Many expected the Culture Committee, in their entirety, to be unanimous in their criticism of Rupert Murdoch and his fitness to be Chairman of News Corporation – such is the shocking nature and political toxicity of the story. Instead the committee members split down political party lines. Labour Party members and Liberal Democrats wished to censure Murdoch for his involvement and negligence in respect to phone hacking at the News of the World. The report found Rupert Murdoch was not “a fit person” to run a major international company. It accused News Corporation of “huge failings of corporate governance”, saying its instinct had been “to cover up, rather than seek out wrongdoing and discipline the perpetrators”. Of Murdoch’s son, News International’s former executive chairman James Murdoch, the report identified that he had displayed “wilful ignorance” and a “lack of curiosity” over phone hacking and that it was “simply astonishing” that he had not sought more evidence and information, simply maintaining that phone hacking was down to a single rogue reporter.
The Conservative Party members of the Culture Committee would not back the report – of which they had been part. Just before the release of the report and after years of working on it, all Conservative members declined to be part of the Committee’s damning verdict on Rupert and James Murdoch. Conservative Party Committee member Louise Mensch announced, “No Conservative member on this committee with a vote was able to recommend the report itself to the House.”
This failure for the Culture Committee – whose members have worked together for years – to reach a unanimous conclusion is shocking. Despite the joint Labour Party and Liberal Democrat judgment reflecting the popular view of the Phone Hacking Scandal and suspicions of a wide-ranging cover ups the Conservatives accused Labour of voting along party lines. Conversely, in objecting to this the Conservative Party members turned into a voting bloc and collectively rejected the report – refusing to censure Rupert and James Murdoch. In many ways the interesting aspect of this is the fact that the Liberal Democrats felt that they simply couldn’t support their Coalition partners in failing to judge Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation. The Conservatives’ behaviour on this is politically bizarre – given the toxic nature of seeming support of the Murdochs. It puts the Conservative Party very publically on the side of the Murdochs, if they weren’t already publically perceived as being so, given the allegations being made against Culture Minister Jeremy Hunt and meetings between the Prime Minister and The News of the World’s Rebekah Brooks.
Ultimately, the Culture Committee’s failure to reach agreement and their split along party political lines serves as a good demonstration of why party politics in the country is poisoning our democracy. Regardless of the rights and wrongs of the committee findings, committee members simply reverted to tribal instincts and sided with members of their respective parties. While the two major political parties dominate the British political landscape – and voters allow them to do so – genuine truths and justice will elude us. With the political party system it will always come down to the numbers ‘on your team’. That seems a poor way of dealing with such important matters – almost akin to mob rule in which the numbers decide the outcome. As a hypothetical, if the committee had been made up of a mixture of Independent politicians and Minor Party members (with much smaller influence than the major parties), would not a more accurate and just finding have been reached – one that truly reflects a wide range of opinion and perspective that exists in our society? Instead we get tag-team politics and committees hamstrung by their clearly-defined party divisions.
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