Murdoch committee 'unfit' for purpose?

Whilst politicians wrangle about how to reform the House of Lords, nothing exposes the urgency of reforms to the House of Commons more than the Murdoch report by the Commons Select Committee on Culture Media and Sport. 

One of the most hard hitting reports of recent times, resulting from one of the intensive investigations will result in almost no Parliamentary action. Not because, on essential elements, there was a split on the Committee, but because even where there was no dissent – in finding that the Committee had in effect been lied to – there is no current consequence of worth.

MPs can open the window on wrongdoing, but they can do all but nothing when they find it. Exposing it has little direct effect. Indeed the share price of the Murdoch entity – News Corp’s share price reflected this, closing up 0.9 per cent at $19.79 in the immediate aftermath of the Committee’s report. Publish and be exonerated seems to be the mantra that flows from what happened in the Commons yesterday.

So far, Commons reforms have centered on reducing the absurdly large number of MPs from 650 to 600 at the next election. Many regard even the latter number as too large. Power is centered in the executive. Most individuals winning election to Parliament aspire to Ministerial careers. Consequently “holding the executive to account” is seen by many as a “second class” activity. 

In the US where the Executive is separated from the Legislature, holding the Executive to account is perceived to be the highest form of politics. Indeed the fear is that MPs hold back in investigating the Executive precisely because they are themselves jockeying to join it.

Powerless MPs probing vast multi-national businesses with a direct access to newspapers have remained eternally vulnerable to lies and worse. It emerged that the very Select Committee that investigated the Murdoch Empire had itself been subjected to attempts to smear the private lives of the MPs carrying out the investigation.

Hence the call by a number of MPs for such investigative bodies to be armed with the power of subpoena and the giving of evidence on oath.

Even now, the legal experts that flank the Speaker in the Commons are trawling the statutes for punishments that are fit for the misdemeanor of “misleading the House”. Will they find a cell in the Tower of London? As of last night the speculation centered on an arcane provision that allows for the detention of offenders “within Parliament”.

The Murdoch Empire operatives have done parliament a favor. They have exposed the antiquity and weakness of our own political system, and its inability to bring miscreants to book. To resort to the word MPs themselves coined of Rupert Murdoch – it is “unfit” for purpose. But don’t hold your breath against anything being done about it.

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