Labour seeks stop-gap media controls

The UK's Labour Party is seeking to embarrass the government by pushing for stop-gap rules to tighten controls on media ownership in the wake of Rupert Murdoch’s aborted attempt to take full control of British Sky Broadcasting.

Ivan Lewis, the shadow media secretary, has written to Jeremy Hunt, the culture secretary, demanding that the “loopholes” and “ambiguities” that were “so evident” during the BSkyB process be cleaned up immediately. Labour’s amendments to the Enterprise Act propose that a “wide-ranging” test to assess whether a change in ownership is in the public interest should be applied in takeovers. It also wants to give the culture secretary power to apply a “fit and proper person” test to a would-be acquirer, and have the power to intervene in any stage in the bidding process if new information came to light.