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British Labour Party's Leader Demands Inquiry Into Murdoch Phone Hacking

I caught a bit of the British House of Commons during their Prime Minister's questions this week, and needless to say, after what went on with Rupert Murdoch and his organization's phone hacking this week, the debate was a bit more interesting than

his organization's phone hacking this week, the debate was a bit more interesting than usual for someone from the United States like myself.

Here's more from The Telegraph with updates on the scandal -- Ed Miliband has declared war on Rupert Murdoch – this could get interesting :

Today’s PM’s Questions will, unusually, have great lasting significance. It marked the moment the Labour Party finally declared war on the Murdoch media empire. Sensing – rightly – that public revulsion over the News of the World hacking revelations will put the voters on his side, Ed Miliband went for broke.

Not only does he want a full public inquiry into the affair, he also demanded the resignation of Rebekah Brooks, Murdoch’s UK chief executive, and had David Cameron squirming over his decision to employ another ex-News of the World editor, Andy Coulson, as his head of communications. In other words, this is war – total war.

A Labour leader has not laid into News International in this way since the mid-1990s. Miliband’s onslaught will delight Labour supporters. The party has never felt comfortable about cosying up to Murdoch; many of them have been sickened by it. It was, of course, the work of Tony Blair and his spin doctor Alastair Campbell, who reckoned Labour would never win power unless it had The Sun on its side. Many regarded that as a pretty facile analysis but Campbell somehow persuaded Blair of its merits.

I couldn't be happier if this finally brings down Murdoch, but I'm not holding my breath. The lack of coverage on this story here speaks volumes for the hold he still has over all of our corporate media in the U.S. who tend to circle the wagons when one of their own is under attack. I've seen nothing on this story other than some scant coverage on MSNBC. Maybe I missed some of it or maybe that will change sometime soon and there will be more reporting on this, but Uncle Rupert definitely is not topping the headlines here just yet with any reporting I managed to catch.

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