Still in Murdoch's pocket?

It is pure bad luck that the phone hacking scandal by the News of the World, especially that of the murdered teenager Milly Dowler, surfaced after David Cameron became Prime Minister. As he said in the House of Commons couple of days back Tony Blair met Rupert Murdoch some 7 times and Gordon Brown 13 times whereas he, Cameron met him only 4 times. Now Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt has been accused of misleading parliament over his handling of the BSkyB takeover bid by News Corp. Email records show that Hunt's Special Adviser, Adam Smith communicated extensively with News Corp before its takeover bid for BSkyB. Smith resigned Wednesday, last week but Jeremy Hunt has refused to resign saying that he has given written evidence to the Leveson enquiry and is looking forward to giving oral evidence. In an interview with the BBC, Cameron defended Hunt saying that he has done an " excellent job " and denied any understanding with Rupert Murdoch saying," The idea that there was some grand bargain between me and Rupert Murdoch - that is not true." That being so, why did the Tories trash the report by the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee into Rupert Murdoch's involvement in the phone hacking scandal? The Committee concluded that senior executives at News Corp knowingly covered up the full extent of the phone hacking scandal by " buying the silence of victims ". Rupert Murdoch " exhibited wilful blindness to what was going on in his companies and publications " and that he is " not a fit person " to run an international company. However Tory members of the Committee did not agree. Tory MP, Louise Mensch completely devalued the report by saying that the " partisan report has lost a very great deal of its credibility as Labour voted along party lines against Murdoch " forgetting to mention that 4 of the 5 Tory members of the committee voted against publishing the report at all. Right on cue, News Corporation condemned the report as " unjustified and highly partisan ". So why are the Tories still sucking up to Murdoch? Do they still have lots of skeletons rattling around inside the cupboard? The largest selling tabloid in Britain, The Sun is owned by Rupert Murdoch and has been highly critical of David Cameron in recent weeks. It is as if Murdoch expected Cameron to protect him from any criticism and is taking revenge for being the subject of so many investigations. So, is Murdoch just a bitter old man or has Cameron gone back on some promise he made for Murdoch's support before elections? Nothing written down, merely nudge-nudge, wink-wink type. Trouble is that the US Justice department is also taking an interest in the scandal and further embarrassing details may yet emerge. On the one hand politicians cultivate unsavoury characters who own newspapers or TV stations on the other hand they try to muzzle the internet where the people voice their opinions. A dirty business.