(British) MPs challenge David Cameron over News Corp meetings (& BBC license fee frozen for 6 years)

[Turborama]

Source: The Guardian

Government has promised to publish an account of meetings with lobbyists every three months, but has not done so

James Robinson
Tuesday October 19 2010 23.04 BST


David Cameron has been criticised by Labour MPs for failing to provide parliament with details of his meetings with executives at News Corporation, Rupert Murdoch's media company. The prime minister has replied to written questions tabled by two Labour MPs saying that appointments with "external organisations" would be published as part of a separate list of ministerial meetings.

The government has promised to publish an account of departmental meetings with lobbyists and other bodies every three months, but is yet to do so.

Michael Dugher, Labour MP for Barnsley East, asked Cameron if he had met executives at News Corp or its subsidiary News International, which publishes its UK newspapers. Tom Watson, the former Labour minister who represents West Bromwich East, asked a similar question. In his written answer Cameron said: "Information on official meetings with external organisations will be published in accordance with the ministerial code."

Dugher tonight accused the prime minister of "evasion" and said other ministers had given details of their dealings with News Corp. Last week, business secretary Vince Cable http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/16/james-murdochs-call-vince-cable">confirmed he had "a short introductory phone call" with James Murdoch, who runs News Corp's European and Asian businesses, in June. "The prime minister promised transparency yet all we have had is evasion," Dugher said. "What has he got to hide? Vince Cable has been honest and straightforward. Why can't David Cameron?" The conversation between Cable and James Murdoch took place on the same day News Corp bid for BSkyB, the pay-TV company in which it holds a stake. Sources close to the company say the call was placed out of courtesy.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/19/david-cameron-news-corporation-murdoch

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BBC licence fee frozen at £145.50 for six years

Experts say deal is a 16% budget cut in real terms as corporation picks up bill for World Service and rural internet

Mark Sweney and James Robinson
Tuesday 19 October 2010 21.56 BST

After 18 months of sparring between the Tories and BBC executives over the level of the licence fee, the future funding of the corporation has been hammered out in frantic negotiations in little over three days, with the broadcaster coming off decidedly second best.

The fallout from a last-minute agreement to freeze the £145.50 licence fee for six years, and the government's decision to burden the BBC with a long shopping list of expensive additional commitments, will be seen as one of the defining moments in the corporation's 88-year history.

Tonight's all but enforced capitulation of the BBC marked the moment of reckoning that director general Mark Thompson and outgoing BBC Trust chief Michael Lyons had battled to avoid since early last year, when David Cameron, then opposition leader, first talked about freezing the licence fee and linking its funding to wider public sector cuts. The corporation must "live within their means", Cameron said.

This week's drama at the BBC began with the revelation late on Monday that it may have to foot the bill for free TV licences for the over 75s – at an annual cost of £556m, and rising as the UK's population profiles grows older. "A number of us were horrified at the proposal," said a political source close to the deal. "Over the last three days we had to find a way to make (an alternative) happen."

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/19/bbc-licence-fee-frozen-six-years

Looks like James Murdoch is getting http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4038301">his wishes met.

Related news from just before the UK election: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x4355500">Tory links to Murdoch under scrutiny after Ofcom ruling

The fact that Caneron employs former Murdoch employee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Coulson">Andy Coulson as his Director of Communications shouldn't be seen as just a coincidence, either. http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/08/andy-coulson-phone-hacking-cameron">MPs have been calling for his resignation for over a year and the New York Times have been doing a really good job of http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/05/magazine/05hacking-t.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&ref=world">keeping that story alive.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

1. I hate that fucking slimy ass family. I listen to the World Service 5 days a week. It's

one of the few real news broadcasts left and they're trying to fuck with it?

[mwooldri]

4. The World Service will change, but considering everything...

... given this present "austerity climate" and the Tories well known anti-BBC bias (especially with the Murdochs on board), I think the Beeb got the best it could. BBC management of all times have at least put on a public face of being fiercely defensive about being editorially independent from the government. All the government can really do is give the BBC the funding and tell it can exist as a public corporation.

As far as English language programming goes, I don't think there will be much impact. I can't see how the BBC can wangle savings from the foreign language broadcasting it does. Now more money may be "found" later on when, as World Service is absorbed into the BBC as a whole (which I think it should have been in the first place), BBC Management decide that it is not economically viable to continue to produce programming in a specific foreign language. This will provoke a lot of debate, in essentially the same way it has when the BBC announced it is going to shut down 2 domestic radio stations. I don't know if those two stations have been saved yet, but they are under the peril of the axe still.

Looks like from BBC Radio 4's schedule they cleared out You and Yours for a special on the spending review, at noon UK time, and will be available for 7 days on the iplayer. Might be an interesting listen.

[Guy Whitey Corngood]

5. Thanks. I'll be the first one to admit that I'm not terribly well versed on

the inner workings of the BBC and the World Service. I do consider it a journalistic treasure given that media in the US has gone down the toilet when it comes to covering the rest of the world. I just lose it every time I see these Murdoch dirt bags are relentless when it comes to destroying real journalism. It infuriates me to think what they've done to every publication they've acquired and how they try to slime every competitor as it's never enough for these greedy fucks.

[muriel_volestrangler]

7. I think the foreign language services will be under severe threat

When the funding came from the Foreign Office, it was easy to say the purpose was to spread understanding of Britain to places that might not get it otherwise, and so it was part of good diplomacy. It'll be far more difficult to persuade the average licence fee payer that it's their responsibility to foot the bill for communication they will never personally understand, with people they'll never meet. The licence is, after all, a flat fee, and you wouldn't expect a flat fee to fund government diplomacy. It'd have been easier to persuade people that they should chip in to give pensioners a free TV licence than that they should pay for an Indonesian website and radio programmes.

[jonthebru]

2. The UK would be very foolish to ruin the BBC.

The BBC is simply put the Worlds best NEWS Organization... News Corp on the other hand can barely wipe your okole in comparison. (look it up.)

[glinda]

3. It is all about controlling people and hiding the truth with Murdoch. He is evil personified.

[Odin2005]

6. This really sucks!

I love the BBC World service. :(

[JCMach1]

8. Where else can you watch Stephen Sackur tear Ann Coulter a new one?

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. I'm glad to hear he did; she rather stumped Jeremy Paxman, when he couldn't believe how she ignored

reality. While he's normally the interviewer who pins down a slippery politician the best, when she was on, he was pretty much left shaking his head at her habit of ignoring the real world and just saying whatever crap she felt like. I think he needs a little bit of shame in the interviewee to work with, and she just doesn't have any.

[JCMach1]

10. Sackur is the best interviewer going right now... and while I am certain

he leans to the right, he is a REAL journalist.

I remember when we used to have those in America.