Slowly but surely, inch by inch, Murdoch is being forced back. His withdrawal of his promise to hive off Sky News, which he had previously used as a device to avoid referral to the Competition Commission, was motivated solely by the pressing need to allow time for the present crescendo of anger over phone-hacking to die down, and his fear that if the Government were forced to take a decision now, he would be forced to withdraw his bid for BSkyB as Ed Miliband has already demanded or be humiliated by the Government finding some way to pull the plug on him. He’s banking on the atmosphere looking very different in 6 months’ time when the Competition Commission reports. But will it, when only some 40 of the 4,000 hacking victims on Mulcaire’s 11,000 pages of notes have so far been revealed and when the recent consultation produced an unprecedented 150,000 responses, almost all hostile? Continue reading →