BRITISH CHANCELLOR of the Exchequer George Osborne has met senior News Corporation executives 16 times since he took office,

BRITISH CHANCELLOR of the Exchequer George Osborne has met senior News Corporation executives 16 times since he took office, including one meeting that took place after a Conservative minister was put in charge of deciding on the company’s bid for satellite broadcaster BSkyB.

The information was contained in a long list of contacts between British government ministers and News Corporation and its UK subsidiary, News International, published yesterday on the orders of prime minister David Cameron.

Last night, Mr Osborne’s spokesman said the BSkyB takeover bid had been raised at one meeting while Liberal Democrat business secretary Vince Cable was in charge of deciding on the issue, but was not raised again after Mr Osborne made it clear he had no role in the matter.

Mr Osborne met Rupert Murdoch twice since May 2010 – with former News International chief executive Rebekah Brooks and News Corp’s deputy chief executive James Murdoch in April 2011, and with Mr Murdoch jnr’s sister Elizabeth in June 2011.

Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt, who took charge of deciding on the takeover after Mr Cable lost authority over it last December, met James Murdoch twice in January, but he also met businessmen opposing News Corp’s bid.

Meanwhile, a former senior News International lawyer, James Chapman, who appeared to be left with the blame by James Murdoch during his appearance before the Commons culture, media and sport committee, now wants to correct alleged “serious inaccuracies” in Mr Murdoch’s testimony.

However, committee chairman John Whittingdale, a Conservative MP, said he had not heard from Mr Chapman.

Meanwhile Trinity Mirror, which publishes the Daily Mirror , the S unday Mirror and 160 regional British titles, has announced a review of editorial controls but denies this amounts to an internal investigation into hacking claims.

A six-week review is to be carried by the company’s top lawyer, who will report in mid-September.

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police team investigating phone hacking has been boosted from 45 to 60 officers

The police team investigating phone hacking has been boosted from 45 to 60 officers, Scotland Yard has said.

Metropolitan Police Deputy Assistant Commissioner Sue Akers said the move came after a "significant increase in the workload" over the past fortnight.

Meanwhile, the investigation into alleged misconduct by newspapers may be spreading beyond News International.

Police have asked for files of an earlier inquiry into the use of private investigators, the BBC has learned.

According to BBC Radio 4's The Report, the files from Operation Motorman, which was run by the Information Commissioner's Office in 2003, were requested three months ago.

'12,000 victims'
They contain 4,000 requests from 300 journalists and 31 publications for confidential information from a private investigator, which in many cases had been obtained illegally.

The investigation found the Daily Mail had made the most requests, followed by the Sunday People and the Daily Mirror.

The Daily Mail said the information obtained may have been for reasons of public interest, and Trinity Mirror Group said its journalists worked within the law and the Press Complaints Commission code of conduct.

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On the hacking probe known as Operation Weeting, Ms Akers said there had been a "surge of enquiries and requests for assistance from the public and solicitors.

"I have said all along that I would keep the resources under review and this has led to the increase. Similarly, if the demand decreases, I will release officers back to other duties."

The expansion in officer numbers comes after a Commons home affairs committee report praised Ms Akers' decision that all potential victims of phone hacking by the News of the World should be contacted.

But the MPs said they were "alarmed" only 170 people had so far been informed and noted that "up to 12,800 people may have been affected".

They warned that if the process dragged on it would "seriously delay" the start of Lord Justice Leveson's public inquiry announced by Prime Minister David Cameron.



This is excellent news. The extra resources will assist to help move things along much more quickly”

Keith Vaz MP
Home affairs committee chairman
Labour seize on BSkyB 'admission'
After Ms Akers' announcement, home affairs committee chairman Keith Vaz said: "This is excellent news. The extra resources will assist to help move things along much more quickly."

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said the public's faith in institutions like the police had been "shaken" by the phone-hacking scandal.

He said people's "low and cynical" opinion of politics had probably become lower still as a result of the affair and there was now an opportunity to clean up the "murky" practices and relationships that had taken root.

Innocent members of the public and their families had their privacy "abused in an outrageous way", he added.

In other developments, it emerged that former News of the World editor Andy Coulson was only given mid-level security clearance when he went to work as the prime minister's communications director in May last year.

A Cabinet Office source confirmed to the BBC that he was subject to the "security check" level but not the more rigorous "developed vetting" level.

Mr Cameron told the Commons on Wednesday that Mr Coulson was not able to see the government's most secret documents.

Elsewhere, the legal firm that represented News of the World owners News International (NI) has been given permission by the newspaper group to answer questions from the police and MPs.

Harbottle & Lewis is said to have received e-mails from the company four years ago which the legal firm concluded did not reveal reasonable grounds for believing the hacking went beyond the News of the World's royal editor Clive Goodman.


Glenn Mulcaire, the private investigator jailed for phone hacking, speaks to the BBC
But on Tuesday, former director of public prosecutions Lord Macdonald, who reviewed for NI's owner News Corporation the e-mails in a file relating to bribes allegedly paid to police, said they contained "evidence of serious criminal offences".

The law firm had said it was being prevented from responding to "inaccurate" comments made by News International chairman James Murdoch because it was not allowed to breach its duty of client confidentiality.

Also, Labour have seized on remarks by the culture secretary as an "admission" that Mr Cameron had discussed the BSkyB takeover bid with News International.

Mr Cameron faced repeated questions on the issue in the Commons on Wednesday and told MPs he had had no "inappropriate conversations".

Position reversed
But Jeremy Hunt said afterwards that "the discussions the prime minister had on the BSkyB deal were irrelevant" because he, as culture secretary, was responsible for making the decision, prompting the Labour attack.

Mr Hunt's aides later said he had been talking about discussions in general, rather than specific discussions with NI executives.

Conservative deputy chairman Michael Fallon dismissed what he called petty point-scoring by saying former NI executive Rebekah Brooks and Mr Cameron were both clear no inappropriate discussions had taken place.

During his Commons statement, Mr Cameron told MPs that "with hindsight" he would not have hired Mr Coulson.

Labour MP Nick Raynsford said that when Mr Coulson was still working at Downing Street, the cabinet secretary had been alerted to evidence of illegal phone hacking, covert surveillance and hostile media briefing against a senior government official - a claim the cabinet secretary denied.

But the Cabinet Office later completely reversed its position, conceding that a meeting on the matter did take place last summer.

 

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Questions remain unanswered in the phone-hacking scandal

Rupert Murdoch, chairman and chief executive of News Corp, told the Commons select committee last week that, in his monthly calls to the editor of the News of the World, he would ask: "What's doing?" What's doing, over the past three weeks, has been that the News Corp carousel of money, power and politics, once so firmly controlled by Murdoch and his offspring, has seemed to spin faster and faster out of control.

But has calamity yet turned into catastrophe for the Murdochs? What key questions remain whose answers might indicate whether News Corp is a "fit and proper" organisation to wield power in this country, let alone take full control of the satellite television company BSkyB? And as David Cameron and fellow MPs break up for their summer holidays, does the prime minister still have cause for concern that "the curse of Coulson" may yet have long-term repercussions that severely hobble his capacity to execute the proper business of government for years to come?

Events triggered 20 days ago with the disclosure that the mobile phone of teenage murder victim Milly Dowler had been hacked by the News of the World now include multiple resignations of News Corp stalwarts, including Rebekah Brooks and Les Hinton; arrests in double figures; the resignation of two of the most senior police officers in the land; evidence that the influence of News International in the Metropolitan Police had spread like spilt ink on blotting paper with 12 News of the World reporters in its employment at various times; the death of the whistleblower Sean Hoare (not treated as suspicious by police); and the unprecedented consumption of humble pie by the Murdochs before a select committee.

In addition, the numerous inquiries and investigations now span two continents, with the FBI and the US Department of Justice announcing they are delving further into aspects of the Murdoch empire in the United States. Simultaneously, David Cameron, hitherto the sultan of smooth, has entered the trickier waters of political life in which good intentions are frequently smashed on the rocks of ambition and a hazy division between what is socialising and private, and what is political and public. At times over the decades that Rupert Murdoch has bullied and metaphorically battered to exercise influence, it has looked dangerously as if, under successive governments, Labour and Conservative, News Corp has viewed Number 10 as the political outer office of its commercial empire. The coalition is no exception.

Last Wednesday, in the House of Commons, Cameron dealt with questions from 136 MPs on his decision to give Andy Coulson "a second chance" as his director of communications. Cameron insisted that he had never had "inappropriate conversations" about the purchase of BSkyB. The key question is the nature of the "appropriate" conversations Cameron conducted as he partied with Rebekah Brooks and James Murdoch, and how these discussions might potentially have had an impact on, for instance, media and corporate regulation and the BBC.

A second major question concerns a key communication, known as the "For Neville" email. Colin Myler, former editor of the News of the World, and Tom Crone, former News International legal manager, said last week that James Murdoch had been "mistaken" when he told the House of Commons select committee last Tuesday that in 2008 he had not been aware off the crucial email because it raised the possibility that Neville Thurlbeck, the paper's former chief reporter, was also involved in "the dark arts" and therefore Murdoch Junior must have been aware that hacking involved more than one rogue reporter.

The "For Neville" email is understood to have influenced the decision by News International to make an out-of-court settlement to Gordon Taylor, chief executive of the Professional Footballers' Association, in excess of £1m in return for confidentiality. James Murdoch says he stands by his testimony to the select committee.

If it is proved he has lied, he will have failed to report a crime to the police and he could be guilty of perverting the course of justice.

Myler and Crone are not the only former Murdoch employees who may now find that the "collective amnesia" from which many executives appear to suffer, has cleared. If that miracle cure does occur, we may finally witness the beginning of the end of what, for too long, has been a toxic influence over key areas of our civic life.

 

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Strathclyde Police are to investigate phone hacking and breaches of data protection in Scotland, the Crown Office has confirmed.

Strathclyde Police are to investigate phone hacking and breaches of data protection in Scotland, the Crown Office has confirmed.

The probe will centre on allegations that witnesses gave perjured evidence in the trial of ex-MSP Tommy Sheridan.

In December he was found guilty of lying during his successful defamation case against the News of the World (NoW) newspaper in 2006.

The NoW was closed at the beginning of July over the hacking scandal.

Sheridan, former Scottish Socialist Party leader, was jailed for three years for lying under oath

He had won £200,000 in damages over its claims he was an adulterer who visited swingers clubs.

Asst Ch Con George Hamilton said: "Following our discussions with the Crown, we have now been instructed to carry out a full investigation into allegations that witnesses gave perjured evidence in the trial of Tommy Sheridan and into alleged breaches of data protection and phone hacking.

"We will also be looking to see if we can uncover any evidence of corruption in the police service or any other organisation related to these inquiries.

"However, I must stress that no specific allegations regarding corruption have been presented to us at this time."

He said his detectives would be working with the Metropolitan Police and other Scottish forces.



The investigation is likely to be a lengthy one”

George Hamilton
Assistant Chief Constable
"By its very nature, this investigation will require us to allocate varying levels of resources to it," he said.

"There is a huge amount of material to consider and, potentially, a large number of people to contact.

"This will mean that the investigation is likely to be a lengthy one. However, you have my absolute assurance that it will be a thorough one."

Strathclyde Police began looking into the issue after a dossier of information alleging hundreds of people had been targeted by News International was handed to them by Sheridan's lawyer Aamer Anwar.

Blagging or deception
The BBC has obtained a copy of that dossier, which details journalists' requests to private detective Steve Whittamore.

The so-called "Blue Book" features the names of many high-profile figures who later allegedly became victims of phone hacking.

It includes requests for a variety of legitimate, publicly-sourced information, but there are also requests for sensitive information like ex-directory numbers, criminal records, vehicle registration details and Friends and Family numbers, which could be illegal if they have been accessed by blagging or deception.

According to the dossier, the Scottish News of the World employed Whittamore dozens of times.

It contains a few Scots in the public eye, including former rugby star Kenny Logan and his wife, Gabby, a BBC Sport presenter. Jethro Tull frontman Ian Anderson and actress Natalie Robb are also on the list.

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