Phone Jacker Hearing

Politics has never (and never will be) my strongest point. In fact, a year ago I would have never dreamt I’d want to write anything slightly related to the blasted topic, having had to sit through many a dreary lecture on it at University I was in no hurry to revisit it. That was until recently. Nowadays I’m sky plussing Question time when I’m out, following a couple of politicians on Twitter and watching the Daily Politics Show. What the heck has got in to me? Now, just because I’ve recently started to take a slight interest, it doesn’t necessarily mean I know the ins and outs, because believe me I definitely do not! There were numerous times today when it went straight over my head, I know the basics but I’d say that’s about as far as it goes. But hey, one step at a time! This post will be about the hearing that was held today at Westminster. For those of you who didn’t watch it, hopefully it will give you a brief overview, and for those who did this is my take on the events. Like I said, I’m by no means a politics expert but nevertheless I’ll give it a shot. So, here we go…

Let’s set the scene, there I was this morning, in an absolute flap because I was going to be late for my Jury Service and I was petrified this would make me contempt of court and I’d be sent down myself (ironically I actually ended up being nearly an hour early, as I had got my times muddled up) anyway, I’m not the best with technology and was trying to set up a sky recording for 2pm on bbc2 for a special Daily Politics Show, which was set to go on for 2 and a half hours. Luckily I wasn’t needed today so was sent home by midday which meant I was able to watch the live coverage of the select committee hearing as it was happening. Result! So at ten to two I got the essentials ready, a glass of Ribena, a bag of Haribo and got myself a front row seat in my lounge on the sofa for what I was hoping to be an almighty showdown. (Think Voldemort vs Harry Potter in The Deathly Hallows Part 2... I didn’t quite get that but it was entertaining nonetheless.) I started off watching the live coverage on Sky News, then realised the irony of doing so and swapped to bbc2..!

Rupert Murdoch and his son James took centre stage to begin with, both dressed in matching navy suits, white shirts and blue ties, which I appreciated and thought was a nice touch! They faced a panel of roughly ten MP’s, who were called a Select Committee. A Select Committee shadows every department of the government, for example health. The one in today’s hearing was the Culture, Media and Sports Committee and was made up from MP’s from all parties, they are not lawyers and not professional interrogators, which was made very obvious at certain points in the hearing today. They didn't always stick to the point. Select Committees have the power to call whatever witness they want to, and they must attend (so long as they are British citizens.)

The Chairman of the Committee, John Whittingdale, started proceedings, by welcoming the pair and thanking them for taking the time to come and answer their questions seeing as they were not obliged too as they are not British Citizens. James Murdoch started by asking for permission to read aloud a statement which they had prepared. He was denied the chance to do so. However his answer to the first question he was asked sounded a lot like one! It went along the lines of “We are sorry to everyone. We’re determined to put things right, make sure it doesn’t happen again and to be the company that we should be” blah blah you get my drift. At which point Rupert butted in to say “I’d just like to say one sentence. This is the most humble day of my life.” I won’t lie, that line made me chuckle. After all that had been said, neither James nor Rupert had answered the question they were first asked, by John, so he proceeded to ask it again! We were off to a rocky start.

Rupert started off shakily. He looked extremely uncomfortable when he was being interrogated by Tom Watson (a Labour Member of Parliament who has wanted to investigate the possibility of phone hacking for years, but was never backed by enough people.)  He seemed unsure, often whacking the table, bowing his head and sitting in silence for a few seconds before raising his head back up to face the Committee, whacking the table some more and then proceeding to ramble on, often avoiding the question he had been asked, or wanting to let his son James answer it instead. However Tom wasn’t allowing this and insisted that Rupert answered them himself. At times, I'd go as far as saying that the man at the top, Rupert, seemed very out of the loop.  In contrast, his son James was full of facts and figures and had clearly been briefed very thoroughly and subsequently he came across very clued up and confident. James often tried to help his father answer difficult questions, and did the majority of the talking throughout the whole hearing. I also felt that when Rupert did speak, James was probably hovering his foot right next to his father's ready to kick him if he said something wrong!

The hearing took an unexpected turn about two hours in. Rupert Murdoch was attacked by a protestor with a plastic plate full of shaving foam. At just before 5pm, the final questioner had just begun her interrogation when the protestor struck. It all happened very suddenly. My first reaction was “Wow, Murdoch’s wife has some seriously fast reflexes!” Wendi Deng, who was wearing a bright pink jacket, literally leapt out of seat to protect her husband. And protect him she did, with a nice right armed smack over the head. *wallop* It was several seconds later before a policeman came trotting in to stop the chaos, so it was actually pretty lucky for Rupert that his wife was sat directly behind him! Sadly the protestor has given The Sun and Fox the opportunity to make Rupert the victim today, when really he isn’t. And instead of the headlines tomorrow being about the outcomes of today, they’ll more than likely be about the shaving foam pie. The protestor tweeted this just moments before "It is a far better thing that I do now than I have ever done before #splat" What I'd like to know is how the hell he got into the room? The security can't have been as good as they thought, clearly. And also how did he get a plate full of shaving foam through a room full of cameras without raising suspicion. Hmmm! Quote of the day subsequently goes to the chairman of the parliamentary committee who said "Mr Murdoch, your wife has a very good left hook." She used her right hand, but it was amusing nonetheless!

After that brief moment of hilarity, and having had the protestor escorted out by Police, the Committee resumed. An apology was offered from Chairman John and they carried on. There were two major differences that I noticed had changed since the break. 1, Journalists and members of the public had obviously been asked to leave as there was now only a row of people behind the Murdoch’s, and secondly Rupert was jacketless. It had obviously fell victim to the shaving foam. No longer were the father and son duo rocking the same look. A great shame. The last questioner continued where she left off, asking several questions before her final killer one. “Have you considered resigning?” she asked bluntly. “No” Rupert replied. “Why not?” she quickly came back. “Because people I trusted have let me down. They behaved disgracefully and betrayed the company and me, and it’s for them to pay.” Juicy!

After nearly three hours of (which I’m proud to say I watched all of) low-key questioning with no real big blows the outcome of today’s hearing was the full extent of Rupert’s ignorance over the phone hacking incidents (which he claimed had humbled him) and which led to the closure of his UK Sunday paper, News of the World. About which he said “listening to voice mails is wrong, paying police for information is wrong, and have no place in any part of the company I run. I felt ashamed at what had happened and felt that it should come to a close as we had broken our trust with our readers.” His son James admitted knowing about police officers being paid for information, something Rupert said he wasn’t aware of. He ended by saying “I was shocked, appalled and ashamed when I heard about the Millie Dowler case just two weeks ago. Apologising cannot take back what has happened, but I want those who were affected to know the depth of my regret over the invasion of their lives.” So basically, he apologised profusely but refused to take the blame for what has happened. The only point throughout the whole hearing where Rupert attempted to make an excuse for the phone hacking was when he ironically said "This is not an excuse, but News of the World is less than 1% of my company. I employ over 53,000 people around the world and so don't know everything that occurs." Now to me, personally, after he used the word 'but' it sounds an awful lot like an excuse!

At the beginning I honestly felt slightly sorry for Rupert; he looked so out of his comfort zone I wanted to give him a hug. But his time-wasting and question dodging ways were lessened as the hearing went on. He grew in confidence, probably because he knew his son was by his side and would have answers to any tricky questions asked. Along with the pie incident there were a couple of other moments I found quite amusing. When an MP started speaking in a very strong Scottish accent, which even I was struggling to follow, I genuinely thought a translator may have been needed, although one never arrived! Secondly the man who was wearing the olive tie, sat behind James, cleaned his glassed with his tie several times throughout the hearing, as well as picking his nails. He looked like he was having the time of his life….! And lastly the amount of times James said “I have no knowledge of that” was hilarious. What does he know? Does anyone know? I don’t know. And nor does he apparently! Also, ironically through the time it took to conduct the hearing the value of stocks in the Murdoch Empire went up, which probably wasn’t what the MP’s would have suspected to happen!

Sadly by this time it was now nearing 6pm and I had made plans for the evening. Considering the hearing should have finished at around 4.30 I thought I had given myself plenty of time, sadly not, so I left to go out without being able to watch the whole of Rebekah’s part. However, from what I did see, her hair had got even bigger (resembling somewhat of a lion's mane) and she seemed very poised and professional and if she was nervous it didn’t show. This may be due to the fact that it wasn’t her first time before a Committee.  Stemmed back from 2003, when she was the Editor of News of the World she attended another one on the alleged paying police for information. When she was asked if they’d paid police before she replied “We have paid police for information in the past.” But today when she was asked she said “I’ve never paid a policeman myself.” Hmm! She too, like Rupert, tended to waffle on quite a bit.

So, there we have it, it may not be the most accurate or politically correct tale of the events that occurred today, but what were you expecting from a girl who normally writes about her love for all things celebrity, in particular heat magazine and Dermot O’Leary, her need for Kurt Geigers and lipgloss and her hatred for fish and peas… I mean c’mon, I’m no Hermione Granger! Talking of whom, I’m off to finish The Philosopher’s Stone. But before I leave you: Who run the world? …WENDI!!!