News International 'bullied Liberal Democrats over BSkyB

[babsbunny]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/jul/23/news-international-liberal-democrats-bskyb

Party claims it was told it would be 'done over' by Murdoch papers if deal did not go through as company wanted

Henry Porter and Toby Helm
guardian.co.uk, Saturday 23 July 2011 20.14 BST

Rupert Murdoch's News International launched a campaign of bullying against senior Liberal Democrats in an attempt to force through the company's bid for BSkyB, high-level sources have told the Observer.

Lib Dem insiders say NI officials took their lobbying campaign well beyond acceptable limits and even threatened, last autumn, to persecute the party if Vince Cable, the business secretary, did not advance its case.

According to one account from a senior party figure, a cabinet minister was told that, if the government did not do as NI wanted, the Lib Dems would be "done over" by the Murdoch papers, which included the now defunct News of the World as well as the Sun, the Times and the Sunday Times.

[aquart]

1. And this is the reason to prevent media monopolies.

[EFerrari]

2. Yesterday, Fox was saying, no problem, everyone does it ---

which sounds like a confession to me.

[aquart]

3. It does, doesn't it?

I LOVE that the British politicians are coming out and saying they were flat out threatened over BSkyB.

And now the stuff about Coulson's security clearance is going to get very ugly.

[Search and Destroy]

4. Pretty cowardly to wait until now to come out with this

They should have made this public last fall.