John Mann: “clear that David Cameron was directly involved” in BskyB bid

Labour MP John Mann has written the following letter to the cabinet secretary regarding Cameron’s possible involvement in the BskyB bid (a plain text version is below):

Sir Jeremy Heywood
Cabinet Secretary
70 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2AS
24 April 2012

Dear Sir Jeremy

I am writing to you regarding the response I received from your predecessor Sir Gus O’Donnell when I wrote to him regarding the Prime Ministers involvement in the BSKYB bid.

I received two answers from Sir Gus relating to this matter stating that the Prime Minister had met with James Murdoch on the 19th July and 12th September 2011 but had not discussed the BSKYB bid.

Following the evidence given today by James Murdoch to the Leveson Inquiry it is clear that not only was the BSKYB issue discussed but also the apparent reluctance of Vince Cable to meet with Mr Murdoch.

This second meeting took place two days after Mr Cable had the BSKYB bid removed from his responsibility.

It is now clear that David Cameron was directly involved in the discussions surrounding the BSKYB bid as Prime Minister, something Sir Gus denied.

This entire matter now needs to be reinvestigated at it flatly contradicts Sir Gus’s previous position which was that the Prime Minister had not discussed the BSKYB bid with either James or Rupert Murdoch.

I am calling on you to also conduct a full investigation in the light of Mr Murdoch’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry into the role played by James Murdoch in removing Vince Cable from overseeing the BSKYB bid.

I also believe that it is now clear that Jeremy Hunt’s role in this murky affair needs examining fully. In particular the role he played in passing information to James Murdoch and others at BSKYB regarding Cabinet and Government discussions on Vince Cable’s role and the Government’s view on how the bid should progress.

In addition to this I would like you to investigate whether there have been any email correspondence between the Special Government Advisor Rupert Harrison, and Graham McWilliam, Corporate Affairs Director at BSKYB. If there was email correspondence between these two individuals I believe two questions need answering. Firstly, was it conducted on Mr Harrison’s official government email address or through a private email account? Secondly, if there was correspondence between the two, what was the content of those emails.

Yours sincerely

JOHN MANN
Member of Parliament for Bassetlaw