, when Gordon was Prime Minister, to a “pyjama party” at Chequers, which is one of the PM’s official residences. I have never been to a pyjama party and assume that in Britain’s climate people wear heavy coats on their way to and from them and that Chequers has a decent central heating system or good coal and wood fires. I realise it’s a British convention and it would be as it seems the closest thing to a euphemism when everyone is invited to turn up seemingly prepared to go to bed. Does anything untoward take place at these parties?
Apart from bad taste it was bad judgment on Gordon’s part. With the aid of hindsight one may see that the benefit of crawling to Murdoch and possibly getting some favourable coverage or even the backing of his newspapers, counts for very little against the negative effect of being seen to canoodle with the head of a corporation which has been indicted for and convicted of corruption.
Neither were he and Blair, who was godfather to Murdoch’s child, the only Labour leaders to curry Rupertide favour. Ed Milliband, who succeeded Gordon as the leader of Labour was, the newspapers reported, the last to leave Murdoch’s 2011 party in Holland Park.
All this is nothing compared to David Cameron employing the former editor of NoTW Andy Coulson to be his in-house communications director at 10 Downing Street. Cameron also cultivated the friendship of Rebekah Wade, the chief executive of Murdoch’s News International in the UK, to whose wedding he went when she married Charlie Brooks.
Rebekah is a neighbour of the Camerons and they are seen by the press to be part of the “Chipping Norton Set” a suburban neighbourhood friendship group with pretensions of being gentry; and no real need to pretend that they have their hands on the levers of power. Because they do — or did.
The grand and continuing romance between the Cameron government and the Murdoch empire was rudely interrupted when the press — no not the Murdoch press — revealed the extent of illegal phone-hacking carried out by NoTW journalists.
Andy Coulson, formerly editor there, said he knew nothing about it. When it was revealed that the NoTW had hacked into the phone of a kidnapped and murdered young girl called Milly Dowler, the game changed. The public outrage led to Cameron being forced to set up the Leveson Enquiry before which the personnel of New International, including Brooks and James and Rupert Murdoch, have had to give evidence.
Over the months Leveson has examined evidence from journalists and from police officers who were close to them and had taken money from them. Embarrassing truths emerged.
The guilty police were forced to resign. Andy Coulson, it was said in evidence, knew about and sanctioned the corrupt procedures and subsequently resigned from Downing Street. Cameron’s judgment was severely questioned.
Then last week there came the hammer blow. Ed Vaizey, the personal adviser to Jeremy Hunt, the minister for sport and media, had been in email communication with Murdoch’s lobbyists throughout the bid that Murdoch had made for the total ownership of the popular satellite TV channel British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB). Mr Hunt who was in charge of the final arbitration of who could or could not own and control TV stations, was implicated in backdoor dealing with one of the people he was to stand in judgment of.
This was the British 2G moment because it was tantamount to a minister promising a national asset to a
competitor through private, secret backdoor channels.
The aide to the minister admitted wrongdoing and resigned. Hunt, a rising star in the Tory party refused to — so far.
He gives evidence under oath to the Leveson enquiry in 10 days and though he denies it, it is now implied that evidence of his complicity in a backdoor deal with Murdoch will emerge. The question being asked — much as people ask whether Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh knew about the 2G deal — is did Hunt act alone or did Cameron know about the correspondence with and assurances to Murdoch?