Vince Vindicated

No one can have watched yesterday's TV pictures of David Cameron and Ed Miliband lambasting into Rupert Murdoch without a high degree of cynicism, since they and their parties have kowtowed to Murdoch in order to curry his favour over such a long period. Vince Cable,the one politician who is on record of having got it right from the beginning (and been downgraded for his pains) received no mention at all in the bulletins I watched. Alas in politics there are few rewards for being right, but if Vince is experiencing a smug glow of self-satisfaction at the moment it is well deserved, and I hope the public will eventually come to appreciate this.

It could be argued that had the Murdoch media ever taken much notice of us we would have kowtowed too, but James Pericval's post on LibDem Voice details a long period of Liberal Democrat attempts to curb his undue influence, so the party too can pat itself on the back.

I suspect that this whole episode has been of more interest to the chattering classes than the general public, who seemed quite happy about phone hacking and dubious practices as long as they were restricted to celebraties and politicians, and only became roused when "ordinary" parents of murdered children and soldiers killed in action became targets. The danger now is that the circus will "move on" and the current indignation will fade without effective action being taken.

We now need laws which firmly restrict the ownership of any British media to a minority percentage, say 20%, and that ownership should be restricted to those who pay taxes in Britain.