Murdoch discuss BSkyB bid with PM

James Murdoch discussed with David Cameron the government’s attitude to News Corp’s proposed £8.3bn bid to take full control of British Sky Broadcasting at a critical moment, he told the Leveson inquiry. The prime minister has previously said he did not discuss the bid with the former chairman of BSKyB when the two met at a dinner party at the home of Rebekah Brooks, the former chief executive of News International, on December 23, 2010.

Two days earlier, Cameron had stripped Vince Cable of regulatory oversight of the proposed bid, which had attracted huge controversy, after the business secretary told two undercover reporters he had “declared war on Mr [Rupert] Murdoch.” James Murdoch told Cameron in a “tiny, side conversation” before they sat down to a dinner with about a dozen others that he hoped the handling of the bid would now be appropriate and legal and fair. Earlier in his evidence, the deputy chief operating officer of News Corp said Cable’s remarks showed “acute bias.” His words are likely to provoke calls for an inquiry of the prime minister’s insistence he had not discussed the proposed bid. Cameron has been accused of being too close to the Murdochs in the past.