Well, that livened things up a bit. Just when the session was dragging badly – with the thrill of seeing “Mr Murdoch senior”, as he was repeatedly called, starting to fade as each successive MP (were we to get all 650 of them in turn?) became increasingly dronesome – up popped some bloke with a foam pie on a paper plate.
Wendi Deng – with whom one wouldn’t mess – saw him off with a couple of hard-edged slaps, but it was a mighty embarrassment for House of Commons security. OK, so the attack took the form of foam-on-a-plate courtesy of a scruff in a checked shirt, but what if it had been someone from the Taliban, the Continuity IRA or the Guardian?
After Deng – in lieu of Lucy Liu in Kill Bill mode – had done the necessary, across ran a comedy cop in one of those English pointy hats, from somewhere in the room that appeared to be diametrically opposite from the foam-thrower.
An embarrassment for the Met, too: the day after they lose their two top cops it’s all left to a single pointy-head. Interestingly different approach from that used on Jean Charles de Menezes, and one that raises questions for the security methods for next year’s Olympics.
As to the session before that – all two-hours-plus of it, and starting with some other protesters wheeching out anti-Murdoch posters and being chucked out without recourse to any Deng-fu – the early questions were much sharper and the proceedings much more engrossing.
Tom Watson – fresh from another good performance at the Open golf – was clearly the chief inquisitor, repeatedly refusing to let Jimbo answer for his father and being the most forensic of the questioners. Jim Sheridan was also short and to the point – and managed to make mention of his namesake, the member for Bar-L.
After that, it drifted downhill, with the questions turning into speeches: Beckett (Samuel, not Margaret) morphing into Proust. A baldy bloke in a beige jacket was the worst, rambling on and on and even – after 15 minutes or more of an attempt at limelight-stealing – coming out with the old “I just have a few more questions” line. Boo, yawn. The chairmanship became barely visible as the session lost its focus – Keith Vaz, over at the Stephenson-and-Yates plod-grilling committee, steers a much trimmer ship.
James Murdoch’s corporate gobbledyspeak increased, and it was a relief to hear his pa’s occasional long-pause-then-terse-one-liner interjections. Octogenarian or no, there is no doubt where the real power lies.
Just when this viewer was thinking that James was due a good slap (not that I have any knowledge of the chronology or quantum of any pending slap, and I wish to emphasise my profound sorrow for any slap received or intended), up popped his step-mother-in-law to show how it should be done.
Fair play to the Murdochs for quickly getting back on their saddles and resuming the session – hard to know if it will alter the overall assessment of the hearing, but they could easily have made their excuses, thrown up their hands in horror (rather than in martial arts mode) and scuttled away limowards by – to revisit a wry-smile phrase from the early-session questioning of Rupert – the back door.
So we’ve had Rag and Tag – time now to hear what Rebekah Bobtail has to say. Fingers crossed there are no more foam pies – it would make an awful mess in those flowing locks.
Donate to us: support independent, intelligent, in-depth Scottish journalism from just 3p a day
Related posts: