Judge’s Murdoch ties under glare

London, July 23: The resignation not announced today was that of Lord Justice Leveson, the judge appointed by David Cameron to conduct a fair and fearless inquiry into phone hacking and make recommendations on whether media barons like Rupert Murdoch should have their wings clipped.

Now it turns out Leveson attended two parties at the London home of Rupert Murdoch’s second daughter, Elisabeth, who is married to Matthew Freud, an influential PR man who offered his services free of charge to the judge with whom he had previously had a separate dinner in Oxford.

No is suggesting an English judge can be bought off with a couple of canapés or even dinner with a nice bottle or two of Beaujolais but this revelation by two newspapers – the London Evening Standard yesterday and The Daily Telegraph today – does undermine Leveson’s credibility.

All this recalls the old adage from the late Nigel Dempster, Sir David English’s “guru of gossip” on the Daily Mail, that “there are only 100 people in any country”.

What Dempster meant was that for the purposes of his (then very widely read) gossip column, there were basically 100 people of influence in any country. What he implied was they knew each other, socialised with each and quite a few of them slept with each other.

Will Leveson now have to resign?

Not necessarily but if enough papers take up the issue, he may have to “consider his position”.

According to the Standard yesterday, “Lord Justice Leveson has attended two evening events at the London home of PR boss Matthew Freud – who is married to Rupert Murdoch's daughter Elisabeth – as well as having another dinner with him. The revelations raised questions over why the judge had been chosen to carry out the landmark inquiry into the media, police and politicians. But questions were also being asked about the decision to appoint Lord Justice Leveson to lead the hacking inquiry after The Standard revealed that he has had dealings with Rupert Murdoch's son-in-law, Matthew Freud.”

A spokesman for the judge said he met the boss of Freud Communications “by chance” at a dinner in February last year, the Standard reported. “Mr Freud then offered to help the Sentencing Council (a body headed by Leveson) on how to promote public confidence in the criminal justice system.”

The spokesman told the paper: “To that end, in his capacity as Chairman of the Sentencing Council, and with the knowledge of the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Justice Leveson attended two large evening events at Freud’s London home: these were on 29 July 2010 and 25 January 2011.”

Prior to his appointment to the inquiry, Leveson told the government about the links. And Downing Street said Leveson had been appointed on the recommendation of the Lord Chief Justice “in line with the procedure of the Inquiries Act 2005.” He was the only proposed candidate.

“He has been entirely open about attending these events,” a spokesman for Cameron informed the Standard.

Freud Communications, which Matthew Freud heads, declined to comment saying they were “private events”.

When Matthew and Elisabeth married in 2001 – both had been married before – in front of 60 close friends at Blenheim Palace, Oxfordshire, the bride was given away by her father, Rupert Murdoch.

“The newlyweds posed for photographs before returning to a reception for close friends and family, including actor Ross Kemp and his girlfriend, News of the World editor Rebekah Wade,” a report at the time said.

Ross Kemp, an actor from the soap EastEnders, married Rebekah, but when the couple divorced she remarried and became Rebekah Brooks, the chairman of News International, the position she has had to quit because of hacking which went on while she was editor of the News of the World and about which she claims she knew nothing.

As for Matthew, grandson of psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and son of the late Clement Freud, Liberal Democrat MP and raconteur, he owns Freud Communications, one of the UK’s largest and most powerful PR companies. He wouldn’t be doing his job if he did not try to invite rich and powerful people to his home. Elisabeth has her own TV production company, Shine Entertainment.

The gathering controversy over Leveson’s appointment was given an additional twist this morning when The Daily Telegraph, a Tory paper that is proving to be extremely unhelpful to a Tory prime minister, followed up the Standard story.

“MPs said last night Lord (Justice) Leveson’s social connections to News Corp raised questions about his impartiality and suitability to lead the inquiry,” said the Telegraph.

It turns out “Leveson met Freud at a dinner in February last year in an Oxford University college. The pair discussed how to promote public confidence in the criminal justice system. Mr Freud then offered to provide some staff from his company Freud Communications to work for nothing advising the council on how to raise confidence in sentencing. This resulted in Lord Leveson attending two parties at Mr Freud’s London home, in July last year and last January.”

Now that James Murdoch is no longer seen as the automatic choice to succeed his 80 year-old father, “Elisabeth Murdoch, the daughter of Rupert Murdoch (is) widely tipped to be her father’s successor”.

Leveson, “the 62-year-old judge became head of the Sentencing Council last year after serving as Lord Justice of Appeal since October 2006. He was educated at Liverpool College and Merton College, Oxford.”

Just to make life even more difficult for Cameron, the Telegraph spoke to the very anti-Murdoch Labour MP, Chris Bryant, who has provided a quote thickly layered with potassium cyanide.

Bryant said the news “makes it very difficult to see how Lord Justice Leveson can be seen to be independent because in practice he will have to bend over backwards to have a go at Murdoch or be accused of giving him an easy time. If this had been known from the start it might be fine – as with every step, transparency has come by dragging it out of them.”

Bloggers do not always reflect public opinion but this one to a newspaper today reflects growing public exasperation with the whole establishment: “Let's admit it.

The UK is too corrupted to investigate the politicians, police and media. Why don’t we get a Judge and an investigative force from some other country? The Puppet Cameron has appointed a puppet judge to investigate bent politicians and bent policemen.”

But the blogger does raise an important question of how friends are made and influence exercised in any modern society. Another blogger said: “The whole affair has highlighted the 'cocktail circuit' echelons of Governments. Whilst middle Englanders, like ourselves, believe we can move opinion by organising petitions, contacting MPs, even writing comments here the ‘circuit’' appears to be where the real movers and shakers do their business. It is not a log of who and where these ‘assignations’ take place, but what influence emanates from them. No one suggests that those in power should not move around in such circles, but it is obvious that they have become too incestuous.”