Keeping Out of the Way

The Cultchah Secretary, Jeremy C Hunt, has emerged from whatever rock he's been hiding under since the phone-hacking scandal broke in order to share his thoughts with the Royal Television Society convention in Cambridge. He had a bit of a snivel about the invidious unfairness of his position over Murdoch's bid for BSkyB: "however fairly I ran the process, people were always going to question my motives", despite Murdoch and his hoods repeatedly informing Hunt over dinner about the need for impartiality. Hunt wishes to spare future ministers this sort of agony in the usual Conservative fashion, by removing the Government from the process altogether. Since the Government has already proclaimed its complete lack of interest in public health, public transport, or any sort of infrastructure that market forces can't knock up on their ownsome, it is no more than consistent for the Cultchah Secretary to wish to abdicate any responsibility for the infotainosphere; and of course his opposite irrational number, the New New Labour clown Ivan Lewis, entirely agrees with the principle. No doubt sufficient freedom of speech will be retained to keep crusaders for truth such as Paul Dacre and Richard Desmond in business; while sufficient regulation will be imposed to ensure that the humble and repentant Murdoch is protected from harassment by the BBC.