Vince Cable feels 'vindicated' over handling of News Corp bid for BSkyB

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2012/may/06/vince-cable-news-corp-bskyb

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The business secretary, Vince Cable, said on Sunday that he felt vindicated in relation to his handling of the News Corporation bid for BSkyB in the light of the controversy about the way the Department for Culture, Media and Sport dealt with the matter.

In comments that can be seen as implicitly critical of Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, Cable said that he believed ministers dealing with quasi-judicial decisions of this kind should have an arms-length relationship with the companies involved.

Cable was in charge of dealing with the News Corp bid for BSkyB until he was recorded in December 2010 telling undercover journalists posing as constituents that he had "declared war" on Rupert Murdoch. Responsibility for media competition matters was transferred to Hunt, but he has faced calls to resign ever since evidence published by the Leveson inquiry last month showed that his special adviser was giving News Corp inside information about Hunt's approach to the takeover.

In an interview with Sky's Dermot Murnaghan, Cable said that in the light of the different approach to the bid adopted by the culture department he felt that he had done the right thing: "I certainly do feel vindicated and I certainly dealt with it in an entirely proper and fair way."

Cable said any minister taking a decision in a quasi-judicial capacity had to be "independent and objective", and that he "certainly was." As for what the government as a whole did, that was a matter for the Leveson inquiry.

Asked if he was suggesting that Hunt was not independent and objective, Cable replied: "I'm not making any comment whatever on what Jeremy did or didn't do. Various accusations have been made, he has every right to answer them."

Cable and Hunt will be among the seven cabinet ministers giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry in person within the next few weeks. The hearings threaten potential embarrassment, although ministers are more worried about what will emerge later this week when Andy Coulson, the News of the World editor who went on to serve as David Cameron's communications director at No 10 before resigning in January 2011, and Rebekah Brooks, the former News International chief executive, give evidence.

Ministers are particularly alarmed at the suggestion that Brooks will disclose the text messages that she received from Cameron before her resignation last summer. According to the Daily Telegraph columnist Peter Oborne, she sometimes received more than a dozen texts a day from the prime minister.

George Osborne, the chancellor, told the Andrew Marr programme on Sunday that Labour had had a "deep relationship" with the Murdochs and that the government deserved credit for setting up the Leveson inquiry. Ministers could easily have resisted demands for an inquiry last summer "but actually we wanted to take on this issue of the relationship between the media and politicians," he said.

Osborne, who will be giving written but not oral evidence to the Leveson inquiry, also confirmed that he personally invited Coulson to work for Cameron after Coulson left the News of the World. "We needed a director of communications and [Coulson] was the best person for the job of the shortlist of candidates we had," he said.

But, knowing what they know now, the Tories would not have appointed Coulson, Osborne added.