MEDIA mogul Rupert Murdoch met with the Prime Minister six times in a 12 month period before he stepped down as the chair of the News Corp in September last year, according to government records.
Between September 2022 to September 2023, the former head of News Corp – which owns The Times and The Sun – met Government representatives 12 times, according to the campaign group Hacked Off.
These include a dinner in December 2022 and a meeting with Robert Thomson, the CEO of News Corp, Rebekah Brooks, the CEO of News UK, The Times editor Tony Gallagher, former Sunday Times editor Emma Tucker and Sun editor Victoria Newton to “discuss the PM’s priorities,” The Guardian reports.
The two men met again in May 2023 for a “politician discussion” and in June for The Times CEO summit and subsequent party.
In September last year the pair had a “social meeting”. There are no publicly available minutes of the meetings.
READ MORE: Rupert Murdoch to retire as News Corp and Fox chairman
Hacked Off, a group founded in the wake of the phone hacking scandal which campaigns for a “free and accountable press,” said the Government meets more frequently with newspapers than broadcasters, with meetings with the press accounting of 62% of all meetings in the period analysed.
There were 534 meetings in total between the press and Government ministers and advisers between October 2022 and September 2023, the group said, 218 of which were between representatives of Murdoch’s media empire and the Government.
The group said that Murdoch representatives met with the Government an average of 4.6 times a week while parliament was sitting in the period.
Acting star Hugh Grant, a campaigner with Hacked Off, told The Guardian: “Britain deserves politicians who will govern with integrity and in the interests of the British people, not take their lines from Murdoch and other unelected newspaper owners in secretive meetings.
“This government’s subservience to the press is pathetic and a betrayal of the public. We need to clean up our politics, starting with the undignified and undemocratic mutual back-scratching between politicians and the press which has gone on for the last nine years.”
Hacked Off’s analysis of the most recent data on ministerial meetings reveals that 72% of all meetings were with the right-of-centre press (which they define as the Daily Mail, The Sun, The Times, News UK, the Daily Express and The Telegraph) while 5% were with the left-of-centre press (defined as The Guardian and The Mirror).
Press meetings with Murdoch-owned publications accounted for 40% of the total, while the Telegraph accounted for 19%. Meetings between the Government and The Guardian accounted for just 3% of the total.
Nathan Sparkes, the chief executive of Hacked Off, said: “This is a government which has no regard for the interests of the public and is desperate to hang on to power at all costs.”
A UK Government spokesperson said all ministerial meetings were declared under the usual transparency processes.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel