Unfit Persons

I know what you've all been thinking: that Sleaze Diary has been a bit light in terms of full-blown political rants of late.  Well, don't worry, I'm still simmering away, building up to another eruption.  In the meantime, I was both cheered and dismayed by today's Commons Select Committee report which condemned Rupert Murdoch as being unfit to run a major firm.  Cheered, because this verdict is long overdue - it's high time that the UK's political classes found some backbone and started standing up to the likes of Murdoch.  Dismayed, because of the pathetic attempts of the Tory members of the Committee to undermine the report, by claiming the final verdict is politically motivated and refusing to endorse it.  This in the same week that Cameron had to be forced to attend the Commons to explain his refusal to to launch an immediate inquiry into any breaches of the ministerial code by Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt during Murdoch's SKY TV takeover bid.  He was very angry about that.  God forbid that members of the government should be held to account by our country's supreme sovereign body.

But getting back to the Select Committee report, all the usual suspects are there, trying to undermine it - most notably the awful Louise Mensch, perhaps the most intellectually challenged person I've ever seen serve as an MP, (and that's saying something), basking in the publicity it brings her.  It really is so depressing, after everything that has come out about the conduct of News International during the course of the phone hacking inquiry and the Levenson inquiry, that there are still so many apologists for Murdoch out there.  Not just on the government benches in the Commons, either.  I made the mistake of reading some of the comments on this story as reported on the BBC News website. Bad mistake.  Lots of ranting loons denouncing a communist plot against Murdoch.  Still, I suppose all those former News of The World hacks have to do something to fill up their days now they're on the dole. But really, what is it that Murdoch and his minions have to do before these morons stop worshipping at his feet and, even worse, buying The Sun?  Clearly, attempting to subvert the government, corrupting the police and invading people's privacy isn't enough for them.  Perhaps if he had dropped his trousers and taken a huge dump on the desk during his testimony to the Leveson inquiry these clowns might have stopped defending him.  But somehow I doubt it - they'd probably have filled Twitter with comments about how his shit didn't stink.