The claim
“The Government will be open about its links with the media. All meetings with newspaper and other media proprietors, editors and senior executives will be published quarterly regardless of the purpose of the meeting.”
David Cameron, 15 July 2010
The analysis
David Cameron’s new rules on transparency were rushed in on the same day Rebekah Brooks quit.
The PM slung out the details of his meetings with media moguls, leaving Ed Miliband racing to match his new spirit of openness. And today we are treated, for the first time in British history, to details of who all the cabinet ministers are busy meeting (see full list on Number 10’s website).
Cameron said (above) all the meetings will be listed “regardless of the purpose”.
What were they discussing? We can only imagine. But it helps to pit the number of meetings against some key events in the BSkyB bid – see our graphic below.
Cable shocker
Outside of this, Vince Cable by comparison, did not meet Rupert Murdoch once in the last year – or any of News Corporation’s or News International’s executives. The only person from NI he met was The Times editor James Harding, in December 2010.
In September, when Cable was asked to scrutinise the BSkyB bid, he notes just one media meeting: dinner with the Telegraph’s CEO and editors of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph. The very newspaper that buried him for “declaring war on Murdoch” in December.
Cable never met BSkyB either, but Jeremy Hunt met BSkyB’s Jeremy Darroch twice: once in July 2010 and once in November 2010.
And then there’s Michael Gove – who notched up 14 meetings with NI over the year. The Education Minister has met Rebekah Brooks eight times in the last year – more than the Prime Minister, the Chancellor or the Culture Secretary (each of whom respectively met her five times, four times and once by comparison).
Gove, who wrote a weekly column for NI from 2005 to 2009 and whose wife has worked for The Times since 1998, had dinner with Rupert Murdoch and “others from NI” as recently as June 26.
A spokesman for Mr Gove said: “He’s known Rupert Murdoch for over a decade. He did not discuss the BSkyB deal with the Murdochs and isn’t at all embarrassed about his meetings, most of which have been about education which is his job.”
It might be worth us pointing out that Rupert Murdoch’s planned foray into the education technology market is no secret – the FT reported him heralding education as the “last holdout from the digital revolution” in May.
Courting News International
Our cabinet ministers have cosied up to News International more than any other news group.
Why favour News International? Apart from risking the wrath of News of the World reporters, circulation figures can’t be argued with.
Newspaper circulation figures for June show that, with the firepower of News of the World’s 2.6m readers, NI titles were read by 11 per cent of the UK population.
NI dominated the market with almost 7m readers – more than double the readership of any other media group.
The Mail’s titles (which include the Metro) hooked 3.4m people or 5.5 per cent of the population, Trinity Mirror’s national papers clocked up a shade more than 3m readers or 5 per cent of the population, while the circulation of the Evening Standard Group (which also owns the Indy and the Sindy), rested at 1.2m, or almost 2 per cent of the population.
The Telegraph’s titles were a fraction behind, also circulated to almost 2 per cent of the population. The Guardian’s two titles trailed behind covering just off 1 per cent.
The verdict
The writing’s on the wall, as Cameron promised. FactCheck counted a total of 60 meetings between NI and Cameron, Osborne, Gove and Hunt. We also counted the number of meetings held between Vince Cable and NI: zero.
Number 10’s list covers all News Corp/News International meetings regardless of type. Yet, as FactCheck has previously pointed out, there’s nothing to stop off the record chats – all they need to do is pick up the phone.
Either way – our cabinet ministers’ ears were bent at least 60 times by News International in the last year.
By Emma Thelwell
